Rye Parties Hardy

We're celebrating Rye's first birthday! We gathered a few friends and some family for a relaxing afternoon in the back yard with some good grub and ice cream cake to celebrate Daddy's birthday as well! Rye's music teacher Sarah, of World Citizen Baby, led the dance party. Click on the link below for more photos!

It's good to be the king!

Rye is one year old!

I'm not sure what it is with the Waldorf people and the wool crowns (not to mention the red toadstools and the gnomes, but that's a topic for another day), but they may be on to something. So Mommy made Rye his own birthday crown suitable for celebrations, slaying dragons, impressing young princes and princesses, and...eating you up.

Let the wild rumpus begin!

The pattern and instructions came from a blog called Juicy Bits. I echo the recommendation to use felt with as high a wool content as you can find/afford...it's really much easier to work with, particularly when embroidering edges. If you have a fancy sewing machine like the blogger, this can come together in an afternoon, easy. My sturdy machine is ancient, so I did the pretty stuff by hand— which is much more dimensional, but took a lot more time. Daddy got one, too, since their birthdays are close together.

Exploration and Testing: The Toilet Roll

Great Grampa Bart visits *

Rye enjoyed seeing his great grampa again, Grampa Bart, and meeting Sylvia. He also got to meet some second cousins and second cousins once removed. I think. It's all family, so I guess the terminology doesn't really matter. (For the record, that's a blanket on Gramps' lap, not a bold fashion statement).


* Updated with a few more photos

Playdate with Jack!

Rye's friend Jack came for a visit while his mommy went to a meeting about preschool and daycare before she goes back to work. The boys had a ball together playing blocks and legos, listening to music, and playing with the therapy ball.

Rye hones in on Jack's carrots.

The kids watch the gardener run the leaf blower in the yard below.

First day at the beach!

Rye enjoyed his first day in the sand with our friends Julie, Liam and Oceane, and getting his toes wet in the (cold!) water. He learned to shovel the sand a bit, and he licked plenty of it. He was excited about seeing seagulls (one of which offed with a neighbor's full submarine sandwich), surfers, the white waves and the wet rocks. We saw starfish, anenomes, sand crabs and hermit crabs, as well as some mollusks and bubbly seaweed. Liam and Oceane competed to entertain him on the long drive to Malibu, but he slept heavily on the way home, and totally missed our ice cream stop.

Movin' on up

Daddy made a schwank new toddler-height handrail for the back stairs so Rye can hold on while he's navigating up and down. Of course all he wants to do now is crawl and climb and he considers the handrail optional. Somehow I doubt this will change over time!

Happiness is....

Rye helped his cousin celebrate her 7th birthday today, and discovered that they have a big vat of Legos. He immediately crawled in and would not get out until physically removed. It was kind of like this:
But it actually looked like:

Monday pool time

Today we visited with Jack and played in his awesome pool!

The trip home

Rye explores the chips container a fellow passenger gave him.

So then, there was the trip home from Texas.

As we turned in the rental car at DFW (and I had to argue with the guy about the price, which was not as advertised)....we realized that we have arrived at the airport more than an hour early for our 8:45p flight...except...the flight LANDS in Burbank at 8:45, and actually leaves Texas at 7:30pm.

Which is in 15 minutes. Give or take.

After a consultation with a ticket agent, it is confirmed that there are no more flights to BUR that night.

She offered us standby on a flight leaving in 45 minutes to LAX instead. We humbly said, Thank you very much...knowing that the chances were pretty bleak, since the flight was full and our standby numbers were 4 and 5. It was pretty embarrassing, as we're both seasoned travelers and, basically, we know better. But we haven't flown in a while, the paperwork all looks a little different, and we blew it.

and...then....

We not only got on the flight, we were given TWO SEATS TOGETHER. Next to some really nice, and patient people, who enjoyed Rye's company.

Rye did great on the flight, picking up a new trick of mirroring the hand motions of a lady across the aisle playing with him, and starting his own hide-and-seek peek-a-boo game with her. I got it on video!

Then he completely came unglued, melted down, and screamed mercilessly for the final 45 minutes of the flight. During which I repeatedly flashed our entire row and whoever walked by with my bare boob, trying to nurse him. Since there was turbulence and the seatbelt sign was on, and we couldn't walk him around, and his ears were killing him due to the descent.

This, of course, the flight that we did not begin by passing out earplugs to everyone around us, because things had gone so well on the front end—he had an absolute blast and didn't utter a peep.

At the end, Rye finally was calmed by (and I swear I am not making this up) a magician performer sitting in our row, who was MAKING BALLOON SCULPTURES for him and for another kid traveling alone. And doing magic tricks.

• Cab ride home: $70.
• Opportunity to miss driving all over hell and half of Los Angeles in the Super Shuttle for two hours, after waiting 45 mins in line, to save $25: Priceless.

Rye was ecstatic to sleep in his own bed. We are thrilled that our egregious oversight was amply rewarded and we will be rebuilding karma points soonest as our stash MUST BE LOW BY NOW.

First airplane trip to meet Aunt Helen

Rye enjoyed his first air trip to Texas, to celebrate Aunt Helen's 96th (!) birthday. He LOVED watching the activity at the airport: the planes flying, the trucks driving, the trams scooting. We never have seen him so excited. He was quiet and interested the entire trip out, playing with some familiar toys, and some new activities that Mommy stitched for him. He slept a little. He loved the bus ride to the car rental place, too.

Schlepping all of the gear was about at Mommy and Daddy's travel limit...American Airlines wanted to charge $25 per checked bag (stroller and car seat go free), so we carried everything on: Large suitcase for Mommy and Rye, small suitcase for Daddy, carry-on for Mommy, diaper bag for Rye, AND lunch for Mommy and Daddy...then we gate checked the car seat and stroller. Please insert standard rant here about What's So Wrong About Giving Travelers a Free Checked Bag?! or a SNACK! Seriously?! Our trip might have been a tiny bit more pleasant without as much to carry to the gate. Regardless, we had planned ahead and were quite organized with backpacks and clips, so we managed fine.

Aunt Helen was thrilled to meet her great-grand nephew, and Rye enjoyed meeting more cousins, and seeing Sitti and Grandpop again. It was a great birthday weekend. When you see a star in the post title, check back for more pictures from other cameras, which I'll post when they come in (click "Read More" below).

We of course didn't miss the cattle drive, and then we checked out the shootout at the Stockyards Station. It turns out they use real guns with blanks at the shootout, and the station is covered and seems to be entirely made of brick and cement, so Daddy and Rye checked out the stockyards while Mommy and the rest of the family watched the show (spoiler alert), in which the bad guys lose.

We looked at all of the fancy boots and hats at Leddy's and enjoyed burgers at Booger Red's Saloon (great food, with fresh guac made at the table, and good service: we recommend).

The heat was oppressive, from about 96˚-104˚ the whole trip. We didn't spend much time outside.