the monday snapshot – Emma

I am so excited to be featured in this week’s Monday Snapshot. I was worried I wouldn’t have anything interesting to share when my week rolled around, but I’m happy to say that wasn’t the case!

My little boy, G, will be one on Wednesday. For the last 12 months I have gone back and forth about throwing a birthday party for him. When we found out we’d be moving into a house in time for his first birthday, I decided to go for it.

The party was on Saturday, three weeks after officially moving into our new house. We had to move boxes to vacant bedrooms and into the garage. At the last-minute, we found out friends of ours would need to crash at our place with their two kids so there was a lot of laundry to be done so they’d have sheets and blankets that didn’t smell musty. I knew I was crazy for throwing a party less than a month after moving, but waiting until April also sounded crazy. I have social anxiety issues; if I was going to do something like this I wanted to get it out-of-the-way sooner rather than later.

My rule for this party: Do.Not.Stress.Out. Not enough food? Order a pizza. Boxes piled up in corners? Meh, we just moved, what should people expect. This party is for a soon-to-be one year old. He doesn’t understand what opening presents means. He doesn’t understand what it means when a bunch of people show up and start playing with his toys. He doesn’t care if I get red balloons or blue. He doesn’t care about a theme. He doesn’t understand that a birthday can be a big deal. So I figured why worry?

I decided to try something that a friend of mine did for her daughter’s first birthday: in lieu of gifts for the birthday kid, bring an item to donate to the NICU.

G spent about four days in the NICU for sepsis and jaundice after he was born and I was not in the right mental state to thank the nurses and doctors in that unit the way I’d have liked, especially a particular doctor and nurse. I hate that I haven’t found the time to send a note or do something to let them know how much I appreciated their help and support during those days. We were fortunate enough to have a full term baby and have all the things we needed for him. Other families don’t get that luxury and find themselves with a baby sooner than expected. When your baby is in the NICU, hooked up to tubes and wires, the last thing you are thinking about is going out shopping for it. By setting up a donation box, we could help out other families who needed it. Something I want G to learn about and practice as he gets older.

Though I asked our guests to bring an item to donate in lieu of a gift for G, many of them did anyway. I opted not to open them at the party (more for my sanity than anything else), so we have been opening a few a day; mostly when G seems interested in poking around the pile.

But! Everyone bought an item to donate, some of them brought several. We collected quite a stash and I honestly can’t wait to take everything to the hospital when I am back in my home town next month.