Happy Birthday Josh!

Today Josh turns nine! He's growing up so fast. It always boggles my mind every year when another birthday comes along. Didn't I just barely give birth? Where did the time go?

So in honor of Josh's birthday, here is a blog post all about Josh.

Josh is our firstborn. He's our guinea pig. :) Josh was born during a really hectic time in our lives. When we got married Shawn had four years of pharmacy school left to do. I'm a planner and I like my life to work out just the way I plan (yeah, right), so the plan was for me to work for four years while Shawn went to school and once he was done we would buy a house and start a family.

Two years into that plan we got two bits of unexpected news. First of all Shawn was informed that the college was sending us to Boise to do internships at the end his third year, which would be in May 2000. We had really hoped to do all four years of school in the college town we were living in, but for that fourth year everyone is required to do a year of internships and there weren't enough of them in that town so the school assigned people other places to go. There was no choice in the matter, we were moving to Boise in May.

As we were trying to absorb that bit of information and I was trying to figure out how I'd get a new job and where we'd live, we discovered some other unexpected news. I was pregnant! AND I due in May, right when we were told we'd have to move!

We had quite a few sleepless nights while we absorbed the fact that we were suddenly about to become parents AND move to Boise all at the same time. I was absolutely thrilled to be starting our family, but completely overwhelmed every time I tried to figure out the logistics of our sudden upcoming changes.

After much prayer and discussion, Shawn was able to delay our move until July, we found an apartment in Boise to live in and things worked themselves out.

Then all I had to do was focus on the fact that I had to give birth! :) I'm terrified of hospitals and anything even remotely medically related. I avoid the doctor like the plague. I remember crying to Shawn many times during my pregnancy that I had changed my mind, I wasn't going to give birth. Someone was going to have to come up with another solution, lol.

Overall I remember that time as a really fun, exciting time in our marriage though. We took the childbirth classes with a wacky instructor (who we still giggle about to this day), I read "What to Expect When You're Expecting" over and over and over, I had an absolute ball buying little tiny baby clothes and our favorite pasttime was watching my stomach move around. With all the flipping around that was happening we decided that Josh was going to be an acrobat. I still remember how fun that was.

The end of April came along and I was put on bedrest for Pre-eclampsia. I woke up one morning and my hands and feet were so swollen that I could barely walk or hold anything, so we called the doctor, I got checked out and I was sent home and told to stay in bed and not move unless I had to until my due date. I was due on May 23rd.

On May 4th I went in for a non-stress test, which I had to do twice a week because of the pre-eclampsia and when I went in they took my blood pressure and announced that I was being induced right that minute. Even on bedrest my blood pressure was way too high to continue the pregnancy.

The one thing I remember most about that day was that I couldn't eat!! I went in for the test early that morning and I didn't have time for breakfast so I figured I'd eat when I got home. Only I never WENT home, I went to labor and delivery instead and when I got there they told me that I couldn't eat until I gave birth. I remember being really hungry that day. lol

For as terrified as I was about giving birth, I actually have really good memories of that day. There was pain involved, of course, but I don't remember that part so much anymore. What I do remember is really nice nurses, I remember reading a lot of magazines and I remember how completely excited Shawn and I were. We were ready to see our baby!

They started the medication to induce me at about 9am on May 4th and I was in labor for an extremely looong time. The day went on and on and on and finally around midnight I was almost ready to deliver.

What I remember most about that night is this. When I went over my birth plan with the doctor beforehand, I told him that I absolutely did not want anyone in the room that didn't absolutely have to be there. I'm not the kind of person that wants my entire family, my best friends and the janitor in there watching me give birth.

But when the time came it was close to midnight, I was totally high on lack of sleep and adreneline and all my big ideas went out the window. I was the only person in labor that night and all the nurses on the floor were bored. One of them stuck her head in to see if she could come in and watch and I surprised everyone by inviting her and every nurse on the floor in for the party.

And it was a party! We had so much fun! All the nurses were making a big fuss and we were making bets on what time he'd be born and we were discussing his name and how much we thought he'd weigh...I'll always remember how much fun it was with all those nurses in there.

After a very long day, Josh finally made his appearance on May 5th at 1:24 in the morning. I will never forget what it was like to look at him for the first time. My baby. He was perfect. I remember how special that moment was for me and Shawn. It was one of those moments that will be in my heart forever.

Josh arrived three weeks early, weighing 6lb 9oz. He was skinny and tiny and he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I learned a great thing about Shawn that day. Shawn had been telling me since we got married that he was scared of babies. He was the youngest child in his family, he didn't have younger cousins or anything and he'd never been around babies in his life. He didn't have the slightest idea what to do with one. He stressed about that a lot when I was pregnant.

What I learned when Josh was born is that Shawn was born to be a dad. For someone who had never held a baby before, Shawn was fantastic right from the start. He changed the first diaper and he handled Josh like he'd been doing it for a million years. Ever since that day Shawn has been an incredible hands on dad. He's superdad in my eyes.

So we took Josh home and became a family of three. I won the baby jackpot when I had that kid. Josh is a joy every day of my life. He's hysterically funny, he's freakishly smart and he's incredibly sweet and soft hearted.

Here are 10 facts about Josh:

1. He has been an extremely early riser since the time he was born. He's definitely a morning person, sometimes getting up as early as 5:30. He likes the quiet in the morning. He starts his day before the rest of us get up.

2. He loves to build things with Legos. He doesn't like building the kits though. Every time he gets a kit he takes all the pieces and builds something else with them. He has come up with all kind of great creations!

3. He loves art, especially the work of Vincent Van Gogh. When he was in Kindergarten they did a little lesson on Vincent Van Gogh (he goes to an art based magnet school, so those types of things are a common part of the curriculum) and while the other kids forgot all about him and moved on to something else the next week, Josh was officially a fan of Van Gogh. He would bring home books from the library about the life and works of Van Gogh and for Christmas that year the thing he wanted more than anything for Christmas was a framed Van Gogh print. It was the most expensive gift he got from Santa that year and it's still hanging over his bed. At the moment he's doing a report for school on the life on Van Gogh.

4. He loves to draw comics. He has a whole series of them that he's been working on for ages.

6. He loves computers (he's definitely my child!) and he's always working on a computer project of some sort. He likes to make videos with his digital camera and then he narrates them and turn them into movies with Windows Movie Maker. We've enjoyed many of his masterpieces!

7. One of my favorite early memories of Josh was that his first word was Hi and when he was a baby he used to say hi to EVERYONE. We would go to the grocery store and he would wave and say hi to everyone like he was the grand marshall of a parade. lol

8. One of my favorite things about Josh is how kind he is to people. He's very soft hearted and he's always the first person to give someone a hug when they're sad.

9. He loves animals. We've enjoyed learning about the birds in our tree together and we really bonded over the ducks in our yard.

10. Josh loves to talk! He starts talking as soon as he gets up, he talks all day and he talks in his sleep. Life is never boring when Josh is around!

So today I celebrate one of the biggest blessings in my life. Our family wouldn't be the same without Josh in it, and my life wouldn't be nearly as fun. Today as I remember what was happening in my life nine years ago it makes me smile. I didn't know then what a joy and a blessing Josh was going to be in my life. I can't comprehend my life without him in it. I love you, Josh!