Slight Change of Plans

Here's what I had planned for today:

1. Drop Baby off at "school."
2. Pick up some coffee from Starbucks.
   
3. Come home. Lie on couch and watch television.
4. Go for a run.
5. Have a long shower, a pedicure, lunch.
6. Read and respond to emails.
7. Watch more television.
8. Pick up Baby.
9. Relax with Baby and The Mr.
10. Freshen up a bit.
11. Head out for yummy dinner.

Here's what today has looked like so far:

1. Wake at 3:15am to puking baby.
2. Change sheets (actually the Mr. did this part), clean up Baby and self.
3. Go back to bed for another few hours.
   
4. Email baby's school to let them know he wouldn't be attending today.
5. Do puke laundry.
6. Try to coax baby into drinking some Pedialyte.
   
7. Make baby toast. Make self toast.
8. Change runny poop diaper.
   
9. Dress baby.
10. Dress self.
11. Try to coax baby into drinking some Pedialyte.
12. Clean kitchen.
13. Change runny poop diaper.
    
14. Chase baby around house.
15. Try to coax baby into drinking some Pedialyte.
16. Chase baby around backyard.
17. Read and reply to about 1/2 of emails while baby plays with the Mr.'s computer.
18. Have a mediocre roast beef and cheese sandwich.
    
19. Finally give in and let baby have 3 ounces of soy milk because he will not stop reaching for the refrigerator and whining.
20. Pray for no soy puke.
21. Put baby down for nap.
22. Hear baby wake from nap. Change HUGE runny poop diaper.
23. Wipe down changing table with disinfectant. Spray baby's room with Oust. Start a load of diarrhea laundry.
    
24. It's only 3:30? Geez...
    

So, yeah, things haven't gone quite the way they were planned. And isn't that always how it is with babies?

My mother and I have been exchanging emails for most of yesterday and today. The Mr. and Al and I are going to have dinner with her and my stepdad tomorrow night. It's a tradition: Every year around this time, we get together for dinner, and my mom tells the story of my birth. She tells how she was in labor with me for 18 hours, how her regular doctor wasn't on call that night, and that if it hadn't been for "Dr. Buddy" (I shit you not, his first name was Buddy), we both probably would have died that night. Yesterday, she sent me an email with the play-by-play of that day 36 years ago. Things didn't go the way she planned that day and night. But isn't that always how it is with babies?

Today is my birthday. I love my birthday. I have never been and I don't think I ever will be one of those women who wants to forget or ignore the day. And now that I am a mother, my own mother's story about the day I was born means even more to me. I can begin to understand the enormity of what she feels for my brother and me and how my birthday--her anniversary of becoming a mother--is special to her.

Today I planned to be self-absorbed and lazy. I have been neither (although one could argue that blogging is an exercise in self-absorption). That is just fine by me.