March 14th, 2014, I was blessed with a 8 lbs 8 oz bundle of joy. This past Tuesday we celebrated the 3rd anniversary of his birth. We were originally supposed to have a big birthday party with about 20 family and friends in our hometown. Recently, we have been experiencing some car trouble and were unsure if they’d get fixed within the week to host said party, so we cancelled the bash. This week ended up being filled with celebration, exhaustion, and accomplishments. Here are the details.

Monday was regular enough except for the planning and preparation for the little get together we had in lue of the big birthday bash. I bought some juice, muffins, and made goody bags to leave at his daycare. I think its really sweet that his daycare teacher plans things for their birthday. When I told her the previous day that his birthday was tomorrow, she calmly replied “I know”. I’m not sure how typical it is for daycare providers to know and make plans for each child’s birthday, but I think that’s really special. Even if I had got too busy or something, Ana had it covered. Whenever I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, for the past month, his respond had been “strawberries”.  I made a cake that was strawberry with confetti icing, and bought 2 pounds of frozen strawberries for his party that evening. Since its not strawberry season yet, I didn’t want to risk getting fresh ones. His party was supposed to be Disney’s “Cars” Themed. That week he started asking for a “Mator” and “Lightening McQueen”, so that night a Walmart, I found a Lightening McQueen T-shirt, wear that day, a Mator toy with a suction cup that allows him to actually tow (it doesn’t work that well), and a small Lightening McQueen toy that came with a set of race tracks. I was trying to decide whether or not I wanted to make the cake that night, but I decided to wait until I got out of school so it would be fresh.

 

Tuesday was his big day, and while it is usually a struggle getting him out of the bed today he woke up excited for his “cupcakes” (muffins) at daycare and his McDonald’s party with Mator and Lightening McQueen. I invited my sister and his two cousins, and a friend of mine at work with her family, she has two kids as well. I baked the cake, but didn’t have a lot of time to let it cool, so it was covered with a glaze. It was still tasty. I called in to McDonald’s and ordered sweet tea, mcnuggets, fries, and mcdoubles for the group. I would sneak next door to get a burrito bowl from Chipotle, since there aren’t any viable vegan options at McDonald’s. We sang the Stevie Wonder version of “Happy Birthday”, because for the past 2 years he cried when we sang the original. I discovered slow songs make him sad. He cries at other parties, as well as when he wear “Silent Night”. He enjoyed the new rendition and asked me to sing again when I was putting him to bed that night. This party was a great success. That was the party I originally planned to have, but as the date got closer I couldn’t resist doing the usually over the top family celebration. I’m not happy to need car repairs, but maybe it was for the best, because Xavier couldn’t have been more ecstatic.

The birthday part was over so I could relax, right…..wrong. I volunteered to be in our school musical, Suessical, as “The Cat and the Hat”. I absolutely enjoyed participating with the kids, but it was just horr

ible timing. So I would have 4 performances in the next 3 days, and I did not know my lines yet. The kids would ask me during class….”Mrs. Marshall, do you know your lines yet?” I’d reply “Don’t worry about my lines, worry about actually singing out.” I did learn them relatively well enough to ad lib and not through everybody off. I was The Cat in the Hat, so it was my job to say off the wall stuff. We had performances after school at 6 pm Wednesday and Thursday, and two on Friday during the day.  There was a morning performance Friday for the neighboring elementary school and that afternoon for our middle school student body. All the kids were most nervous to perform in front of all their peers, and to be honest so was I. Friday I had more than one person say to me “I know you’re glad it over, you look tired”. I would say, “gee, thanks”.

 

The day of Thursday performance I was not at work because my son had his 3 year well visit. At this visit the doctor diagnosed him with……Asthma. It seems his stomach bugs that he’s been getting for the past year are probably reactions to food allergies, and his cough that he’s had for the past couple weeks are asthma. The doctor started putting the pieces together as I was telling her about all the different symptoms, paired with the family history of my allergies, my father’s asthma, and a listen to his chest which reveal wheezing. He has also had eczema since he was a baby. They all pointed to asthma. He has an appointment with an allergist to find possible triggers and a follow up with his pediatrician in two weeks.  So his belated birthday gift from the doctor was an inhaler and spacer. He’s sometimes reluctant to let me use it. So I showed him a few cartoons of Baine using the mask with medicine to give him muscles of powers, and that did the trick.

I was informed by my cousin that my sister and mother were planning a surprise visit since we couldn’t come up there this weekend. I’m glad she let me know, because that kind of surprise was the last thing I needed this week. Once I knew about it, I was happy. I’m always happy to visit or get a visit from my family. But had I not known I would not have been able to clean and make sure my home was presentable; rather than lake a tornado, blizzard, hurricane, all dropped at once. To top it all off, I never did get those car repairs. It just wasn’t the week to have to coordinate dropping off and picking up a car. Along with either renting or borrowing a car while my was getting repairs. I know that shaking, smoking smell, check engine light flashing is really, really bad, but the mechanic said I could drive on it, so I’ll handle it next week when to dust had settled.

So yes, my son turned 3. And I could not be more happy and proud of the young man he is becoming. Being a mother never gets easy, but just like this week we will all get through it, somehow, together.