My first mead and prickly pear fruit.

I want to brew a mead in honor of my first child. He/she (we don't know yet) will be born in March 2010, and I have about 5 lbs of prickly pear fruit that I recently pureed (maybe 2 weeks) in my freezer. I plan to make about 2 gallons and I want to use Mesquite Honey along with my Prickly Pear fruit puree.

My question is, is it absolutely necessary to use nutrient scheduling for the yeast, if I plan to let this ferment for over 1 year, or would it be safe to allow nature to take its course?

I will boil the puree with some water and honey before adding it to the main mead wort, as my research has shown this is the best method.

I want to sample this on my child's first birthday which will be sometime in March 2011, and I will save at least 2 liters for my childs 21st birthday. What would your advice be for something of this sort?

Do I add the puree to the primary fermentation, or add it after the primary fermentation occurs?

What would your advice or input be in this situation seeing as it is my first mead attemp, and of course I want it to be GREAT! Especially in 21 years from now! (Maybe 18 I am progressive).

First of all congratulations, brew up a lot before you enter into the sleep deprived zone.
If I may say, if your going to do this go bigger, at least 5 gallons.
Second, Mesquite Honey is VERY strong. Here we call it Kiawi, and I used up 40 lbs in a couple of batches and two of them were 100%. The taste even after a year is over powering and I hope it will mellow out in time.
I would make 5 gallons, using your Mesquite Honey 1 to 3 lbs of some light clover as the base.
I consider the staggered nutrient addition a requirement, once I started doing it there is no turning back.
Download hightest's spreadsheet and put in what you want and follow it. It works, and it works very well.
I would also add the fruit once you hit the half way point. Do not boil it, just bomb it with camden tablets 24 hours in advance with some peptic acids at 12 hours in advance.
For bottling, I would stabilize the mead, and then bottle maybe a week later.
Best of luck.

Thanks for the advice, I will look into hightest's spreadsheet. I wanted this to be kind of an all desert ingredient mead, hence the reason for using the mesquite honey along with the prickly pear cactus fruits. I picked the fruits right outside my backyard, and have a local source for the honey. Thanks again!