Happy Birthday, Nathan!

I can't believe I'm about to post this picture. It's not pretty. And as a preface, I had pre-eclampsia so I was literally swollen from head to toe. Anyway...this was me (on the right - Aria didn't recognize me just now. lol) a little over 6 years ago. My friend that's with me had her little boy exactly 1 week before I had mine.



I was induced with cervadil in the evening of June 21st due to the pre-eclampsia. At 11:30-ish PM the doctor came in and broke my water (I was dilated to a 3). Suddenly everything started happening much faster. The nurses were a pain in the butt and kept blowing off my insistance that I was progressing quickly. I kept asking one of them to check me and she would say not to worry, that I'd likely still be in labor 12 hours from then and did I want an epidural? Finally, shortly after 1 AM I convinced her to check me after swearing that I felt the urge to push. She kinda rolled her eyes and checked only to be shocked that I knew what I was talking about and went into high gear gathering the stuff and calling the Dr. Nathan was born after just a few pushes at 1:30 AM on June 22. He wasn't breathing at first, but he recovered quickly and I had my firstborn! Beyond a little jaundice, he was perfect!

Here he is at 2 weeks old.



And as he grew....







And today! He is now 6 years old! It's hard to believe it's been 6 years already.





He had a fun party. We went to a local indoor water park and the kids just played their little hearts out. It was perfect. I didn't have to do too terribly much in the planning/organizing department and the kids had a blast. He even got the cake he wanted. Sort-of. He wanted a Mario cake. We looked online for some ideas and he had his heart set on this one.



He said if I couldn't make that, then he supposed he could settle for this.



Right. This is what he got. (thanks to an online friend who had a hard-to-find Mario toy and my mad cake decorating skillz...or lack thereof)



Fortunately, he was pleased. lol.

Happy Birthday, Nathan!