Ian turns five today.

After spending Monday at the hospital with Mike and Maren, I have been thinking a lot about all of my births. In some ways it just feels like yesterday that I became a parent for the first time. I remember all of my births very vividly. I know it might sound crazy, but I really did enjoy all of them. Of course, there were parts that I didn’t enjoy, but overall I had 3 really great natural childbirths.

Since today is Ian’s birth day, I went back and read his birth story. You can read it here if you are interested. I wish I had posted more pictures. I was blogging then, but I just didn’t include very many photos with my posts. Maybe I’ll have to go back and add some soon.

Ian’s birth was definitely the most exciting of all of my births. I can still remember the last car ride to Salt Lake like it was yesterday. I still think back and wonder why I wasn’t more persuasive with my midwife Marcia. I knew that I shouldn’t be sent home. I know that I should have stood my ground and told her I wanted to stay. But, I guess that is why they say hindsight is 20/20. Still, that was without a doubt the worst trip to Salt Lake we have ever taken. It was dark and snowing. And I was using every ounce of energy I had to hold him in. I was so relieved when we finally got there. I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough. One push and his head was out.

But once he was in my arms, all of that was forgotten. I remember just laying there staring at him. I felt like he and I were the only ones in the room. I held his hand and rubbed his back. Before long he wanted to nurse…..and nurse and nurse and nurse.

Since then he has grown so fast. I can’t believe that he turns five today. He continues to be full of energy. His intensity is challenging at times, for me and his teachers. But he is such a charmer. He looks at you with the cutest little smile, and he could almost get away with anything. He is such a smart little guy. He started talking amazingly well at two, and his vocabulary has continued to grow.

In April he started reading. I was so surprised! He had been watching Emma and he wanted to try too. I got him some simple books and he just sat down and started reading. We have been working on his writing skills. It is just hard to get him to sit still long enough to focus on it. He can write his name and most of his letters, he just needs more practice. Right now he loves anything to do with Star Wars and Transformers. I think that he has every Transformer there is! He knows how to transform all of them. Some of them are so complicated that I can’t even do them. Many times he has to show me how to do them.

We are having a family party tonight at Chuck E Cheese, and he will have a party for some of his friends on Saturday. Today we had his birthday celebration at school. You can read a great post about the Montessori birthday celebration on my friend Vicky’s blog. It was really sweet, and he was over the moon about the whole thing. He told everyone he saw that today was his birthday.

Happy birthday my big Five year old. You bring a lot of joy to all of our lives!