Happy Birthday Jayce!

My Little Snuggle-Bug is now 2 years old!!  I can't believe it!  My how time flies.  We just had a quiet birthday at home, just the 4 of us.  It was nice not to have to plan a big party.  Here is some pictures from our evening of cake, ice cream and presents:

Birthday Boy!

Riley got to help blow out the candles

Loving his Strawberry Cake!

Showing us he's "2"

Presents!!!  He got a Drum from Riley...

Color Wonder stuff, a book and stickers from the Sandstrums...

Pull back racing cars from G & G Louie

And a Plasma Car from Mommy and Daddy!!

Mommy and the Birthday Boy!

Also, I promised more pictures of Amara's room.  So here's the mural:

Cherry Blossoms on the south wall

Name above the closet

We have more put together now than when I took these pictures, but I haven't taken any new ones.  There's still some pictures and such I want to get on the walls, so I'll probably wait until then to get more.  But it's all ready for her!  Now we are just waiting.  And let me tell you, I'm getting impatient!!  lol Last Thursday I was still at 2 cm, so the doctor stripped my membranes in order to speed things up a little.  Not sure if it worked, but still no baby as of yet.  I have another appointment tomorrow (Tuesday), my last one before the induction on Saturday.  I'm hoping she'll do another membrane sweep.  I'm still having contractions, mostly in the evenings and through the night, but no progression in them.  Which is typical for me.  I've had to have pitocin to move my contractions into doing something with both Riley and Jayce, so that's nothing out of the ordinary.  I guess I was just hoping that like with Jayce my water would break so that we could get things moving!  At this rate I may just have to count on that induction date! 

The good news: today is Daddy's last day of work for the YEAR!!  There's been some confusion as to how much paternity leave his work will give him, so he saved up 4 vacation days in order to get two fulls weeks off between Christmas and New Years (thankfully that was all that was needed with the already scheduled holidays off).  But with his new boss coming in just a few weeks ago they were able to nail down exactly what he would get . . . the good news: His new boss said "Don't use your vacation days for that - I'll give you a full week off!!"  So yay!!  That means he's taking his vacation days this week in order to use them up and so he gets the rest of the week off, plus the next couple after you figure in the 5 days for paternity leave!  YAY!!!  We are so happy to have Daddy home!  It will be nice to have an extra set of hands around the house for a little while.  And that means I won't have to call him home from work if Amara decides to come sooner rather than later this week! 

One more thing I wanted to talk about this week.  The horrible tragedy that will forever over-shadow Jayce's birthday.  The last thing I wanted when I woke up Friday morning was to hear that 20 children and 6 adults had been shot dead solely because they went to school that morning.  Even worse was the fact that I learned of the devastation only minutes before it was time to drop Riley off at Kindergarten.  I sat struggling for minutes trying to decide what to do.  I knew that Riley wouldn't understand why I had kept him home, and would possibly be mad at me for it (he was "Star of the Week" last week and Friday was the day he got to share pictures and stories all about himself with his classmates), and I knew deep down that he was truly safe there.  The teacher-side of me reasoned that his teacher would do everything in her power (just as all the educators that day did) to keep him safe, but the heart-broken parent in me wanted to just keep him by my side where I could be the one keeping him safe and not have to place that burden on someone else.  I ended up letting go, knowing that if I didn't then I may never be able to.  But it was not easy to watch him walk through the gate that day.  But picking him up made it that much better.  He was full of smiles, without a care in the world, so proud of himself for sharing with his friends.  It took everything I had to hold back tears that day looking into his eyes and knowing that they were the same innocent, unknowing, and non-judgemental eyes that a horrible man had snuffed out only hours before.  Only now, days later, am I able to look at Riley without picturing those children with his face, in his classroom, with his teacher.  I don't know if that's because the news has released pictures and now I can put a face to the innocence of a 6-7 year old instead of using my own son as an example, or just because I'm accepting the fact that it wasn't him.  Either way, my heart still aches for those families, both of the children and the adults who gave their lives protecting the children.  Every teacher I know (and I know a lot of teachers!!) would have done the same thing that day to try and save lives.  I am forever grateful that they did just that, and that more lives weren't lost.  My prayers continue to include them as well as the survivors, because I know that this tragedy will never leave them either.  I have many more opinions on the subject, from the mental health aspect to the politics of gun control, but I won't discuss them here.  I just wanted to record my thoughts from that horrific time so that I will always remember the Day my Youngest Son turned 2 . . . in it's fullest.  It wasn't easy that evening to celebrate given all the tears shed, but I'm glad there is a happy reason for that day, at least in our family.  It will be nice to celebrate life every year on that day, instead of remembering death.