Tyler's early Birthday...

(Tyler has a nice smile in this picture, unfortunately the cake is covering half his face.)

Tyler's birthday is May 12, but I wanted to celebrate it early in case I went into labor early. I didn't want to be in the hospital and realize that we missed his special day. So we celebrated it on Thursday, May 5th.

Tyler wanted to go to Planet Kid. Every Day after school (for a week) he would ask if we were going to Planet Kid today. We just had to keep telling him, not today. We'll go for your birthday.

I spent days preparing his cake! He loves Mario, and I wanted him to have a cool Mario cake. So I printed pictures and drew a castle on a cereal box; cut it, painted it... baked the cake 1 day early so I could frost it and decorate it the next day. I was prepared for Tyler to have a special day dedicated to him...

what I wasn't prepared for was the contractions I had consistently, the day before his birthday!

The night before his party I was up most of the night timing my contractions. I was a little irritated. The baby wasn't due until the 17th. It was only the 4th. I hadn't packed the hospital bag yet, I had a party to do the next day, I wasn't ready for him to come tonight.

Around midnight, My contractions were averaging between 5 min apart and 8, or 10 min.

Not consistent enough to go to the hospital yet, and I was already dilated to a 3 by then (which I know because I had a check up the day before).

The contractions started to slow to 20 min apart around 4 a.m. the I finally got some sleep, but a 6 a.m. I got out of bed and packed a hospital bag.
Tyler's favorite toy was an idog.

He got some Mario figures which he loved too. I found them on eBay in China for real cheep compared to the ones sold here. I ordered them a month and a half ago, free shipping...

Like I said, prepared!

We had cousins meet us a Planet Kid after school at 4:00; had a barbecue and party around 5:45, and got the kids to bed by 8:00. No baby. (but that's ok. The party is over and he is welcome to come any time now. I still have 2 soccer practices and 2 game before his due date, but I'll skip those in exchange for my baby coming early!)