Culbert Report

One year!  It's so hard to believe!   Although we still joke that she's still our tiny, 7lb baby, Anna has reached the one year mark at the top of her weight and height classes, full of words and smiles, and brimming with the same simple joy that's held us captive from day 1. Our party was a picnic in the park with friends.  Party hats were required. A close up of the birthday girl and her "cheese," (which is Anna-speak for any kind of food and "yes please I'll have some of that!")    The big birthday present?  A flower balloon - hours minutes of entertainment! Happy birthday, sweet Pea, we love you so much.

It occurred to me a couple days ago at a picnic in a city park: living in a big city does have one incredible advantage.  As I was arranging watermelon slices on a plate, it struck me that through the entire 3 hours of our picnic thus far, I had yet to be bitten once by a mosquito.  In fact, I can't remember the last time I'd even scratched a mosquito bite that I'd picked up in Moscow.  I can't even remember being bitten!  Oh glorious city with your smoggy air, lack of fresh water sources, and chemically inhabitable insect  colonies, how I love you!  It's true, one day I may regret missing out on being cloned with the rest of the human race at this time in history through the petrified remains of nature's blood-sucking treasure, the mosquito.  But not here and not now. -rkc