Not as planned

I'm thinking about six years ago today.

I woke up early that morning from a dream -- that I was going into labor a month early, but my living room was full of people who would. not. leave. and my husband would not wake up -- to discover that I actually was going into labor a month early. And J DID wake up, as quickly as I've ever seen him do that, and the doula came even though we hadnt had all our meetings yet, and good friends helped get us settled in the hospital and my mom flew 1300 miles to arrive 12 hours later and meet her grandson, born by then after a day of labor that was both more and less difficult than I had expected.

We had prepared really well. We had researched hospitals and midwives. We had taken a class. We had an excellent birth plan. And I knew all about babies from years of loving other people's kids. And I had absolutely no idea that nothing was going to go according to plan.

It took me about three years to get over the shock.

So I guess it is fitting that things did not go as planned today, in celebration of the most-definately-no-longer-a-baby's birthday. He's still sick, with the kind of stuff that used to take him back to the hospital pretty regularly when he was smaller.

But after a little waffling and phone calling for advice today (thanks Erin!), we decided to go ahead with his party. I called everyone and warned them he was sick, and only the son of the opera singer from E's class at school decided to miss it. And you cant blame him for that, since anything larygitis-ish must be like a Return of the Bubonic Plague in the house of an audtioning baritone.

There were 8 kids plus a baby, which seemed just about right. We ate tacos and sang happy birthday and had a cake from Safeway with "Lightning The Queen" on it from the movie Cars and the kids ran around and pretended to shoot each other with the ends of their fingers and played E's new board games. The kids still go for Sorry and Uno, it turns out. It was fun, even though we had to be indoors (for some reason, I did not plan on the rain. Doesnt it ALWAYS rain on memorial day?). I made them go outside, which lasted for about 15 minutes during which they kicked balls into the bushes and picked slugs off of the side of trees and tried to drown them in the birdbath.

After the party, we celebrated with a trip to urgent care to make sure there was nothing in his lungs (there isn't) and to get refill of his albuterol prescription (but "since you say I dont need them, no antibiotics, thank you very much," I had to say three times).

Then Star Wars again (cause really, you cant watch it too many times) and cheese pizza and putting up new shelves in E's room. And now he's sleeping and peacefully - not all sweaty and coughy like he has been lately. So the party didn't hurt him, I don't think

We have tomorrow all planned. I'll go to work and J will take him to school if he's well enough or stay home and watch Star Wars again if he's not. After 6 years we've finally learned that things probably will go differently than we have planned. And if they turn out anything like E himself, they might even be better.