Kaavia James is one year older
Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade celebrated their little girl turning eight with a Lilo & Stitch party on Saturday, November 7!
In photos shared on Instagram, Kaavia could be seen wearing a blue Stitch-print outfit as she posed next to her mom and dad at her private bash.
The proud parents didn’t let the day go by without wishing their daughter a happy birthday on Instagram.
Wade shared a video and wrote, “Kaavia, you still run into my arms like I’m your favorite person. Let’s keep that going, okay?”
“Daddy sees you, Daddy loves you, and Daddy’s always got you. Happy birthday, baby girl. I love being your daddy,” he added.
Wade later took Kaavia on a daddy-daughter date to IHOP. “Kaavia’s never been to IHOP before. Here we go,” he said in a video on his Instagram Stories as she walked up to the restaurant.
Union shared a “how it started and how it’s going” video with clips of Kaavia over the years.
“Some things never change…” she wrote, calling her daughter “our shady baby forever.”
Kaavia earned the nickname as an infant, when her side-eyes and unimpressed expressions began drawing attention on social media. Those faces caught her parents by surprise at first, Wade told E! News in 2021.
“But then we realized where it came from: It was a reaction to other people,” he explained.
The nickname inspired Union and Wade’s children’s book, Shady Baby, which encourages young girls to speak up for themselves.
Speaking to theGrio about the book, Union explained that Kaavia’s shade often meant “someone has not respected her boundaries or has done something she doesn’t like.”
Kaavia’s signature side-eye still gets laughs on Instagram, where she has about 1.7 million followers.
In photos from her first day of second grade, Kaavia held up a sign listing tacos as her favorite food and green and blue as her favorite colors. She previously said she wanted to be an actress, but this time she picked singer and artist.
“Ready to make my mark, in cursive, of course,” read the caption on Kaavia’s Instagram account.
