I am not one to plan much or make a big deal of my birthday. I think its because as a kid, for whatever reason, I had such high expectations of special days and always felt let down, no matter what the day was like. I really hated this about myself, and even though I was aware of it, I couldn't make it stop. I know it made it hard on my mom because she always wanted to make it great for me.
I really don't know what spurred this, but I see that Eli sometimes has these high expectations as well and it makes me upset to see him disappointed, even with my greatest attempts to make it all wonderful. Not to mention how frustrating it is for me, now as a parent on the other side.
Of course, we make the day special for the boys, but also as a parent, I would rather expend my energy and money to do special and fun things for them instead of for myself.
But this year, I was not feeling well, and Blaine had to work on my actual birthday; we will celebrate together on another day. I woke up feeling like crud, not really knowing if I could make it through the day with how awful I felt. I really wanted to start my day off with an amazing run. I haven't mentioned yet my saga with my hip and not being able to run for a few months, but that's a post for a different time, but it would have been a great present to be able to do that. I woke up when my alarm usually goes off during the week, 4:39am, so that I could run with my friends, and quickly realized that I really just needed to crawl back into bed.
When it was time to get out of bed to get everyone ready for school, I slowly made my way to the kitchen to get ready for Cake for Breakfast, our birthday tradition. The boys LOVE Amy's Ice Cream Mexican Vanilla so we got an ice cream cake from there this time. They were so excited for this and all I could think about was crawling back in bed. I had been so excited about this cake and could not even bring myself to even try a bite. I was going on day 2 with barely eating anything.
I got Eli off to school and then Owen, and was getting phone call after phone call and text after text from friends and family and it certainly helped to get me out of the funk I was feeling and made me feel so loved! Blaine was heading off to work that morning but we got to spend a little time together before he headed off. After forcing myself to eat a little something, I started to feel a little better as the day went on and was able to carry on! I really had no other choice, right?
Rachel came over and brought me lunch. Any day that I get to hang out with Rachel is a good day to me. That afternoon I got a text from a mom of a boy in Eli's classes who was volunteering in the classroom that day that Eli had pulled out his tooth and was the star of the class that day! She said blood gushed everywhere (i think she may have been exaggerating a little) and that everyone thought it was so cool! My initial reaction was to start crying, I was so proud and so excited for him that he lost his
first tooth! And then it turned to fear....
blood was gushing?!?!? Oh my gosh, I but he was upset or scared. But she reassured me that he and all the other boys in the class thought it was so cool.
The other reason this was a big deal was because a few months back we noticed something weird behind his teeth, it started to look like a pimple and then as the days went on, it was a tooth! We took him to the dentist and he reassured us this as really normal and they see it all the time--they call it shark teeth--when the big teeth grow directly behind the baby teeth instead of from underneath which causes the baby teeth to fall out as it absorbs the root. The dentist told us that we would have to get his teeth pulled when the second tooth started to pop through the gum, so when that happened, we made an appointment to get 2 teeth pulled. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I don't do teeth stuff well. I have such a phobia that is consumes me and I even have to change the channel on the TV for a toothpaste commercial--don't ask. So when this happened, I naturally volunteered Blaine to take Eli to his appointment. For days leading up to it I was having anxiety about it, had a dream about it, and found myself the morning of on the floor scrubbing baseboards for an hour just to busy my mind of what was happening. I was on pins and needles waiting to hear from Blaine to see how Eli was doing----and then he calls and says THEY DIDN'T DO IT!!!!! With all the lead up to it in my head part of me was disappointed, and the other part of me was so relieved! The dentist decided to take an x-ray and concluded that in fact the root was being absorbed and he felt like we should give it more time to see if they would fall our on their own.
So, losing this tooth was an awesome thing for a few reasons!!
That afternoon, two of my very sweet friends, Becca and Marisa came over with their kids, equipped with alcohol, veggies, fruit, snacks, cupcakes and ordered pizza for us. It was a nice distraction for how crummy I had felt all day and always fun to hang out with these friends.
After they left, Eli sat down to write the Tooth Fairy a letter. He was very excited about the tooth fairy and he and Owen had lots of questions....how will she get in the house? will she be able to find it under my pillow? how will she open the bag (we left his tooth in a little baggy because it was itty bitty)? does she have hands? how much will she leave me? what does she look like?
I felt like such a fraud answering all these questions.
But on the other hand, I was a little giddy thinking about finally getting to be the Tooth Fairy! I had a hard time deciding how much to leave and didn't plan ahead to go head a gold coin from the bank. But I also knew this was going to set the stage for the other 78 teeth that were going to fall out in this house in the coming years!
At 6am on the dot I feel a little poke...."Mom! The Tooth Fairy DID come!!!!" He was so excited! He brought down the note, and the money that was wrapped up in a little tube with a ribbon and could not wait to tell me about it! He asked me to read the letter to him and then ran upstairs to see the Tooth Fairy dust she left behind. He told me all about how his note and his tooth where gone and she left a note and some money for his tooth! And indeed, she left a little sparkly path from the window across his dresser where she placed the note--he couldn't believe it! Listening to him retell all this to Owen as priceless!
It was the perfect ending to my 35th birthday!
But I can not leave out the fact that I also got to celebrate my birthday (and Lauren's 27th week of pregnancy!) on Wednesday with my two very best friends in the world with some wonderful treats from Walton's and their amazing company!
I look forward to our weekly lunches so much and always leave feeling so lucky I was blessed with these lifelong friends whom I have known basically my entire life, and also being able to be a weekly part of such an exciting time in Lauren's life and getting to celebrate this baby boy every week!
