A Decade...

She is a decade old!

A whole decade!

I just can’t believe how much our kids are growing up. They are blossoming before our very eyes.

I hardly know how to handle it.

I have a bone to pick with God when I get to heaven…

I’m going to ask him why people with special needs have to go through puberty! On top of everything else, I now have to worry about how to tackle that. Heaven help me. Brother growing up has already been a doozy of an experience and still is. I can’t—no I don’t want to—even imagine what it is going to be like to help Sister through the whole process. I tried to be excited with her when she started to need to wear deodorant a couple of months ago, but I knew something she didn’t understand…. she’s maturing. Oh boy! Heaven help us!

Anyway, now that I took that detour lets get back to the main route which is all about Sister being 10 and her journey to her big day.

As soon as Christmas is over, Sister begins to look forward to her birthday eight months in the future! Yup. We have 8 months of telling us what she wants for her birthday, what she wants to do for her birthday and what kind of party she is going to have.

It sounds like she is being so responsible and totally prepared, but it’s actually very annoying and grading on the nerves… really, I’ll let you borrow her for a week just before a big life event and you’ll see how amazing it is…

She did make a slight change a while ago and decided that she only wanted a family birthday party. I think that having all her summer camp friends over to celebrate with her got a little overwhelming so she decided to cut it to a minimal number.

I do have to show you a few pictures from her last day of summer camp. They had a big celebration that ended in a big water fight that Brother and Sister fully participated in. In fact, Brother made sure to include me in his array of targets.

Sister and Baby's class did a fashion show in their costumes! It was so cute!

This was in the middle of the water fight. Baby kept thinking she was getting Jeremy wet, but she missed him every time unless she walked over to him and poured it on his shirt. She was giggling and having fun with everyone and I was happy that she did want to be involved.

Action shot of Sister trying to get away from one of her teachers

Sisters in cahoots with each other...

Brother had to have a picture of how wet he got during the big water fight!
We should have had pictures of the people he got too...

Sister scrutinizes every nook and cranny of her plan until it is worn out and decrepit. She plans with such detail and intensity that it starts to overwhelm her and bring about anxiety. It’s kind of a weird and bizarre conundrum to have a child who has been looking forward to and planning her party for 8 months suddenly fall apart the week before thinking that you aren’t going to execute her every whim to her complete and utter satisfaction. Because of this, it took all the way until two days before her birthday party for her to be able to agree on the plan without completely melting into oblivion.

Thankfully, though, once the decision had been made, she was happily looking forward to having her cousins sleep over.

We had a big family dinner on Sunday night and had a good turn out. We even had a surprise visit and gift from her cousin, Kelsey. She brought LEGOs and a Star Wars coloring book that became the pastime for the kids while the adults socialized for a bit.

She chose to have a white cake with orange frosting. She was very excited about her "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" candles

The excitement is building...

Time to blow out her candles and Brother, of course, has to join in.
If you scroll through the next few pictures you will laugh as you watch Sister's demeanor change by the end...
she wasn't really happy that her brother helped blow out her candles.

This is where she was saying, "Ummm... what the.... [Brother] just... blew out my... candles!"

The coloring pages were so big that they spread out on the kitchen tile so they could all color together.

Jman, MrT, LIttleB, and Millie slept over at Sister’s request. She was so excited they could hardly fall asleep. It was really cute to see all four girls bundled up in sister’s trundle bed.

Poor LittleB, by the morning she had been sandwiched in the middle...

The girls giggled until about 11pm until I finally realized that I had forgotten to given Sister her sleep meds… That's another thing I will talk to God about... "if you are going to bless me with children with special needs, You should have given me a fantastic memory."

Sister expected everyone to have her favorite breakfast—EGGO waffles (waffles you warm up in a toaster). Everyone obliged and then they hung out for a while waiting for the time we were going to go to lunch at Wendy’s and swimming at the Provo Pool.

I had been really impressed with Sister this whole time because she had not had a overstimulation-from-all-the-attention-and-people meltdown yet.

She even held it together while we were all at Wendy’s trying to make sure all 7 kids, plus my helpers, all had lunch.

Then she even held it together at the pool for almost 3 hours.

We had so much fun! It was so exciting to have success with Sister.

I knew that she would melt down when it was all over. I planned on it.

It wasn’t really a surprise when she did melt, but it’s still hard to watch. I just can’t help but feel sorry for her and all that she is taking into her anxiously overridden mind. 

Poor girl.

It’s taken a good 24 hours for her to start acting herself again.

Although, now I’m starting to get confused with melting and maturing… so this could be a very long road.

At least we get to start planning for Christmas at our house this week… yep. Once the birthday is over, we’re back to focusing on Christmas.

At least it will only last 4 months.

*SIGH*

Day 224 of 365 Days of Up