Willa's Birthday Party

Willa has amazing timing. The week of her birthday she got a cold. Willa lovingly passed along her cold to her father, Grandma Green and myself by the day of her birthday. We were still able to have her party but it was minus a few guests with little ones. Thankfully, I have yet to hear of anyone who attended the party who got sick.


We did attempt to give Willa a cupcake but she wasn't impressed. The only thing she was interested in was her birthday hat. Grandma Green stuck Willa's fingers in frosting but it didn't work. Only dramatics and gagging happened. I'm sure dad was happy b/c he doesn't like a mess. Next year...

Many months ago I was looking at another omphalocele blog and saw where the blogger asked guests to bring gifts for the Ronald McDonald house in lieu of items for the birthday boy. I loved that idea and wanted to do the same thing for the NICU at UNC Hospital. Willa spent two weeks in the NICU and our friend's the Miles are currently on week 10 of their son being at UNC. This next part is kinda hard to put into words - The nurses genuinely care and fight for these babies. One of those struggles is to clothe the babies in appropriate sized clothing as well as gender appropriate. That may seem silly to some of you...but as a parent it really brightened my day to walk into the NICU the first thing in the morning and see Willa in a different onsie than the day before. That little bit of fabric managed to soften the glare of all the wires and patches connecting my baby girl to the various machines and monitors. So thank you friends for being so generous.

Not to worry about Willa. She got some birthday gifts. Here she is sitting so proud in the new chair from mom and dad while playing with some animals. My happy little one year old girl.