Happy Birthday Mister!

It's a crazy time of year for us in our house. Both of our boys have birthdays within a few days of each other, and both on the heels of Christmas. The one upside to all this craziness is that the after-Christmas sales make the birthday presents a little cheaper. But still, I feel like we just finished with Christmas and next thing I know we're smack in the middle of birthday month. 

Five years ago today our eldest son, Mister, was born. To say that I was petrified to become a mother for the first time is definitely an understatement. Growing up (and even in my adult years) I was never the girl who wanted to babysit kids. I would look at a cute baby or child and think "Oh, how cute" (assuming they were clean and being well-behaved), but I never really longed to hold one, let alone have one of my own. We got pregnant faster than we thought we would and so mentally I wasn't as prepared as I'd hoped to be, even after having 9 months to warm up to the idea. The first diaper I ever changed in my life was Mister's. Really. But I digress.....

Mister was born on Super Bowl Sunday. We were having a Superbowl get-together at our house that day, but I was feeling a little off. No contractions, but I'd been leaking amniotic fluid for a few days now so I decided to just go get checked out for a minute before the party. When I hopped on the table to be examined my water completely broke and I knew I'd be missing my party. And all the yummy food that I'd been saving up my apetite for. So I was starving because I hadn't eaten breakfast and then the nurses told me that all I could eat was Jell-O. Riiiiight, that went over well. A starving pregnant lady in labor. Imagine the scene. :) I had to be induced with pitocin after a while because I wasn't going into labor on my own and they were worried about infection since my water had been broken (or leaking) for over 2 days. At first it wasn't bad and Scott and I watched the game and played cards. Then.....it was TERRIBLE and I only made it to 3 1/2cm before I was begging for the epidural (the pitocin contractions were WAY more intense than the natural ones I had later when Pumpkin was born). It took hours and hours for me to even get to a 3 1/2 (I wasn't dilated at all when I got to the hospital), but once I got the epidural I shot to a 10 in 2 1/2 hours. After the epidural I got in a great nap until they told me it was time to push. Nearly an hour and a half later, Mister was born and our lives changed (definitely for the better) forever.

Everything happens in the Lord's timeframe and He sure knew what He was doing sending us our little Mister. He is such a blessing in our lives and in our family. As a baby he was soooo easy. He started sleeping through the night when he was 8 weeks old, and while he wasn't cuddly at all (he preferred to be left alone and got cranky if handled too much) he was very good at entertaining himself and interacting with us in lots of different games. Our daily lives didn't change too much after he was born. Yes, we had to work around nap times and bed times, but we were still able to do all the other things we loved. Dinners out? No problem, Mister was always quiet and well-behaved. Want to hit a bucket of balls at the driving range? Sure thing. Just put a few toys in the stroller with Mister and make sure he's out of the way. In the mood to browse the magazines and books at Barnes and Noble? You got it, just bring a few toys for the stroller and hang out for an hour or so. We were lucky and we knew it! :)

As with all toddlers, those were some pretty spicy years, and he's still got a fiery personality, but since he turned 4 last year he's really become such a pleasure to be around after coming through the other side of that tantrum-filled toddler phase. I still can't believe he's 5 years old. It's just going too too fast for me!

Mister is a very intense little boy in every sense of the word. He is intensely loving and sweet and makes your heart melt with his sweet words, hugs and kisses. He's intensely emotional. Both happy and sad - my mom calls him a "little Sarah Bernhardt". Yes, he has a flair for the dramatic. The other day he tripped an skinned his hands and knees and cried and cried for about 20 minutes insisting that we had to go to the skin store and buy new skin for his owies. He's very friendly, always trying to make new friends and getting sad when they don't always respond to his friendly advances.

He's very creative and is always coming up with the funniest stories and sayings. He's very protective of his little brother. Sure, he can torment and tease him himself, but if anyone else even looks at him wrong he's there to defend Pumpkin. He even went so far as to lay into a nurse who dared to give Pumpkin a shot while Mister was around. He sure let her have it! :) He's also very particular. He hates to be dirty (especially on his hands - he won't do finger painting or even eat sticky things like cinnamon rolls unless he either has a fork or unless someone will feed it to him), hates it when he spills things and is very particular about what types of foods he'll eat. For all his caution in this area, he's a total daredevil in others. He thinks nothing of being thrown super high in the air, cliff jumping from 10 foot cliffs into the water below (even though he doesn't know how to swim yet), and zooming down a the hill on skis even though he's never tried it before. We enrolled him in gymnastics classes to help him have a safe outlet for his daredevil tendencies and he's really enjoying it.

He's also very smart. He learns songs and school concepts really quickly. He knows a few movies by heart, it seems like. He loves "learning time". We do special workbook pages together to get him ready for kindergarten and he really enjoys the activities. He's getting much better at writing and recognizing his name and counting (loves those dot-to-dot activities). He loves going to preschool and absolutely cannot wait until he gets to go to kindergarten in the fall.

We love having Mister in our family so much and really can't imagine our lives without him. Heavenly Father sure knew what he was doing when he sent Mister to us. I can't wait to see how such an incredible child continues to develop and mature. He just keeps getting better and better. :) Happy 5th birthday Mister! We love you baby!