let the planning begin...better yet, skip the planning and go straight to celebrating!

hayes, honey, when you're old enough to read these posts on your own and you come across this one....please come talk to me about the first year of your life, and i can guarantee that no matter how old i am, i will never forget the important details that will help better explain this post.

so, here we are...a few weeks away from your first birthday. while most will say, wow, has it already been a year?! i'm sitting here thinking, good heavens people, yes it's been a year!!! .... a very crazy, interesting, soul-searching, full of love, inspiring, down right dirty, awful, funny, stressful, amazing, growing, changing, gray hair inducing year. one year. we're almost there. and in my mind, i keep thinking about your first birthday and the planning that i need to begin in order to "pull it off" to meet my own expectations. yet, when thinking about this past year and the amazing struggles that we've overcome together, i think, why waste time planning....let's just celebrate!! let's celebrate your precious life and the joy that you bring to ours. let's celebrate that you've out grown your refux and colic. let's celebrate that your "swallowing mechanism" has matured. let's celebrate that your daddy and i are still married, and actually still love each other, despite the intenese year that we've had. let's celebrate the fact that i have nothing, NOT ONE THING, filled out in your baby book. i can't tell you AT ALL when you started sleeping through the night, rolling over, eating rice cereal, crawling, sitting up, smiling, jabbering, got your first tooth, or if i even witnessed any of the above when they were developing...but low and behold, you seem to be turning out okay. let's celebrate the fact that with much help and prayer, i have come out of my "fog" and am able to enjoy you every second of every day and actually thank god that there is so much about this year that i don't remember. and, yes, let's celebrate the fact that you are a thriving, generally happy, well fed "hayesie-poop" with eyes that melt my heart.

so, back to planning your party.....with the help of two of my friends who have gone through just about every struggle with you (or really, me) we've come up with this grand party idea....

a celebration of hayes' first year:

cake: one GIANT re-creation of your three times as expensive as most formulas, Allimentum

snacks for kid guests: personal bottles of compounded prevacid, that took exactly 72 hours to mix (regardless of our urgant need) and will expire in exactly 15 days, resulting in your friends having to spend another $250 per new bottle. so drink up quickly kids!!

snacks for adult guests: mcdonalds dr peppers, canned diet cokes, and package after package after package after package of store bought cookies....oreos, chocolate chip, peanut butter, etc. because these three things, dr pepper diet coke and cookies, have been necessary staples for me this year.

decorations: hospital bill receipts, pediatric co-pay receipts, band aids, saline spray, tylenol, thermometers, ear monitors, teething tablets, breathing treatment machines and masks, a sign that says "RSV: rediculously severe virus that will make you miserable for at least one month out of the year and then, guess what, as a result of catching it at such a young age, you get severe colds and possible asthma with each illness." (see again, pediatric co-pay receipts), and pictures...wait, ooops, those were never taken...so instead, we'll use drawings of our happy little family of four.

activities: cry. cry loud. cry for long periods of time. don't stop crying. oh, and eat. eat everything in sight, and in sight of your brother's plate, and in sight of the serving table, and....

party favors: each guest will leave with a play doctor kit, a bottle of hand sanitizer, gripe water, ear plugs and the name and number of the sweet pharmacist at the CVS drive-through who knows us pretty much by name.

what a party i have to plan! regardless of the theme that actually is chosen, we'll have MUCH to celebrate!!