This will be short and sweet today because we are having a birthday party here tonight which means I have to actually clean the house. And bake a cake. In addition to all that other stuff.
It’s a measure of just how crazy things are around here that poor William turned 11 on March 5 and had to wait until tonight to have his party. And just a family party at that (which translates to probably 16 of us). [update: this being the year 2021, tomorrow we will host the family for a socially-distanced driveway event. William’s 19th birthday in 2020 was actually the last time our whole family gathered together for an indoor celebration. We talked about the virus and how some people were even suggesting families should not gather and at the time we thought it was over the top and could not imagine such a thing being necessary.]
So today, in honor of my baby boy, I will post TEN INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT WILLIAM.
1. William weighed 13 pounds and 5 ounces at birth and was 24 inches long. He was my first vaginal delivery after three C-sections. All three local news stations interviewed us, and the story was picked up nationally. I got emails from all over the country. Later one of the clips somehow ended up in an episode of Animal Planet entitled “Extreme Births.”
2. William is an extremely picky eater. I guarantee you that he is pickier than your picky eater. His favorite food is “the rolls at the Great American Steak and Buffet.” [which is sadly now defunct . . . his favorite now is probably Asian.]
3. William loves animals. “I love all God’s creatures,” he once opined as a small child. I think he has become a bot more discriminating since–he hates hippos and pigs, he told me today. But by far, his favorite animal is the cat. [update: William no longer hates hippos or pigs and would probably deny he ever said such a thing. His favorite animals are Felidae, Crocodilians, and Hyaenidae, in that order.]
4. William is obsessed with Aliens, or as they are apparently correctly called, xenomorphs. All he wanted for Christmas was Kenner alien toys from the 1990s.
5. William hates everything to do with school, even homeschooling. [and now online college]
6. William loves to play on the computer. He loves Roblox, and he creates awesome stick figure movies. He also spends a lot of time watching YouTube reviews of toys he hopes to get. [and these days researching politics, animals, mythology, and many other interests]
7. William is VERY stubborn. If he doesn’t want to do something, he pretty much won’t.
8. William owns a Roomba. It is a prized possession that he wanted for years, and inherited from his great-grandmother.
9. William and Lorelei play very well together. She is happy to follow his lead about the kind of games they play.
10. William hates shoes. We just went shoe shopping to replace the battered Crocs he had been wearing for months, and it was agonizing.
In his Daddy’s heirloom dress for his first trip to Mass–about one week old.
On the beach at Tybee Island this summer
Wow, a baby who outweighed my record-breaker! My third baby was 12 pounds, 3 ounces, and we were celebrities in the hospital for a while. People from radiology kept showing up to get a peek at “the giant baby” (he was my second VBAC and broke a collarbone coming out, so needed an x ray). Kudos to you, mom!
Thanks, Karen! We grow them big around here. I also had 11.5, 12, and 11 pounders. Sounds like you had a difficult birth!
I’d rather repeat that birth–actually, I pushed less with him than I had with my first (ended in a C section, 10 pounds) or my second (VBAC, vacuum extraction, pushed for three hours), and my transition lasted less than an hour. HIs head came out fine, they just needed to manuever me to get his shoulders out. I didn’t even tear. Weird.
meant to say, I’d rather repeat the 12 pound birth with shoulder dystocia than my c section! My brain isn’t working so well today.
William’s birth was very difficult. I pushed for two hours I think and tore both externally and internally, even though I had an episiotomy. At least one of the tears was third degree. I couldn’t sit down without pain for weeks. I also lost so much blood that I had to come back to the hospital later for a transfusion. However, even after all that I preferred it to a section! And because I’d never had a vaginal birth before I did not realize that the pain involved wasn’t typical until my next baby–only 11 lbs–was born, and it was so easy that I did not even push.
We certainly do grow them big! My son was delivered via C-section and weighed 11 lb. 3 oz. Everyone in the hospital came to look at the baby that filled the bassinet. I was induced two weeks early so my second baby wouldn’t be as big as my first. I had a VBAC with her and she weighed in at 8 lb. 2 oz. Who knows how big she would have been if I had gone to term with her! Anyway … HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WILLIAM!
Supposedly they get bigger as you go along too, so who knows what might have happened! Mine got progressively bigger–Emily was 8 lbs 14 oz and it went up from there, only going down for Lorelei–but I always figured that was because she was a girl. 🙂
Correction: My second baby weighed 8 lb. 10 oz.
Gosh, I don’t see anything crazy about waiting to have a party. We always have birthday parties (even just family ones) on weekends. If your birthday doesn’t happen to fall on a weekend, you just have to wait!
I should probably clarify that we usually do the same; however, we try to do it either before or after, whichever weekend is closer to the actual day. And William’s party was originally scheduled a week before it happened, and I had to change it because I did not get the presents ordered or the house cleaned. And he did not complain; he was quite understanding. 🙂