All your ducks lined up in a row....

Those of you who read my other blog know that I've been putting off writing this post. So finally, more than 2 weeks after Adam's birthday, I'm finally getting around to it.

BUT by the magic of the internet, I can pretend that I wrote this post about Adam's birthday, ON Adam's birthday. Aren't I amazing? What a good mom I am. (wink)

My dear Adam loves two things: Pixar Cars and trains. So imagine my surprise when a few weeks before his birthday I started asking him what he wanted for his birthday and he told me "yellow squeaky ducks." I thought it was a fluke so I continued to ask him in the days that followed what he wanted and always it was "yellow squeaky ducks." I was a bit disconcerted, since I already had cars for him in the basement....(cars I had bought at Christmas time but decided not to give to him because he was already getting enough toys!)

Well, if yellow squeaky ducks is what he wanted by golly yellow squeaky ducks is what he was getting!



Lots of them. (thanks to a little help from Aunt Natalie and Grandma)



And a ducky cake.



And a few cars toys, too.



My baby is 4 now. Four!

We keep birthdays simple at our house (a topic for another post for another day because I get pretty opinionated about the matter) So we just hung out, played with the new toys, took a family walk, had cake and ice cream, and watched a movie.

I've never taken the time to sit down and write anything about the day Adam was born so here are a few of the things I remember about Adam's first birthday...

The child was 10 days overdue. TEN DAYS!!! Do you know how terrible ten days overdue is? I had started maternity leave at work the day he was due and spent 10 miserable days at home just waiting....half wishing I was still at work because I only had 12 weeks leave and here I was wasting so much of it before the baby arrived.

At a Friday appointment (when I as already a week overdue) My doctor FINALLY scheduled and induction date of April 7th.

Monday the 5th came, still no baby. Mike had a math test at school so I rode to school with him and walked all over campus while he took his test, hoping to induce labor. And apparently it helped. Because a little later that night, around 8:00 I started having some of my first contractions. I didn't sleep much that night as I was uncomfortable (due to the increasing contractions) and I was scared to death (due to this being my first delivery) Mike on the other hand had no problem snoring next to me in bed.

Around 5:30 am I got in the shower and then woke up Mike and told him I was ready to go to the hospital. He got up and showered and then we were off. We arrived at around 7:00 am.

And for a long time nothing happened. I wasn't progressing and I'm sure if I wasn't already 10 days overdue they would've said "go home, come back in a few hours if your contractions get worse." But I think the nurse had pity on me and convinced the dr. on call to admit me and give me some pitocin. (my dr. was out of town, scheduled back that evening since he was supposed to be there to induce me the following morning.)

I remember lots of boring daytime television. There is NOTHING on tv during the day. I also remember a few visitors (my mother-in-law, my brother, my dad....) and I knew they were all well intentioned but I was so embarrassed to have anybody see me that way and mostly just wished they would all leave.

Around 5:00 still no baby, but we were flipping channels and heard on the news that Marjorie Hinckley had passed away. We started making comments that that is why this baby was so late! He was sticking around to meet her before he came down. Probably giving her a high five in passing!

At 7:00 there was FINALLY something on to distract me-American Idol. This was the only season I actually watched American Idol, and I was really into it. And with all the crummy daytime tv that had been on I was excited to have something on I actually wanted to watch. I even remember that it was Elton John night. Crazy, huh?

So of course, since it was the first thing all day that was actually distracting me the nurse comes in half way through and tells me that we're going to start pushing. So we turned off American Idol before I even got to hear them all sing! sigh.

Well, to make a long story short, I pushed for a LONG time and finally the dr. used forceps and sometime after 9:30ish we had our 9 lb 8 oz baby boy.

Then came the people. SO many people came in to see him. Everybody had been waiting for hours in the waitjavascript:void(0)
Save Nowing room and now they all came piling in. And I was tired and hungry (I hadn't eaten anything in over 30 hours) and here were all these people and my hair was messed and my epidural was wearing off so I was starting to be in pain and I know they just all wanted to see the new baby but did they have to see me, too?

My excellent nurse (who really was just so amazing!) gently escorted everybody out, found me something to eat (since it was way past dinner time) and then we tried to settle in for some rest.

And of course I haven't had a good night's sleep since.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADAM!!!! I Love you!

the original birthday


Birthday number 1


Birthday the second



Big number three