"Happy Birthday Tommy" or "How to make a birthday special while completely ignoring your kid"

Happy Birthday Tommy!  Today your brother gave you strep throat and your mom will ignore you for a large part of the day, well more like the week....but maybe I should back up...

Three years ago was the day of the AMES science fair, which for me was a big deal.  I was in charge of it after all.  It was the culmination of months of student research summed up in pretty boards decorated with graphs and tables and student interviews with grad students and PhDs from the U.  I love science fair day, but a little over 9 months earlier I had quit my job so I wasn't anticipating giving birth on the day of the science fair.  Fortunately, as a condition of my employment, I told the principal that I had to have someone else to run the science fair program with me.  Fortunately, I had Tara to run the fair that day.

I woke up Friday, February 24th 2011 and got ready for the day.  I was scheduled to be induced that day, but I had to wait until I received a phone call to go to the hospital.  I could sleep in, relax, get things ready for the baby, and wait for a phone call or I could go to the school and ensure everything is ready for the science fair.  Of course I chose the second option.  I went into school to help with the set up (as a nine-month pregnant lady, I wasn't much help) and to double check that all the details had been taken care of.  I was able to see my student's final display boards and wish them luck before I got the phone call and rushed off to the hospital anxiously awaiting the arrival of my baby boy!

I didn't have to wait long.  After a couple hours of labor and 3 big pushes, Thomas Alexander Budd arrived.  A beautiful 8 lb. 6 oz. package of joy.

Isn't he just perfect?

I really timed his birth poorly.  I no longer run the AMES science fair program, but I run the district-level science fair for all the charter schools in the Salt Lake region which includes Tooele and Park City and guess what?  It always lands on the same week as Tommy's birthday.  In the past, I just rescheduled Tommy's birthday.  He didn't know the difference between Feb. 24th and March 3rd!  This year we had a small celebration yesterday with his grandma and I will have a bigger birthday party in a week which will give me time to plan it a little better and make it special. You can expect a proper birthday post in a couple of weeks.

Tommy in deep contemplation of another year gone by.

Tommy loves all things tiny and cute so we found him the smallest stuffed puppy in the store.  Yes, we found it down a pink aisle and yes, we removed the very feminine dog tag found on the collar.

Everyone is happy in this picture, even Ella eating the instruction manual.

 And in case you are considering turning me into DSFS, I am not completely ignoring him.  He is just watching a little extra TV which, to him, actually makes his birthday extra special!