Bean's First Birthday

It's so hard to believe that my little baby is a year old now. I have to say that her birthday wasn't anything like I had imagined in my head. I wasn't planning a big party because I figured we could save that for when she got older and would remember more, but my parents had come in from out of town and my mother-in-law was coming over too. We were making all of Bean's favorite foods, including homemade birthday cake. I had planned to spend the day doing all of her favorite things and then after dinner with the family, we'd open presents, have cake, and just try to make it a special day from start to finish. It didn't quite work out that way.

Since my parents don't come to visit very often, we had to make this a trip for Bean's birthday and a trip for them to look at apartments for the move down here. So because of limited time, we ended up having to go look at an apartment on Bean's birthday. Not only that, but two days before her birthday, she started having a low grade fever. The fever didn't go away and she really wasn't acting like herself. By the time her birthday rolled around, she certainly wasn't in the mood to party. Instead of doing special things, we got her as much sleep as possible and snuggled a lot during the day. We had her dinner, but sadly she didn't even want to try her birthday cake. The only part she perked up for a bit was opening presents. It was far from what I had imagined.

At first I was pretty bummed about the whole thing. Bean's been so healthy that this is the first time she's really gotten sick and I was sad for her that it happened on her first birthday. But then I started thinking about it more. It certainly wasn't what I had imagined, but I thought back to two years before her birthday and I couldn't have even imagined having a birthday party for my baby girl at all. If someone had told me that in two years, I'd be celebrating our baby's first birthday, I don't know if I would have believed it. So yes, it's sad that she couldn't enjoy the day, but we don't just celebrate her on this one day of the year, we celebrate her every single day. I hope she feels that as much as we do.

Plus, I feel SO lucky that Bean hasn't been sick more. I cannot imagine the lives of parents whose children have chronic and serious health problems. My heart hurts for them. After seeing Bean as a shadow of herself the last few days, I just feel incredibly blessed that she's gotten this far without really being sick. She still isn't totally better, but we're hopeful that she's on the way. There will be more birthdays, holidays, and special days. The only person disappointed about this one, was me, and I was just disappointed for Bean, who didn't know any better. When I stopped and took a step back to really look at it all, I realized how silly it all was and how blessed I am. As soon as Bean's feeling better, we'll have a special day just for her where we can do all of her favorite things. And hopefully this will be a reminder to me to forget about expectations and plans and just enjoy each day for what it is.