birthdays

Miss Boo has a birthday coming up. And she'll be 14! ...when did that happen???? She's supposed to be..you know.. like 9 or 10... not in the teens.

We've celebrated many birthdays in our family. And under many different circumstances. We celebrated when she turned one. A friend of mine made a pink strawberry cake that looked like a castle. Her invitations said come celebrate with us; our princess is turning one. We had pink and white balloons. She ate cake. Too stinkin' precious.

And then we started having 'friend' parties. Not quite so precious. We had some parties at home and others 'out'. I finally understood the delight that is... all I have to do is show up and bring a cake and 'they' will do the rest. Nice.

Several years ago she wanted to have a slumber party. Um.. no. But we compromised. I let her have a pajama party. Yes, the girls wore their pajamas and brought their pillows, but they didn't stay the night. Genius, I tell ya. They ate pizza and had a great time. I printed out cootie catchers with mixer type questions (that I created) on them, and the girls folded them and played with each other and got to know each other better. I am NOT into competitive games, especially at a party. So that was a big success. And I bought fabric markers and the girls drew pictures on white pillow cases since it was a 'pajama party' and then WENT HOME. It was a lot of fun. Especially the they went home part. We did all the fun stuff and I never had to tell anybody to get quiet and go to sleep. Didn't I tell ya.. genius!

Another year we had a luau theme.... with leis for the girls and they ate everything off toothpicks on flowered plates. Exotic enough... if you're like ten. We played some mixer type games then too. The girls had a ball.

The first birthday she had while Bub was sick was at the Little Gym. We chose an away from home party because Bub was in isolation and could not be around people or go places at that time. And he didn't get to be there. He was bummed but handled it so well. He handled many things amazingly well. I have to remind myself that he was THREE when he did these things sometimes. Anyhoo... the Little Gym party was such a success we decided to do it again the next year. It was a less hopeful time for us.. as we knew at that point, he was terminal. We chose to have the party there because we didn't know if we'd have a dying little one at home. Thankfully he was still feeling pretty well. We dosed him with Tylenol and Advil and he played with the rest of the kids. That makes me cry to think about it. He was just being a kid. He didn't get to do that very much while he was sick. It was pretty much the last 'fun' thing he got to do. From then on, he began to decline and we lost him three weeks later. (We had her party there the following year as well. A bittersweet ending to the 'Little Gym years'.)

I am thrilled my girl is growing up faster than I can imagine. But every event.. every day.. every milestone... has other memories for us right now. Some days are hard. Like I said yesterday.. I'm needing God. Which is good.