Jacob's Second Birthday

July is Jacob’s birth month which means… it’s time to add some old memories to the blog!  I didn’t start blogging until after both kids were born, so a lot of their early childhoods were not documented and I’ve been trying to catch everything up since. 

In honor of Jacob’s birth month, today we’re going to take a step back in time and relive his second birthday.

The year that he turned two was also the year that he had the biggest medical scare of his life.  It’s a pretty long story, but to summarize, he came down with a very bad case of croup, his airways closed, and he had to be rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance.  At the time, nobody knew what was happening and why he couldn’t breathe so it was pretty terrifying and we ended up having to stay overnight.  It was the next day that the doctor finally diagnosed him with a severe case of croup. 

That all occurred just three days before he turned two, so unfortunately he wasn’t feeling his best on his birthday.  And it definitely shows in the pictures… he looks pretty tired and he just doesn’t look like his usual happy self. 

The day that he was released from the hospital was the day that we were due to celebrate his birthday with my family.  Since he was feeling a little better, we had our usual Sunday dinner followed by cake and presents.  Jacob’s birthday theme for that year was cars (not the movie, just cars in general) because he was obsessed with “beep beeps” (cars) and “whoa whoas” (trucks) at that age.  <3

I ended up keeping him home the next day (Monday) because I just wasn’t ready to send him back to school yet, and then Tuesday was his actual birthday so Brian and I both took off from work to have a special day of fun with him.

We got up early and headed to Krispy Kreme for donuts and then we headed to Atlanta to spend the day at the aquarium.  That was Jacob’s first trip and he loved seeing all of the fish and whales and sharks.  My favorite exhibit is the penguins because they are just so darn cute, and the Georgia Aquarium has these little tunnels that you can crawl through so you can pop your head up in a little window to feel like you’re in the exhibit.  Jacob didn’t quite know what to think!  We ate lunch at the aquarium and then we headed back home so Jacob could nap in the car.  We wanted to take it easy since he wasn’t quite back to his normal self.

When we arrived home, he opened his presents from us (one of which was that cute little table and chairs set) and then we had dinner and cake.  We also snapped his annual birthday picture in his birthday shirt with his birthday chalkboard!  Just look at that little ham!

In addition to these two celebrations, we also celebrated with B’s family, but I cannot for the life of me find the pictures.  :o(  I have no clue what could have happened to them, but I hate that I don’t have any to post.

And side note - it's wild seeing how differently our house was decorated back then!  We still had our red couch and lots of other different decorations.  

When I look back on all of these pictures and think about those days, all I remember is thinking how thankful I was to have him safely at home in my arms.  It had been a really scary few days and I was just so, so grateful that he was okay.  On top of that, I was also eight weeks pregnant with Olivia which probably didn’t help emotionally because – pregnancy hormones.  After that happened, I never wanted to send him to school again for fear that he could come down with croup while he was there and the teachers wouldn’t know what to do.  And that was the very first time that I had the thought that I might rather be a stay at home mom rather than a working mom.

It was a bittersweet birthday for sure, but it’s all part of his (and our) story, and we are just so grateful that it had a happy ending.  Thank you for reading.  XO