One and Five

The first year was big. There were grandparents, cousins, aunts, colleagues, the uncles, friends and almost everyone we knew, save the priest who married us, although I am certain he was invited. We were celebrating, one year of limited sleep behind us, we were ready to dash into the future with these two people who had forever changed our lives. Weeks of planning, cooking, shopping, and list making, all managed while making the dramatic change to sippy cup and milk from a gallon jug, amazing.

We smoked pork and grilled fish for tacos. We bought tortillas from the tortilla place in the Mexican neighborhood, made green rice and black beans, quesadillas, guacamole, salsa verde and salsa roja. I made two heart shaped banana cakes, one for each to destroy and devour.
We ordered two large block shaped cakes, described in great detail, green and pink and yellow, adorable, so one year, with cute one year things on all sides, and an M and a K on the top, perfect! There were no cakes, none. He forgot, or thought the party was the next day, or was drunk, I have no idea. Three hours later he showed up at our apartment with two cakes, or really, two large boxes, because when he opened them there was what once was possibly cake but now was a chocolate and grey pile of mess with a misshapen M on one side and a loopy K on the other.


We had mariachis, two very old men from our favorite restaurant in the Pilsen, two old men who spoke very limited English, and by that I mean they knew to smile and nod when greeted in English, two very old men who rarely ventured to the north side and who apparently got lost when doing so. They were an hour late, Jack called their phone, "Hola!", they were lost, hopelessly lost. He stood on our corner, on his cell phone, recalling every bit of his high school Spanish, but sadly "como estas?" was not helping at all. He eventually found an ice cream guy, the ones that ride around the city on their bikes selling frutas frescas, and asked him to please give directions to the lost mariachis on the telephone. It worked, in less than 15 minutes we had lovely music on our back deck. We danced, we sang, we cried, and Mary and Kate watched the entire spectacle from a place one goes after burying themselves in banana cake. It was exactly as we wanted, the perfect celebration of our new life and we were all quite happy.

Last Saturday we celebrated five at the beach. It was 62 degrees and partly cloudy in Chicago. There were no bathing suits but plenty of jackets and sweaters, pizza and cake, Old Style and juice, and two very happy little girls who spent the day running in the sand with some of their best friends, oblivious to the cold and lack of mariachis.


Mary and Kate would pick five, I'm certain; I'll take either, both wonderful days celebrating life as we now know it, although it was much warmer at one.