Year One, done!

Today we can say goodbye to Bumpus' Year One. It's crazy to think he can be considered a toddler now, even though he isn't technically "toddling" yet.

So, the party! I will front load this post by saying everything turned out great and it was a very good party. Enough people came that I didn't feel snubbed (thank God!) and it was a nice coming together of old friends who rarely get to see each other any more. Bumpus was in great form and charmed everyone (again thank God - I'm sure babywearing him much of the day helped him feel secure). So that's the good stuff!

The bad stuff is I was TOTALLY STRESSED OUT for the day before and while setting up. As technically a professional event planner (that's what my tax returns say anyway) I am a perfectionist when it comes to this stuff and can get very TENSE when things get out of control. But I keep it all inside (I think). As mentioned my sister and I undertook to make the cake. Which was moving right along - until we waited until 8 PM the night before to assemble and decorate it. Of course all the things happened when amateurs try to make a themed cake for 50 people - the layers all had risen unevenly and so they slid around on each other (until we stuck a thick dowel rod down the middle of it); we only had enough red food coloring to bring the frosting to a salmon color; the little fondant Cat in the Hat character arrived from Canada in a million pieces and would not be stuck back together; the frosting was full of crumbs; the fondant wouldn't fall correctly. In the middle of this a friend dropped by with her dog, I had to bathe the boy, and it was just totally stressful. We were both pretty bummed out by how the cake was looking...but somehow we pulled it together and I think it actually came out pretty great.

The great thing about having a party in a remote location is it's not at your house...the bad thing about having a party in a remote location is it's not at your house. The amount of crap you have to haul when you're setting up a party elsewhere is tremendous - garbage bags, paper towels, scissors, tape, a lighter, etc. And as always there were missteps despite all my planning - way too many drinks, not enough pizza, and too long of an interval between pizza and cake (I was waiting for the photographer). Keeping 20+ kids between the ages of 1 and 5 waiting a half hour for cake is a big no no! So, lesson learned there!

Still and again it was a great time, everyone was warm and lovely and helped a lot (especially my sister!), and B was unperturbed which was the most important part for me. I'm continually amazed by how social he is despite his age and my social weirdness. Hopefully he got that trait from good ol' donor guy!

**on another topic, to follow up on my .1% post. As many of you have gleaned I am pretty certain I will at least try for #2 when I am able. This doesn't mean I'll be successful. But I feel the need to at least try so I have no regrets. I debated on whether or not to even reveal this on this blog because I didn't want my readers to get frustrated by my constant flip-flopping. But in the end it's such a huge part of my life and thoughts right now that I didn't feel right hiding it - and if nothing else, flip-flopping is truthful!

I have done a ton of research on the protein-pre-eclampsia connection and am pretty shocked by what I'm reading. I just can't believe a thin, healthy person with no predilection to high blood pressure or kidney or liver issues can just develop this condition for no reason unless their pregnancy diet is way, way off of what it should be, which I think is what happened to me. I just didn't know, and nobody advising me knew, either (I don't think any of my obs/midwives even asked or knew I was a vegetarian), so nobody is to blame. And the sad thing is, had anyone told me I needed to seriously increase my protein intake, I probably would have just gotten angry and defensive and ignored them. That's the down side of being a contrarian as I am - sometimes I don't listen to sound advice. And I remember myself pregnant - nobody could tell me anything; I just didn't want to hear it. I think it was my way of coping with the elevated anxiety was to shut everything alarmist or negative out of my thoughts - to my detriment. There's a term I love called "learned helplessness" which explains all this - it's how I grew up. In my childhood religion it was all about ignoring warning signs, not believing you can help yourself by doing anything physical (it's all mind over matter), and just giving up. To this day I'll suffer with a headache for hours before remembering I can take a pill and be rid of it. So to be brutally honest, had anyone told me I needed to up my protein intake to avoid getting pre-e and being induced, I know I would have ignored it and just crossed my fingers. That's the truth.

So, moving forward, now it's just the waiting game. I only nurse B 2-3 times in a 24 hour period now, and even with all the excitement over the weekend I still got him to bed by 9 every night and he slept straight through to about 7 or 8 without waking, or if he did wake, I'd lay him back down and he'd be back asleep within minutes. I'll be watching for fertility signs this month but I know it may be a lengthy process. More time to flip flop I guess!