Thirty-Five!

Today is my 35th birthday. The big 3-5. At 30 I felt so young and vibrant, and now a mere 5 years later, I feel old and tired! Boy has my life come a long way since my 30th birthday. Five years ago today, I woke up in a hotel in St. Louis Missouri, having been flown there to see Coldplay the night before as the birthday surprise to end all birthday surprises. Jordan and I had one of the most memorable weekends of our lives. Things were good at 30. We had just bought our first home. We had careers we were proud of. I was days away from finding out I was pregnant with Rio. We were footloose and fancy free, ready to make the next step in starting a family. Here I am tap dancing in front of St. Louis' Gateway Arch to prove it:

Fast forward five years. That footloose and fancy free girl is now a mother of three. Instead of waking up in a hotel room in another country, I woke up at 4:50 am, a good hour earlier than usual, because Asher was fussing. Jordan went in to soothe him and came out with some words I was dreading hearing: "They're sick". Not the best birthday present. Sure, they probably just have colds, but there are no "just colds" for us this fall/winter, because every illness has potential of landing us in the hospital. So Jordan promptly fell back asleep till his alarm went off at 5:45 and I lay there worrying. I got up when Jordan went to work so I could start feeding the boys, who were again fussing. 90% of the way through Asher's bottle he choked on a combo of snot and milk and managed to projectile vomit the entire thing all over me, and then some. Poor little guy - he throws up a lot but I have never seen his entire body convulse like that. 5 minutes later he was totally fine but I was really shaken...and soaked. 

Got the boys and myself cleaned up and decided that since it was now almost 7, I should start baking. Crazy you might think, but I think everyone deserves a good birthday breakfast, even if you have to make it yourself. There was no time for a "real" breakfast because of our morning plans, so fresh baked scones it was. I put them in the oven and climbed back into bed, just as Rio was waking.

Snuggles for a bit then I got up to start preparing for our morning jaunt to Rio's swim lessons. It was my first time taking the three kids somewhere alone that required me to be on time. Bit stressful. Of course everything took longer than I planned and I left the house much later than I had hoped, but we managed to get there in one piece. In fact I seemed to be the only one a little worse for wear.

Next was lunch out that I had promised Rio. I originally wanted to go to the cupcake place but she wanted to go to the pirate place, so I conceded, given it's next door to the pool. We wolfed our meals down while Nolan yelled and Asher stared. Mostly successful.

Now we're home, the boys are fed, and everyone is in bed. Although between the yelling from one end of the house and the singing from the other, it doesn't appear anyone is sleeping. Thankfully Jordan is home in a few hours with promises of take out dinner and cake so hopefully I can relax a bit then.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids to death and wouldn't rather spend the day with anyone else...but the contrast between jet setting across the continent to a concert and washing projectile vomit off myself...what an amazing journey these five years have been! 

Happy 35th Birthday to me - I guess it's not that old...at least I'll convince myself of that!