New Year's Baby

My birthday is pretty close to Christmas, November 28. It always sucked as a kid to have a birthday within a month of Christmas. You got kind of half-assed presents sometimes, with the explanation that the bigger present would be at Christmas. Plus my birthday is always within a week of Thanksgiving so our family is usually traveling and preparing a big meal and otherwise preoccupied. The years it's on Thanksgiving aren't necessarily the worst, just the least celebrated. At least when I was a kid I'd get a candle in the pumpkin pie. This year I got a couple "Oh yeah, happy birthday!"s from my family. So I always said I didn't want to have a baby near Christmas.

And then three years ago, I gave birth on New Year's Day. Poor kid.

Asher's too young to resent it yet but I have a feeling when he gets older it'll be a bit of an annoyance to him. I mean, he could have some awesome parties for New Years/birthday, but it's not QUITE the same.

I'll probably always feel guilty about wanting to go out and do something on New Year's Eve since that means I'll be up and celebrating something other than his birthday at midnight, but I'm sure he won't really care. The last two years, I was with him by myself (well, Elijah was there last year but he was three months old.) In 2012, He was too little to stay at Mom's party so I came home alone while Austin and his parents stayed at the party. Last year Mom didn't have her party and Austin was out of town.

I remember 3 years ago being enormous and uncomfortable and irritable and just ready to not be pregnant anymore. Not necessarily ready to be a mom, just not to be pregnant. I was so sure he was going to be born any day the whole month of December, when I woke up January 1st still very pregnant, I was understandably dismayed. So I took some castor oil about noon and popped a baby out before 11 that night. Screaming and bleeding and pains and joys and tears went into the process and when it was all done, I had this tiny little perfect boy that I was wholly, terrifyingly responsible for. The last three years have been an adventure, learning how to feed him properly, dress him properly, buckle in the car seat properly and more. And in spite of our mistakes, he's a good kid. He love us (most of the time) and his brother (slightly less but still most of the time), he's mostly obedient, we're only hitting the terrible twos now, and he's polite, which I'm proud of.

So on New Year's Eve, when everyone else is celebrating another trip around the sun for the planet, I'll be celebrating another trip around the sun for my firstborn, and hoping he has way more of them ahead of him than I do.