Baby turns one-year-old on Sunday and we are all once again aghast and amazed. The birthday party is sporting a “Teddy Bears' Picnic” theme; five children, ranging in age from eight months to three years with a mean of 11.2 months, have been invited. I have purchased a chocolate cake mix in case my first cake doesn't gel. And I certainly haven't ripped a bunch of “Bear” mp3s from the internet, not including Mitch Hedberg's “Koala Bear” bit, nor the winning version of “Teddy Bears' Picnic” by a band called The Goons. I need not to find more of their music through LimeWire. It's no wonder my husband has brought up my “mp3 ripping is stealing” speech during Disciple I study last year.

Baby was at the UMass Child Development lab today for a tactile-and-12-month-olds experiment; he grabbed the measuring cup and the rattle in one hand simultaneously. The researcher said, “I'm impressed.” Of course, the researcher also said, “Most infants bathe every day.”

And now my son is turning one year old. Gestationally, he already is, having been due November Fifth. When I first moved out into an apartment, I had a pointsettia plant. It was a late-November birthday present from a guy who harbored a, as it turned out, unrequited crush on me. I kept it alive for a year. Then my galbuddy Joe moved in and got fish, and most of them ate each other, but the ones who survived lasted another year. The next year, I adopted a cat, or rather, she adopted me. And I had her for years and years until my next roommate got a cat and OJ-the-cat took off. I won't even go into how many times my Amaryllis bulbs bloomed until our first Massachusetts winter killed them. I didn't know! And Baby doesn't have a new snowsuit yet but he's got lots of sweatpants and a big yellow hooded jacket. And heating oil at $2.56/gallon.