It’s so stupid of me. I forgot to write a post again. For the previous post we were watching Love and Other Drugs and since I couldnt’ concentrate while watching a movie I stopped it in the middle and wrote my post. But last night we weren’t doing anything and I just forgot.

Of course I was very tired and slept sooner than usual. Since we hadn’t invited anyone for my son’s birthday we though we could go to a brunch near La Jolla beach with a couple of friends we know here. It was a nice brunch. We sat outside and the weather was great. The food was also good. Of course I had to eat fast and take care of my son. But for some reason I felt going out again. So after my son took his nap we went to downtown La Jolla again and had Thai food. Thai food is my absolute favorite food and this one was really good. I ordered a curry which was good. My husband ordered a halibut which was really really good. I didn’t know they use Tamarind in Thai food too. The food almost tasted similar to a food we make with Tamarind and fish in Iran. But of course a lot more fancier.

Ok so this is the end of the 30 day challenge. I haven’t thought about the next challenge and I feel bad that I didn’t do this one perfectly. But I think it was a big accomplishment anyway. We’ll see if I can continue writing more often even if it’s not everyday.

Today my baby turned one. The birthday turned out not bad. It was just the three of us with my brother and my parents on skype. He got excited with his cake and started digging in right away. He was so cute. He liked the push car my parents had bought him. From our gifts he liked the xylophone. We took lots and lots of picture which I should soon organize and post somewhere for people to see.

In the weekly emails I get from baby center the subject had changed from “your baby” to “your toddler”. Yes I have a toddler now. I can’t believe he is growing so fast. I’m sure I will miss these days but on the other hand I cant wait to talk to him about his day and discuss politics and love and life. I know that’s cliche but maybe motherhood is cliche.

So almost everything is ready for my son’s birthday. I’ve wrapped his gifts. The toy car my parents had bought him is assembled. We have made a string of balloons. We also bought a cake finally. It’s not as perfect as I had hopped but it’s not bad.

We also received two packages from our friends. And interestingly one of them was almost the same as one of the gifts we had bought him ourselves. So now I have to return that one.

In this whole process I once again found out that I’m not a good leader. I know I shouldn’t write this here in my english blog and it would probably be bad for any of my future jobs!! but I should admit it to myself. I spent many many hours thinking of how I want the birthday to be, the gifts, what he should wear, the cake, the design, where we should buy the balloons, even how to inflate them, and so so many things. What I cannot do is delegate. I just expect my husband to be helpful. He tries to help but of course he cannot help in sth that is all in my head. I should learn to assign a complete portion of a task him to him. This way he can be responsible of all the thinking and the timing. I want to try to be consious about this from now on. Let’s see how I can succeed.

I haven’t found a cake yet. Today we checked out 3 other places. One said they don’t make cakes for less than 30 people. The other said they need at least 5 days to make a cake. In the third one they had 6 inch cakes that look good and are a good size but when I checked the flavors they either have lots of chocolate or they have alcohol. I feel a bit sad. I feel I don’t know this city at all and I feel like a stranger.

I don’t have anything more to say but I promise to write more tomorrow.

I like to hear or read about other people’s experiences who have children the same age as mine, and a good source of that are blogs that write about their children. And when I know their child is older than mine I go back in their archives to see how they felt and what they did back then. Today I was reading the archives of a somewhat  famous iranian blogger. She has a 5 year old now so I was reading her posts in 2006. It was interesting to read about the same feelings and challenges but for some reason I felt really bad after that. I wasn’t exactly sure why. But now that I think about it I am jealous! I envy her ability to write. How she had written almost everyday. I know I can never write as good, but the problem is I feel more and more I’m hesitant to share. I cannot go and write that sometimes we are trying to encourage my son to walk , which I think is a very normal thing to do. But I don’t feel safe to write it in my blog. So it got me thinking that when I don’t feel so enthusiastic about my blog I should just shut it down. So I’m seriously thinking about it.

Sometimes I get really confused about my son’s behavior. We went shopping today together. He was really calm and seemed to even enjoy himself on our way to the mall. But as soon as we entered the shop he started to become restless. I think at first he was curious to see the salesperson. He wanted to come out of his stroller and he started pulling the clothes. After I bought the clothes I came out and we sat in the food court and I gave him some water.He seemed to enjoy his water so I let him keep his sippy cup when we went to Gap kids. I wanted to buy some pajamas for him. But again when we entered he became restless and screamed. I found two pants but one had a stain so I asked someone to find me another one. I looked and he was shaking his sippy cup and he was all wet from the water. I took the cup and although I think I tried to do it very gently and with a smile he got angry and started crying. I don’t want him to think that if he screams or cried I pick him up or give him what he wants but it’s so hard in public to know what to do.

I’ve been thinking a lot about ways to make this better. I just bought two books that can be attached to the stroller. I am hoping this makes him occupied and makes sitting in the stroller more pleasant. Maybe I should take him out more. It would be hard on me but I like him to be more patient. Parenting is really hard.

Unlike yesterday today wasn’t a productive day. I almost did nothing. We video chatted with  my parents in law for a while after breakfast. Then it was time for lunch. After lunch we went to check out some cake shops and a toy store to probably find a good birthday cake and a gift for my son’s birthday. The first cake shop was closed and it won’t open till Wednesday. The second one didn’t have sth that I like. Most of them were chocolate which I don’t like for a first birthday cake. The toy store was not bad but we didn’t like anything special. So back to home. After cleaning up a big mess that had happened in the car :D it was time for dinner. I can say we crossed off some choices but it just feels we’ve wasted a whole day.

Maybe I should just make the cake myself. I like to make things for my son. When I make things myself it has the features that I like and it would be unique. Like the felt hat that I’m making. All the birthday hats that we saw were either from paper or they were in the shape of a crown. Now we made it ourselves with the colors that we liked and we used the elephant shape on his bedding set so it feels especial. As with the cake if I make it myself I’ll use organic ingredients and I would use very little sugar and no chocolate. But I cannot make it look nice. And I’m not one of those people who like handmade and homemade things even when they are not as nice. I like things that at least to my eyes are as nice as sth you could buy. Anyway the search for cake is still on!