My 30th

I had a birthday two weeks ago, and I am going against my inclination to not say anything about it. Ryan deserves some praise for how it turned out.

The morning started with two of the boys throwing up within about ten minutes of each other. (At first I blamed it on some old watermelon we had the night before, but now I think it was some kind of virus thing since I ended up catching it a couple of days later.) This happened while Ryan was making a special birthday breakfast for me. So most of the day was spent at home with the boys like this, barf bowls close at hand:





I didn't really have any big plans for my birthday, but since I was stuck at home I spent a lot of time thinking about where I wanted to go to dinner, and I got the kids all excited about going out to eat, provided they felt better.
When Ryan got home later he said, "Okay, let's go to dinner! I have a babysitter for the kids and our friend is coming with us." This is where I fell apart. I tried to explain (through my tears- this is embarassing to admit) how I had built it up for the kids all day and they were counting on coming with us, and how I didn't want to exclude this friend of ours, but I felt like this was more of a family occaision. Ryan looked a little stunned, and luckily I was able to think logically enough to realize he had put in quite a bit of effort to find a babysitter since it was the high school graduation that night and most babysitters weren't available. I told him not to change his plans, and I would try to pull myself together. When he told the kids they were just as excited to go to the babysitter's house as they would be to go to any restaurant.
I got ready but couldn't quite pull myself out of the mood I was in. I was pretty silent in the car and couldn't quite get the tears to stop. At one point Ryan said, "I think I should warn you that it's not just going to be our one friend. There will be a lot of people, but I don't know how you'll handle it so I want you to know now." So, he had planned a surprise. I still had some mixed emotions and was having a hard time letting go of what I thought I really wanted: just a simple family dinner. But now I felt even more guilty for almost ruining his plans and I knew I'd be okay once we got to the restaurant.
So we walked in and there was a table full of our friends. I didn't even have to fake surprise too much, since I really was glad to see them there. We had a fun dinner and Ryan had even made up a little "How well do you know Megan" quiz. He admitted that he did that to make amends for the Sunday before when I was Spotlighted in Primary. He had filled out my Spotlight form with a bunch of stupid answers like "Sister Haslam's favorite TV show is TMZ" and "Sister Haslam's favorite scripture story is Balaam and the talking ass." To add to my embarassment, they made me come up and give some "real" answers.
Anyway, it really turned out to be a fun surprise. For someone like me who doesn't like a lot of attention, I can even say I enjoyed myself. Ryan later said that once during dinner he looked around and thought how much he genuinely liked all the people who were there. So we are blessed to have good friends and I'm blessed to have a thoughtful husband. (Seriously so blessed, if you will.)
And we learned a lesson in communication. Ryan told me that in his head he kept thinking about how the dinner was a surprise so he couldn't say anything at all about it, when he probably should have told me he was planning "something". And I learned once again how convenient it is to blame my emotions on pregnancy hormones.