Birthday With a Baby

Dhrumil’s birthday was on Sunday and celebrating it with a baby is something new. We have already had a birthday with Mikayla around, but that was when she was 15 days old. Needless to say we were both pretty wiped and though we tried to make the best of it I didn’t feel like the queen for the day because my exhaustion of caring for a newborn took over the need to feel pampered all day (which is what I think should happen on your birthday!)

Dhrumil and I have a running joke that something always life changing happens around his birthday and we never celebrate it the way we would like. This year I was determined to make Dhrumil’s day special and though my intentions were honorable the day ended up being exhausting. Fortunately we laughed about it instead of getting frustrated.

Zebra Shirt and Zebra behind us

Instead of breakfast in bed and letting Dhrumil sleep in, a crabby Mikayla spent time with daddy while I tried to whip up breakfast. After breakfast and hoping Mikayla’s morning nap would turn her around we headed to the Bronx zoo excited by the “cool” weather (15 degrees cooler than it had been most of the summer) and excited to see Mikayla’s reaction to the animals. Well the first 10 minutes at the zoo were enjoyable. After that we were introduced to life with a stroller. Most exhibits you had to leave the stroller outside. So it went like this… navigate through the HUNDREDS of strollers, park ours, take baby out, take out both cameras we smartly brought, diaper bag, and anything else in stroller and drape it over us, go into JAM PACKED exhibit stare at a few monkeys, wonder if Mikayla even noticed them, leave and find stroller, put all the stuff back under it, put baby back in, navigate our way out of the stroller parking lot and while baby screams search map for Zebras since baby has Zebra shirt on and we MUST get a picture BY THE ZEBRA! Our sweet daughter did NOT want to be in the stroller (normally her favorite place to be) and so I carried her, while Dhrumil pushed the stroller with the cameras in the seat instead of the baby.

After seeing 3 or 4 different animals (including the ZEBRAs!) we decided to grab a bite to eat before Mikayla was hungry. Dripping with sweat we maneuvered through the HUNDREDS of people where we found a table and while Dhrumil went to grab unhealthy snacks I sat with a fussy baby and batted away about 20 pigeons who were all trying to grab the lone French fry left under our table. After shoving the food in our mouths because the baby was close to screaming we made our way as fast as we could to try to find a quiet place for me to nurse Mikayla.

 **DISCLAIMER I have not nursed in public because the situation hasn’t come up or I haven’t let it and needless to say I wish I had started earlier because this next part of the story might have been different** 

Every bench we saw I thought was too exposed and after walking half the Zoo again we ended up ironically by the Zebras where I felt I could relax enough to fed my screaming child. Well… all went well for about 2 minuets then Mikayla started screaming for some unknown reason trying to pull the cover off and at the same moment about 20 people walked by and all stared at me. Needless to say I told Dhrumil this would NOT work I NEEDED to go into the car and so we basically ran out of the Zoo and decided that we had enough after 2 hours. So what if we weren’t able to stick Mikayla’s head in the bug cut out… another time perhaps.

The rest of the day went better with lunch on Arthur Ave (a mix of Mafia and Puerto Rico ) a surprise birthday party (where my wonderful friends brought the cake and ice cream) and then a baby who fell asleep with a little sigh and her sour face turned sweet.  Happy Birthday Husband! Maybe next year it will be a little less chaotic.

End of a LONG day