Today was a day to celebrate! I woke up and set goals for the day. No bad moods allowed. No whining or complaining permitted! (Perhaps with three kids they weren’t that realistic, but I was going to give it a shot.) We were going to celebrate Jack, and all the amazing things we have to be grateful for. Despite recent events, it’s been a great year for the Zurlnick family!

Weeks ago Steve and I made the decision to not have a party for Jack. We didn’t want to have too many people in the house, and with everything that’s been going on it would have been too much. We were, however, going to do something special to celebrate his day as a family. He has accomplished so much in the last three hundred and sixty five days, and as luck would have it most of his huge milestones happened while we were in quarantine.

Both Ella and Jack woke up beasts. (One goal for the day immediately went out the window.) Jack is easy. Food makes him happy, so once he got his bottle he was good to go. Ella, not so much. She screamed for about an hour. I tried giving her food, she threw it off her tray. I tried giving her water, she threw the bottle across the kitchen. Ultimately Tylenol and Spongebob Square Pants calmed her down, and she was able to eat and have some water.

After Ella’s morning breakdown I can honestly say all of the kiddos had a good day. CJ was taking a crazy amount of pictures, and teaching Jack how to use all of his new toys. Jack loves CJ so much and one of my favorite things is watching the two of them together. Ella seemed perfectly content watching her crazy brothers too. Only once did she get fussy, and I quickly put her on the floor for a change of scenery. She was rolling and moving all around having a grand old time. I got on the floor with her and was getting tons of smiles.

Early afternoon we had a phone visit with Ella’s neurologist. I expressed all of our concerns, and she reassured us that it would take time for Ella to adjust to the medicine. She also told us that what we are seeing is not abnormal and to hang in there. She prescribed a vitamin that she said should help calm Ella down, and told us to give her melatonin to help her sleep at night. We are going to touch base in a few weeks. Doc also said she wants another EEG done at home in two months to see if the activity has calmed down.

The rest of the day we focused on Jack. We had fire trucks drive by, and a friend surprised us by dropping off a special meal for all the kiddos. We played with, napped, loved on, and watched Jack take a few steps. We couldn’t end the night without some birthday cake fun. Jack had his very own to make a mess of, but wasn’t quite feeling it. One hand in the frosting and he was done. He kept trying to shake it off.

Jack is for sure our last, and the third baby we thought we might never have. He is by far our most active too. He mastered eating at a young age, crawls super fast, smiles when you call his name, and loves to clear out cabinets when we forget use the childproof locks. He keeps us on our toes in the best way possible, and truly completes our family.

Today was bittersweet. It was our last first birthday to celebrate and the beginning of many first lasts to come. We know with progress, comes change, and we wish all our kiddos the very best life has to offer. Let year one officially begin.

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