Nothing will ever be easy again.

I was intending to write about my 25th birthday yesterday. So I'll just touch on that briefly. It was a good day and I got some great presents. Plus, Stacey was here to help celebrate with me. We have a long standing tradition that we get to pick what we want to eat each year for our birthdays. I picked lemon chicken kabobs and twice baked potatoes. Plus, my mom's chocolate cake and her oh so awesome chocolate frosting! My belly hurt from so much sugar :( But it was delish! And I got a new ipod that I'm super happy about.

The one bad thing about a birthday is...

and no, it's not getting older...

...the next day is just another day. It's not special anymore. You can't use "but, it's my birthday!" as an excuse anymore. And being a mother this birthday showed me that birthdays just aren't really fun anymore! You can only use "it's my birthday" a couple times a day because there's someone else depending on you and they don't care if it's your birthday or not.

Onto that someone.

We had a scare tonight. And it made us realize how simple things can be so challenging. To make a long story short we noticed Lillian was smacking her lips in a rhythmic motion pretty constantly. At first we thought maybe she was dehydrated so we gave her 1.5oz of water. I nursed her and we tried to get her to sleep knowing she was pretty over tired (sleep schedule is still pretty messed up!) And she still kept doing it. I'm the laid back parent so I believed it was nothing to worry about. But Dennis, being paranoid daddy, went and got my mom. And my mom thought better safe than sorry, lets call the docs.

Once I got on the phone with the nurse on call I started crying. Why now? Why when we've JUST gotten things to even ground. When we finally feel comfortable with the diagnosis and medicines and everything.

I was scared. Was this another seizure? Was this a symptom of her last hormone failing? Was this something worse?

Finally the doctor called back and said she was not overly concerned with it. We have a doctor's appointment Friday so she said just to keep that and to watch her closely tonight.

We all breathed a sigh of relief but inside I was seething. I wanted to cry and scream and throw something. Why can't it get any easier? Why does everything have the second guessed? Maybe she just likes the sound of her lips smacking? (I was doing it to her earlier today and she loved it!) Maybe this is a normal baby thing. But no. We can't take normal baby things and leave them alone. We have to watch and analyse and pick everything apart until there's nothing normal about it and we're all freaked out.

It's frustrating and sad and scary and maddening. It makes me want to curse someone and pull my hair out.

And it just makes me think of all the little things that other parents take for granted. Even solids, which are supposed to be new and fun, are an ordeal for us. Will it change her sodium levels too much? Will she need more nursings or formula?

And I kept thinking the other day about when she gets older and realizes she's the only child to take medicine and shots. How will we explain that to her without making her feel so different? How can I explain it without her feeling like she's broken? I tell myself I have plenty of time to come up with a good answer but time flies with babies and I'll need that good answer sooner than I think I'm sure.