Birthday Fail

Today Ben turned four years old! How is that even possible? I wanted the day to be magical and memorable, but in the end I felt like it all failed. Ben's birthday officially started with a 12:07 am wake up, by Ben, for a trip to the potty. Awesome! Happy Birthday kiddo! He was back in our room around 1:30 am because he was having trouble sleeping. (Ben and Cole have both had croup this week. More fun.) I laid by him in his bed until about 2:40 am when I came back to my bed. Ben of course toddled back in and climbed in bed with me about 5:30 am. He finally forced me out of bed around 6:30 am. I had visions of us both waking up so happy and excited about his birthday and making a special breakfast. Considering I was running on about 4 hours sleep at best and he was sick and cranky that didn't happen. I took him downstairs and turned on Octonauts and I went back upstairs to sleep for a bit. Emphasis on "bit" because Ben came all the way upstairs to go to the bathroom and banged the bathroom door really loud and woke Cole and I up at 7:00 am. Since Cole has also been sick he was NOT ready to wake up either. This started our "magical" birthday day off on the wrong foot. I wanted to make Ben a special breakfast, but of course he wasn't hungry. So I let him open one of his birthday presents instead. He was so excited, but asked where the rest of them were. I told him that we were saving them for when Daddy gets home because he really, really wants to watch you open them. All I heard the rest of the day was, "When is Daddy coming home?" followed by a long, long whining session. I tried and tried and tried to get Cole to nap but he wasn't having it so I didn't get any one on one time with Ben to do something for just him. I thought Scott was coming home from work around 3 or 3:30 pm, but he didn't come home until almost 4:30 pm. I wanted to take Ben swimming and to McDonald's for his birthday but by the time he opened his presents, a RC monster truck and a bike (which Daddy assembled), it was too late to do both. I was so bummed. But he LOVES McDonald's so I figured not all was lost. Wrong. We went to the McDonald's right by our house to find it packed with kids. So Ben threw a fit that he wanted to go to the other McDonald's. We complied, after all it is his birthday that I have totally ruined already. By the time we got to another McDonald's Ben had passed out in the back seat. When I say passed out, I don't mean kinda tired, I mean dead to the world passed out. At least Cole will have fun right? Wrong again. Cole was so tired and so cranky that he just sat on the floor and cried. When I picked him up he begged to go on the slide. When I put him down by the slide he sank down and cried. Awful. To top off the whole day it too almost 45 minutes to get our food!!! At McDonald's!! Totally ridiculous!! By the time we got our food Scott and I were so done. Ben was still asleep and Cole was losing it. We ended up getting our food to go. Of course Ben woke up in the car and wolfed down all of his fries on the way home. Ugh. So much for the perfect birthday.

Obviously it was a wild day. By the time Scott got home I was so tired and so emotional I was all over the place. I felt like I had totally let Ben down on his birthday by not going swimming and not being able to really focus on him today and make it special. Part of that was because I was so dang tired,  part of it was two sick kids. I found myself mourning Ben growing up. Four is so big. He is leaving his toddler years behind and becoming a boy. My heart broke because he is just growing up so fast. I swear I missed all of it. I try so hard to savor my boys in the phases and ages that they are in so that I don't forget or miss anything, but the truth is that time flies by so quickly and they grow up so fast that you just can't take it all in.