HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Buddy!

Our Little Buddy turned 12! He was born on September 24, 1996, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I never stopped sweating for the last four months of pregnancy.

No, seriously. You know in the movie Father of the Bride 2 where Steve Martin's character is bundled up for winter in L.A. and covering up in bed like he's frigid, and Diane Keaton's character is throwing the covers off herself like crazy? That was just about us. I had the ceiling fan on high, which was directly above our bed, a rotating fan on the nightstand rotating up and down my body, and then a smaller little fan sitting on things in my open nightstand drawer pointing directly onto me. Hubby would beg me to get in bed and block the air because he was freezing even all covered up in the middle of summer. I slept with no covers and was still sweating. Louisiana and pregnancy in the summertime is brutal.

I was determined to find Buddy's first scrapbook in the garage downstairs yesterday because we kept out all the picture albums when we were putting things in storage. I found every single box labeled with completed albums except for the one with his in it. I looked through that garage three different times. I'm assuming it accidentally got put in the storage unit. But I'm super bummed because I wanted to scan and post a few pictures here with his birthday post.

Buddy's birth was fairly uneventful after his sister's premature births. I don't want to give away their story, so I'll kind of leave it at that. They induced me three days early with him because I was retaining so much fluid, although it wasn't doing anything to my blood pressure or causing any other problems (I gained 70 pounds ~ eek!). The doctor also didn't want him to get any bigger because I was very close to an elective c-section based on the ultrasound weights.

My mom and stepdad came from Arkansas to stay with the girls, who were still two years old, while we were at the hospital having Buddy. They got my iv's all hooked up, and the doctor broke my water right around lunch time. After that I had an almost constant contraction for 20 minutes straight. When the nurse came in and asked me how I was, I told her I wasn't doing so good in a voice that was kind of monotone just trying to keep it together. She looked at my paper, which Hubby had looked at and told me would just start to dip before it went right back up, and said she'd go call the doctor. See, the last time they checked me I was only dilated to three, and if I remember right you had to be a four before you got your epidural. I guess my paper looked bad, because they never even checked me again and next thing I knew Mr. Anesthesiologist Guy was my new best friend giving me my epidural.

I was fully dilated and ready to push around 6 p.m. I pushed for about an hour and made a little progress. I pushed for another half hour and the doctor thought he had even gone back up a little. They knew from the first hour his head was big, so she said it was time for a c-section. The nurse had to push him back up through the birth canal while the doctor pulled him out. Buddy was born at 8:22 at 8 lbs. 14 oz. and the bad mom in me can't remember his length without that silly scrapbook, but I think it was 19 or 20 inches. Hubby and I were amazed at the little barrel-chested boy we had. Now we're just amazed at the size hat we have to buy him!

Our baseball lovin' boy wanted to go sit in the front row at a Tigers' game this year for his birthday. New best friend Stub Hub helped us out. You see, the front row people don't have to go sit down after the teams get done warming up. They get to stay down there and hang out until the teams come back out. He wanted to do that. He usually gets something baseball related for his birthday. Last year it was a Kirby Puckett one-of-one card, the year before that it was an Albert Pujols autograph card, and he had his birthday party at Busch Stadium one year, a Fredbird Birthday Bash.

Since we don't have our pictures developed yet from the Tigers' game, I decided to post some pictures from Buddy's all-star little league games in July. He's playing his favorite position, catcher, and we bought a cd with the rights to these pictures so I'm allowed to post them and print them as I wish.

This next series of four pictures is a play in progress. It was a force play at the plate because the bases were loaded. The runner was called out.




This boy loves his baseball! And we love him! Happy Birthday, Buddy!