Shannon Phillips

Robin had his first birthday this week!  We took the train up to Reno to celebrate the day with Nonna, Pappy, the Anti-Sara, and Great-Grandma Elsie.  The train ride was super fun: we saw beautiful scenery and chatted with nice folks, and Robin had a lot better time crawling up and down the aisles of the train than he would have strapped into a car seat.

I baked a carrot cake for Robin’s birthday and we strung up some crepe paper and decorations:

Robin had no idea what was going on, of course, although he enjoyed a few bites of cake, and he seemed to really like it when we all sang “Happy Birthday” at him.  He got many lovely presents, but his favorite of all was that purple flowered bag you can see in the picture.  He spent quite a lot of time happily playing with the bag once it had been emptied of presents.

I had the bittersweet thought that one eighteenth of Robin’s time in our care has already elapsed.  It seems unreal.  At the same time, though, one year old is a good age.  Robin’s now active and communicative enough to be interesting and fun, but he’s also still cuddly and small, the perfect size for picking up and snuggling.  Yesterday he grabbed my shirt, pulled himself close to my face, and planted a deliberate, sloppy kiss right on me.  I got all misty.  We are so blessedly lucky.  I’m filled with gratitude for the year we have had, and for the years we have ahead.  Robin’s too young to know what a birthday means, but to me it was profoundly significant.

Robin had his first photo shoot today! The agency called us up last-minute—apparently the client had booked models of the wrong sizes and needed replacements ASAP. We weren’t doing anything else so we drove out to Richmond and Robin strutted his stuff in front of the cameras. It was all over very quickly. If they use the pictures it’ll be for an insert in the newspaper on Sept. 28th, advertising for Mervyn’s. So we’ll keep an eye out! Robin was paid $125 for the day.

On our way back from the photo shoot the agency called us up to book us for two go-sees on Monday. Maybe they’re throwing more work his way because they think we’re reliable? Or maybe it was just coincidence. I can actually foresee a time approaching when the novelty of all this will have worn off, and it will just be a pain in the butt. So Robin may be headed for early retirement. We’ll see how tickled I am if/when the pictures show up in the paper.

In other news, last night Robin stood on his own two feet—no hands, ma!—for a good three or four seconds before falling on his butt.