Calder's Birth Day

Slowly, ever so slowly, your birthdays are becoming less and less tinged with bad memories.  Another mom of a preemie wrote a really good post about the conflicting emotion of birthdays.  Even though Calder was born a lot later than her boy and I cannot imagine what her NICU stay was like some of the emotion still rings true for us.

Read about it here:  http://www.lifewithjack.com/2012/04/bittersweet-birthdays.html

Calder's first year was full of long, long, long feedings and pumping and nebulizer treatments and hospital visits, RSV isolation, nights of not sleeping due to croup and making sure Calder's head was in the right position so that he could breath.   We did not have a first birthday party for him.  We did not even think about it.  And while we celebrated his first year of life and were so incredibly thankful for our sweet boy, his first birthday passed with nebulizer treatments and a few gifts.  His second birthday arrived and we did have a party but it took a lot to convince me to do it.  Calder's birth day was still pretty fraught with emotion.  Calder's days were still full of nebulizer treatments and Physical Therapy.  Shane and I were both not sleeping.  I was feeding Lincoln and he was up every hour with Calder who had croup.  Again.  A party just seemed like a lot....too much.   But we did it because with the new baby we thought Calder needed his chance to shine. 

This year feels a little better.  Still not great....but slowly eeking towards better.  Calder hasn't been sick for a while.  He loves playing with other kids.  And he is aware of his birthday.  He knows it is a special day.  And we need to celebrate that.

Tomorrow I will do a post of all the great things Calder does at three.  We think he is amazing.   For now, I am going to enjoy the day and spend time with our little three year old.