So Isaac is officially 11. His big present was Beats headphones. He wanted red, we pre-ordered red and picked up a box marked red from Best Buy only to have him open the box and discover that they were pink (well to be fair, sort of a reddish pink). I wanted to exchange them but apparently pink is cool now and he was totally fine keeping them. I was upset that we didn't get what we ordered and kept questioning if he was sure he didn't want us to take them back. This caused Ryan to make me feel like a bad feminist for making Isaac feel like he couldn't be just as happy with pink.
Isaac had his birthday party this past weekend at a local family fun center with go karts, bumper cars, laser tag and arcade games. I was not exactly looking forward to it, but it actually was incredibly painless. We only had 7 boys which was a manageable number and our party hostess was great and literally took care of everything from corralling the boys through every activity to cutting the cake. This left Ryan free to entertain Hannah and I just sat at the table, took pictures and relaxed which was great.
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| You can barely see Hannah as a passenger in the go kart. |
Hannah was very excited for Isaac's party, although she kept saying "Come on Mommy! Let's go my pah-ty!" She was also a huge fan of the cake, which she also called a "pah-ty" and pulled it down off the counter trying to serve herself another slice.
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| The saran wrap saved it! |
(By the way, Costco is the place to go for cheap sheet cakes, twice as much cake for half as much money as any other bakery I looked at. As you can see we had tons leftover.)
We also left Hannah with my mom one night and went to a Sixers game with my dad. It used to be something we did every year for Isaac's birthday but we haven't gone the past few years. It was a treat for my dad to join us on a weeknight.
The Sixers ended up losing (as usual!), but it was a fun game. It is very rare that Ryan and I get to do something with just Isaac and not Hannah, so it was fun to sort of remember the way things used to be and really enjoy the game without having to worry about chasing a toddler around.
Ryan is still struggling with his health. At his latest appointment they said they would like him to consider having surgery to remove part of his colon. This was super scary and not what he wanted to hear but it seems that he has the most severe kind of ulcerative colitis and remission from his symptoms may not be in the cards without surgery. He is not really responding to any of the treatments that they have tried and he can't keep on taking these high doses of toxic medicines forever. The prednisone in particular makes him terrifically irritable, keeps him up most of the night and sends his blood sugar dangerously high. The good news is, once he has the surgery, he should get pretty immediate relief from his symptoms, feel energetic and more like himself and be able to return to life as we knew it before November. Essentially the surgery is a cure. Ryan has a few more appointments and then we will look at scheduling the surgery. I am hoping it doesn't fall too close to the time I am having the baby but making it work seems to be our theme as of late, so we will figure it out one way or another.
I haven't been very diligent in documenting this pregnancy. I made Ryan take a picture of me on Valentine's day before church (hence the pink tights) and Hannah then declared "Me too!" until we took a picture of her in the same spot. I am still not really prepared for baby #3 and kind of started hyper ventilating when the doctor told me I am ready to start scheduling every two week appointments because that means we are really in the home stretch. I had some Old Navy cash to spend and did get him a few things for spring.
I also picked up some new bottles at Babies R Us. Part of me wanted to give breastfeeding another go, but I decided that it is going to be hard enough to be outnumbered by our children, I don't think I can handle being the only source of food for a newborn round the clock. I never hear anyone talk about how overwhelming breastfeeding can be, but I found it took a serious toll on my mental health and well being to literally dread every time Hannah opened her eyes and I had to attempt to painfully latch her on. When I was trying to do it with Hannah breastfeeding was an all consuming obsession-- literally the only thing I could think or talk about. I won't have that luxury this time around with Ryan being (hopefully) back to work, a toddler to chase around and activities to shuttle Isaac to four nights a week. So anyways, I am trying not to feel guilty about formula feeding this baby from the get go, but I still sort of do. That's motherhood for you though. Always something to feel guilty about.
Hannah is talking up a storm. She cracks me up because whenever someone makes any sort of comment about smelling a smell, she will proudly say "It's me!" She also gets so excited about everything. The other day during dinner she excitedly shouted to me "Mommy! Daddy [gave] Hannah MEAT!" like it was the best thing in the world. She loves Minnie and Mickey but will only call Donald "Duck".
