9 Years Ago...

... I became a mother when Kelvin was born. Here's the birth story that I wrote 6 years ago and that I probably should edit one of these days. In fact, I never finished writing the continuation of Kelvin's birth story because in order to do that, I'd have to revisit some of my darkest moments.

Everything worked out just fine in the end, but the despair (exacerbated by the "baby blues") I felt during moments of that first week after Kelvin was born was just unbearable. In a nutshell: he was severely jaundiced and I had trouble breastfeeding him. I had to pump exclusively while "finger-feeding" him (and later using an SNS) for a whole month before he finally learned to latch-on. Phew! Happy ending. And those of you reading for a long time know that I only weaned him (from once a day quick feeding, I must say) the week after his 4th birthday.

Well... this is not what I was planning to write today, but I might as well start with that, since I've been planning to write about it for the past 6 years.

Apart from those troubles, becoming a mother was the most wonderful thing that ever happened in my life and I'm delighted that my son is such a fun, smart, unique person (like all other children in this world, I must say) and I'm really thankful to have him in my life.

My geeky boy's first words this morning (with his eyes still closed) when we went to wake him up to "Happy Birthday to you..." were: "There are 366 days until my next birthday, because next year is a leap year." I had to laugh and go up and kiss him. Very very "Kelvin!"

This year we were organized (and Spring Break helped), so this is the surprise we had waiting for him downstairs:

He was surprised indeed! It's still a little too big for him, but since he's been only riding my bicycle lately instead of his smaller bike, I thought it would be a good thing to get him.

Later that morning I frosted countless cupcakes and took them to his school where his and his brother's class enjoyed them (I'd made enough for Pre K-K too, but they were already having recess by the time I got there). Take a look:

This was Kelvin's:

In the shape of a 9:

Both the chocolate and the vanilla cupcakes are vegan, I took the recipe from the Vegan Lunchbox book.

The plan is to have a bowling party in two weeks, but we haven't hammered down the details. In any case, I have yet to post in this blog about his "Space" party back in 2009 and last year's "8" cakes, so I will try to do that in the next few days to continue celebrating Kelvin's 9th birthday.

I can't believe he'll be 10 next year! I want to share some more baby photos of him later too. Happy birthday Kelvin! You'll always be my first "baby!" I love you more than anything in the world.