Well, it feels oddly quiet at our place now that the troops have departed after a busy, and love-filled weekend celebrating my son's first birthday. After the party wrapped up yesterday, we still had my mother, as well as my brother, sister-in-law, and their daughter (my niece, duh), Audrey, stay the night. Mom took off around 10 this morning, but Jeff & Dashka stayed most of the day, because they're are headed to Cuba this evening for a week at a beach resort (unfair, right? Yeah, I think so, too.) Anyway, their flight had been delayed repeatedly, so we just hung out, ate a lot, played video games (Sonic, anyone?!) and reveled in seeing our children bond. I really wish, especially after such a great visit, that we lived close enough to make days like today happen more often. The distance makes it tough to see eachother regularly. My heart felt so full having them here. Anyway, so the hours passed, and they ended up leaving to catch an 8:10 flight. Unfortunately, I just got a call from my brother, saying that it's been pushed back yet again, this time to 10:50 tonight. I feel so bad for them - and they're doing this all with their 16 month old in tow... makes me kind of glad our tentative plans to tag along with them fell through weeks ago...
Well, I've gone and started at the end for some reason. Let's straighten things out a little here... okay, the weekend got off to a bit of the rocky start. I woke up early with Luke and Owen yesterday, with plans to prepare all the food, and finish some last minute cleaning jobs before company started to arrive. Little did I expect that I would get hit with an ocular migraine that would knock me on my butt for the majority of the morning. It started innocently enough with me just seeing a bit of a light halo, like when you look at a bright light and then look away and you can still see the light's "aura"... but it wouldn't go away. That halo slowly became bigger and more colourful, and I also started to see heatwave-looking zig-zags coming off of my husband (because he's just that hot, perhaps?), and feeling a little unsteady on my feet. I lay down and closed my eyes for a while, which seemed to help, but soon I felt the all-too-familiar rush of numbness shoot through my left arm. I've had enough migraines in my life to know that numbness leads nowhere good, and sure enough, it moved to my cheek, my gums and my tongue within minutes. I jumped up and, like a woman on fire, started to do the few things that I certainly wouldn't be able to do once the pain set in, like brush my teeth and shower. I ran to the bathroom with my eyes closed, arms flailing, feeling for walls and doors and turned on the tap. No water. I called to Luke, who reminded me that we only had hot water, because our cold pipe froze overnight (it apparently reached a low of 30 below zero that night), and would take a couple of hours to thaw. I was so stressed out that my company was going to start arriving and I would still be in bed, with greasy hair, wearing ratty pajamas... not to mention that none the the food would be ready, and I was trusting my husband to finish all the other housework that totally required two of us to accomplish. Thank my lucky stars, Owen decided to be a complete angel, and he pretty much played happily in his crib while Luke frittered away at the various tasks. I popped as many ibuprofin as was safe and jumped into my bed to ride the migraine out.
I don't know if someone was looking out for me, or if I just managed to get ahead of it, but when I woke up around 10:30 to the sound of my sister arriving, the pain that had started earlier seemed to have faded almost completely away. The migraine didn't end up materializing like I've experienced before. Whatever the reason or method, I got super-lucky, and over the next hour I improved all the way back to normal.
Unfortunately, we still didn't have cold water in the bathroom, so my sister washed my hair the kitchen sink, and I managed to get myself dressed and throw on some makeup before anyone else arrived. My mom and Luke's parents showed up soon after I was decent and were kind enough to help me get the food all set up, while others continued to arrive and start chatting in the living room. I feel like I made such a narrow escape. I was fully expecting to spend my son's first birthday party in bed, hiding under the covers, coming out only to be sick and then slide back under again. I'm so thankful that I was able to recover so quickly and completely and could enjoy spending such a special day with my son and all my closest family.
So, everything got back on track and we had a great party. We laughed and ate, and took an obscene number of pictures of Owen doing cute birthday things - playing with balloons, unwrapping gifts, devouring the cake my best friend, Katy, so sweetly made for him. People came and went casually, as their schedules and highway driving conditions dictated, so we never had more than 12 people here at one time. It worked out quite well that way, as no one had trouble finding somewhere to sit, and it never got too overwhelming for the birthday boy.
I can't believe it's been a year since Owen entered the world. In some ways it feels like it should be way longer ago that I gave birth to him - I feel like I've known him my whole life. On the other hand, though, when I look at how big he is and how many milestones he has hit, I marvel at how little time as really passed. It's quite shocking how much has happened in just one year. It has been the hardest, most emotional, most thrilling and educational way to spend a year, and I am the luckiest person to not only have survived it (which, believe me, should count for something!!!), but I get to continue on learning and loving with the most precious little boy in the world.
I'm grateful to have such a closely knit family to celebrate such a special day with. I know my son is incredibly loved at times like this.
Happy Birthday Owen. :)
