I wrapped Baby E’s presents this morning since we’re celebrating his birthday tomorrow. I might have overdone it, just a bit.
What happened was I hadn’t bought him ANYTHING, then last week we were running low on diapers so when I placed my order from Diapers.com and got free shipping I figured I head over to YoYo.com and pick out a few things. Then earlier this week we were at Target and on my way to buy a sippy cup, I made the mistake of walking down the toy aisle and there were a couple of things that seemed to pique his interest…so I might have bought him those as well.
So I got to thinking about taking some things back and if I was going overboard for his party in general, since children’s parties are so over the top these days anyway, was I starting a bad habit?
I decided I wasn’t. And here’s why:
If you read his birth story you’ll know I had an easy pregnancy and delivery but he ended up in the NICU after aspirating fluid and developing pneumonia. So at a time when we thought we’d be celebrating his birth with our family and friends we ended up not being able to let most people see him. Having his birthday party on the this weekend is fitting since that was when we were able to bring him home. So I think he deserves a big celebration since we didn’t get to do that when he was born.
Secondly, it’s a celebration of being parents for a year for my husband and me.
Talk about a learning curve (and I think we’re pretty smart people) – no books or advice or experience with babies can prepare you for having your own. We’ve come a long way since that first night of having him home and looking at each other terrified when he started breathing too quickly. We’re learning more every day (my mom says you never stop learning how to be a parent – which I totally believe).
While some people may caution against overdoing things and setting expectations too high, mostly I want to celebrate that Baby E has been in our lives for a year, and how incredibly grateful I am for that. Having kept up with Courtney and Tripp Roth’s story over the past year, I realized that I can’t ever take having him for granted because there are so many people who want children and aren’t able to have them or even worse, only get to have them for only a short time. So I will celebrate my happy healthy baby.
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