Turning 1, a la Suisse et Afrique (or "Christmas in August")

Our darling daughter turned one year old yesterday. While a few people who came to a party we had in the afternoon for her congratulated us on our achievement as parents, supposedly for having raised a healthy child thus far, I actually thought very little about what I or we had done throughout the day, and my heart swelled with pride more for Lexi. Indeed, it’s true that Sarah and I as parents have done most of the work and that Lexi as a newborn hadn’t consciously decided to grow from a newborn into a 1-year-old in the amazing ways she has. But I spent much of the day proud of her for even the natural ways that she as a newborn has been gaining control of her faculties and discovering the world around her, and how a human being can be created seemingly out of nothing and how they grow into people like we are today. This first year of life seems to be a frantic but fun race by a newborn to become a person – learning to eat in various ways, learning who her parents are, learning to express herself – and the first-year milestone was a moment to pause and think of how she has embraced this process with such gusto, much of it because of her personality, which we celebrated yesterday too.

OK, enough of being philosophical – here are the practical details of all the fun we had: Sarah and I held an open-house birthday party in the afternoon. Because Lexi was born in Switzerland, we decided to have a Swiss-themed party to remember her birthplace (also because it was the Swiss national day on August 1). We ordered a cake that was red with a white cross, like the Swiss flag, and that had “Bon anniversaire” on it (“happy birthday” in French, the language of the part of Switzerland we lived in). And we served some Swiss-like foods. Many were actually French, because, when it comes right down to it, there are actually very few authentically Swiss things, from their foods to their language. These included chocolates, French bread with brie cheese, and we needed some savory snacks as well, so we just ordered some finger food from the Indian restaurant at the food court where we usually do our grocery shopping – we like Indian food anyway!

In attendance were mostly Sarah’s coworkers or their families – just a small group. The two families where her recently acquired playmates are from are out of the country on their summer/school holiday to visit their families back at “home” (that’s what Lexi gets for being born in the summer, Sarah says). The house help, also named Sarah, of one of these families – the Coopers at #7 in our compound – was able to come to represent that household.

Although we told people not to bring gifts, most brought a small one or a card anyway. Sarah’s boss and his wife came and brought Lexi a gift of a toy xylophone, a very appropriate gift for a child with musical parents. With that, I figure we can start Lexi with organ lessons on Monday! To me, however, the best gift was from Sarah, the house help from #7. As a domestic servant, she makes very little money and probably has few possessions of her own in her small, simple servant quarters where she lives behind the main house. She came with a small, tubular object wrapped in the obituary page of the newspaper. When Lexi opened it up (with a bit of help from Sarah, although Lexi enjoys taking things out of bags and things like that), it was a large banana. What a perfect gift from the giver and for the receiver! It was the quintessential African gift. Church goers in Africa often give things they’ve grown, like a bushel of corn, or things like a goat or a cow from their flock, as their offering. So Sarah had given what she had – something from her basic possessions and her food supply. And for Lexi, bananas are her favorite food. Of course, when she saw this, she immediately wanted to start eating it, so Sarah (Mommy) allowed her to peel it and gave her a few bites. Lexi could have stopped there with the gifts and been happy. What better thing to do at one’s birthday party than to eat one’s favorite food?

After the gifts, we gathered around the table again to sing “Happy Birthday” to Lexi and cut the cake. We let Lexi eat a piece herself. She loved it. As you can see from the picture, the frosting on the cake was red – very red – and Lexi made a huge mess of herself on her face and hands. Sarah (house help from #7) actually took charge (our own house help, Jane, could not come to the party because she needed to visit her land up country) after a few minutes of Sarah and me trying to clean her up. She took her and sat her on the edge of the kitchen sink and washed her off.

Lexi had not taken her two naps during the day, partly because of the excitement of the day, but mostly because we have a much harder time getting her to fall asleep than Jane does. We managed to speak to both sets of grandparents on the webcam, who wished her a happy day, and by 7:00, she was getting very crabby. So she went to bed an hour early. Sarah and I ate some of the leftovers (we bought way to much food for the party) and then fell down in front of the TV to watch a movie. We ourselves did not make it to even 9:00 – it was a full day for us too. So we went to bed early too.

Well, if Lexi is too young to know how to grow or care for herself as a young baby, then she’s too little to really know what her first birthday party was for. So actually it was for her parents, and I admit it. I admit that I had fun planning and preparing her Swiss-themed party, and it was a milestone that we had to mark for our own sakes, especially without any of our family here to help us celebrate these things with us. But the focus was on Lexi, and I hope from the attention she got that she could see she is loved and cared for and has been since the day she arrived in our lives a year ago.

When I was probably 5 or 6, I had a birthday party that my close cousin Caroline, who is a year or two younger than I am, attended. As she left, she declared, “That was the best Christmas ever.” She was too young to distinguish between a birthday party and Christmas, which are both occasions where people open gifts. She had thought my party was Christmas (even in February, so soon after the real day). So this is now a cliché of mine, which I say after almost every social gathering. But this time, for Lexi, it was true: It was the best “Christmas” ever!