This just in...

Usability note: the pictures can be clicked for a full-size version.

From Lucas

Today was Lucas' first birthday. Mini-me (as I call him in a fit of "originality") or Rice (as I call him when I want to do cross-language puns—"rice" in Chinese is "大米" which is pronounced similar to "dummy") has disrupted my life for a full year and, in that time, has accomplished many important things, to wit:

1. He has managed to avoid being returned to the hospital together with a request for a refund.


2. He has managed to avoid being "accidentally" left behind in a public place for others to stumble over and take home.


3. He has managed to avoid being sold to some poor, unsuspecting people blinded by his cuteness and unaware of his darker side.

Of course he has accomplished all of this by just being too cute for words. He's very lucky he's cute, given how often he drives his mother, his grandmother and me to distraction (in decreasing order of incidence).

From Lucas

Lucas' birthday was full of activity. For me at any rate. Yesterday, already, I had gone out to order a birthday cake and in the morning I got up and went to the bakery to pick it up. I was 100% in charge of the birthday cake and I got a good one, I think. Lucas was born in the year of the pig, so the piglet-face cake seemed perfect. I think the bakery did a good job with it, but I'll let you be the judge of it.

From Lucas

For his first birthday presents Lucas received:

1. A toy "mobile phone" with a changing picture, two different opening and closing sounds, a talk button that plays one of several different melodies at random and digit buttons that play one of twelve different touch-tone numbers at random. (No, there's no link between the button you press and the sound you get. I thought this was funny.)


2. A remote controlled car. (I won't get into why we bought this, but it was only 30RMB and is actually pretty damned sophisticated.)


3. An activity play center for children 1-3 years of age that plays music, has the blocks and shaped holes thing and a few other things. Lucas has already really taken to this. You can see a bit of it in the picture here.

From Lucas

There's a fun tradition the Chinese do for the first birthday that I thought I should describe. In the pictures on my web album (click any of the photos here to get there) you'll see that Lucas is on the bed surrounded by a lot of things: his toys, of course, but also a musical instrument, my hand-held computer, an abacus, books, an MP3 player, etc. The idea is that you do this and the thing he shows the most interest in is the thing that will dominate his life. If he picks up a pen and plays with it, for example, he's going to be a famous writer. If he picks up a musical instrument and toys with it he'll be a musician. If he goes for a book, he'll be a great scholar. That sort of thing.

From Lucas

I'm happy to report that Lucas spent most of his time with my portable computer (the N800) and with a musical instrument. I approve of both of these choices and I look forward to watching Lucas' career with either one of the two.

From Lucas

One last tradition to report is the traditional birthday food. In the west the birthday food is cake. In China it's "long life noodles". You can see a bowl of them here. Of course at one Lucas can't eat all of that (although he does eat most of its ingredients now! As a result we had to take up the slack for him. If you look at that bowl, however, you can see why it leads to long life. It doesn't get much more nutritious than that witches brew of noodles, vegetables, mushrooms and pork!

That's it for this special report; I'll be back on Sunday with the regular update. As I said before, click on any of those pictures to access the photo album for more pictures of the birthday event. I'll just leave you with one more picture: a family greeting of sorts. (I'll leave it up to you to find the picture of us trying to get Lucas to stop eating a book.)

From Lucas