Happy 4th Birthday, Zachary!

My little buddy turns 4 today!

We started celebrating yesterday with a special playdate with a favorite friend from school.  We spent a couple of hours bouncing and running and jumping and climbing and sliding at Monkey Joe's, ate lunch there (pizza, popcorn, hot dogs, etc).  Then it was off to the comic shop to let each kid pick out a comic book. 



Then we came home for a little down time before our birthday dinner at Texas Roadhouse. It isn't my favorite place to celebrate. I like the food but it's loud and they aren't able to really handle groups larger than 6 or 7. So our group of 9 had to sit at 2 booths across from each other. But we all went to Target for Icees afterwards and that was much more accomodating. Zach chose Texas Roadhouse because he wanted to sit in the saddle and have everyone say "Yeehaw!" for him.

He chose Icees for his dessert and his playdate that morning had given him a birthday card with a Target gift card in it. After our dessert, we let him pick out his present from his friend. We also let him pick out his present from us (yeah- not my proudest Mommy moment). From his friend, he got a Captain America off road vehicle sort of thing. Zach was very excited to go through a separate check out lane and hand the cashier his gift card to pay for it. We got him a Spiderman sleeping bag. It was a good day.

And today is his birthday. We have church this morning, he will choose our lunch spot (my guess is Steak N Shake), and then my mom is coming to spend the afternoon (and my dad might be coming, too). It's going to be a good day.

I keep remembering his birth. The Colts were playing Monday Night Football. I had been busy doing chores and stuff with Teagan right up until kick off. I went to sit down right at kick off and.... my water broke! That hadn't happened with Teagan (they broke it in the labor process in the hospital) so it kinda freaked me out. No, it wasn't like a jar pf pickles kind of spill. It was like a little leak of pee. Spent the night in labor, rarely resting. Spent the next morning in labor, rarely resting. The epidural was a nightmare that resulted in me cussing like a sailor, I was stuck about 7 times, had a bad reaction that was very scary to one of the sticks... it was awful and it really exhausted me. As I recall it, Zach was born in the early afternoon. He came out and screamed and I was so exhausted that the first visual I had of him with his huge screaming mouth almost made me cry right along with him. But he nursed like a champ from the word go. And after that big scream at birth- which I think was really his anger at being evicted from my womb- he didn't cry again for 10 weeks. I'm not making that up.

One of the biggest changes in the year behind us is that he has moved out of Teagan's shadow at school. Last year, it was Teagan's school and Zach started going there. Now Teagan has moved on and it is Zach's school and he has really blossomed in that regard. He is creative and silly and wild at times. He is smart and funny and adorable.

Happy Birthday, Buddy!