the birthday, installment #2

What a special day for our family! As you can see in the video, Luke had a very small birthday party today and he loved it. I would have believed that to be impossible a year ago. I edited the video so I could hopefully post it, but in the longer version he says, "Mommy, I had some surprises today!" (And yes, Luke really likes this orange shirt and picks it anytime it's clean.)

We started talking about his birthday a few weeks ago. He asked that Annie, Durham, and Cooper come to his party. For the party he requested, "have some balloons, blow out candles, have smoke, eat cake, open presents." He was excited about the party, so excited that anytime we talked about he wanted it to happen that day, and was mad when we said it was later.

Then about a week ago, Luke's attitude began to change. I mentioned in the last post he kept saying "no birthday!" on his actual birthday, but warmed up to the idea of cupcakes at school and more cake presents that night.

Yesterday I brought up the party again and Luke was adamant he was not having a party. After about an hour of him saying, "Mommy, no birthday party!" every minute or so and me just saying "OK" or ignoring it, he came and got in my face and said, "Mommy! No birthday party! No balloons! No blow out the candles! No smoke! No eat cake! No open presents!"

I went to a seminar at Vanderbilt this morning. Lamar and Luke were going to pick up the balloons I ordered (clearly I ordered them prior to Luke's directive). I was getting ready this morning and Lamar came in the bathroom while Luke was watching TV in our bedroom. I quietly said, "The balloons are in my name . . . " and Luke yells, "NO BALLOONS! NO BIRTHDAY PARTY! . . ." and so on.

But we pressed on. Lamar and Luke picked up the balloons without incident, but Lamar left them in the car. I brought them in from the car when I returned from Vanderbilt. Luke saw them and said, "I have a birthday party!" He greeted his guests with enthusiasm and loved opening presents, the very generous presents from our good friends. This party would have only been possible with understanding friends. Because I knew there was a very real possibility Luke might meltdown and we'd have to disband.

But it was great fun, and I'm just so happy for Luke and proud of him. My prayer was we could bring him some joy as we celebrate this remarkable year he's had. I praise God for giving us a special day.

Present opening fun. This is a super cool t-ball set Luke's excited to try.

Checking out the puzzle.

My one planned activity, painting some pictures of birthday cakes. Yeah, I'm quite the party thrower.

He wore the party hat. Amazing. And this was a really good gluten free cake. Thank you Pamela's Baking Mix, now available at my neighborhood Publix. Seriously.

Loving the party blower thingy that Luke calls a "foof".

Thanks to Lisa for taking the pictures. Clearly I love them, as I've posted quite a few. It was a great day, and I'm thrilled for Luke and really glad it's over . . . until next year.

the birthday, installment #1

What a fun day to be Luke's mom! It doesn't seem possible that four years ago we were spending our first night with our new baby boy. Or that I'd just endured 20 something hours of labor.



Birthdays past have been bittersweet. Each year we've celebrated our sweet boy, but it's a time where "what should have been" was moved more the forefront of our minds.



But this year, Luke kind of "got it". And boy is it special when a 4 year old enjoys his birthday for the first time ever. I wasn't sure how it was going go. Yesterday he told me, "No birthday. No four. I'm three." When Ms. Judy got him out of the car this morning she said, "Whose birthday is it?" and he said, "NO BIRTHDAY!" But he warmed up to being the center of attention at the little party at snack time.



He loved making cupcakes for his class He was great at telling me the first letter of each friend's name, which we wrote on the cupcakes. Check out my stellar decorating skills in the first photo. I am so entering Martha Stewart's cupcake contest.



Yeah he was a little messy filling the cups, but he loved it. It's so fun having him help me in the kitchen. So fun I might actually start cooking. (FYI, I made homemade from scratch blueberry muffins for our IEP meeting last week. That's right. I actually bought shortening, I'm pretty sure for the first time in my life.)



And we made a second batch of cupcakes for our little family party tonight. Icing is definitely his favorite part of both the prep and eating process.





Our gifts for Luke's birthday are very simple. And I've decided to spread them out over a few days. When Luke gets multiple gifts at once, it's just overwhelming. So, last night I put a gift on the floor of our bedroom, always his first stop of the day. After we snuggled in bed for a bit, he got up and headed to the potty. He froze and said, "Mommy! Look at that!" So fun that he like presents now! Last year, I would have had to lead him to the gift and help him open it.




Here he is opening his Backyardigans toys. He immediately asked me to play and began pretending, having them talk to each other and play hide and seek. So proud of those emerging play skills.



And our party with Mimi and Papa tonight. Pizza and cupcakes. The crown is from his party at school.



Doesn't everyone sing "This Little Christian Light" at birthdays? Luke does.

My goodness, he's really four.

Luke has mastered present opening!

Mimi and Papa gave Luke a super fun My Friend Tigger and Pooh playset. A few of you appreciate the irony of me having a child that likes Pooh. I'm coming around on Pooh. Whiny, gluttonous Pooh. OK, I'm slowly coming around. So sorry to speak ill of Pooh. I know he's got some big fans out there. One lives in my house.

Thanks to everyone who shares in the life of our sweet boy! What a roller coaster ride it's been. We're so blessed to be his parents.

Luke's having a very small party with friends on Saturday. Praying that's a success. It's his first party with friends since his first birthday.

christmas recap

The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activity: a trip, Dad having surgery, back to school and work, and somewhere in there I moved closer to my mid thirties (though some would say I'm already there, I'm holding onto early thirties for one more year). I've been meaning to sit down and blog so many times but something else always comes up. But with Luke's quickly approaching birthday, I better get Christmas finished up before I get REALLY far behind.



We traveled to Lamar's parents in Lynchburg, VA for Christmas. Luke was a great traveller, potty breaks included. This was our first road trip since potty training and he was accident free. Yeah Luke!



We arrived Christmas Eve evening. Santa managed to find Luke on Christmas morning even though he was out of state.






I'll spare you the hundred of photos of Luke playing with his new toys. This train set (that Santa got a fabulous deal on) was his favorite I think. Santa was not aware how large it was. Santa and I have the same problem apparently. Remember the tents and tunnels monstrosity?





He also really likes this digital camera. I'll have to post some of Luke's photos. His favorite things to photograph are his toys and the TV. I have a whole series of the Little Einsteins. He also really likes a letter set that Aunt Donna and family gave him.

But without question, the best thing about our trip for Luke was his eight-year-old cousin Maddie. He adores her, wanted to be with her all the time (except when he went to sleep. Every night at bed time he asked to go home and wanted no one but Mommy in the room.)

Here's just of few of the many photos I have of Maddie and Luke. Maddie was so sweet to him, playing whatever he wanted, watching whatever he wanted, coming when he called her. It was a huge break for Mommy and Daddy.

Luke also had fun playing by the creek with Grandpa and Maddie.

Throwing sticks in the creek, which is apparently a lot of fun.

"Climbing" a tree

Grandpa, Maddie and Luke

Luke also did his first craft with Grandma, the first of many I imagine. Luke's never been that excited about arts and crafts, but since Maddie was doing it, so was Luke. He was really wild about the berries they decorated the bells with. Luke did all the arranging and Grandma did all the hot gluing.

Luke and his masterpiece. The teacup is not part of the craft. It was only for stabilization.

I was so proud of how Luke adapted to a house full of people. A couple days before our trip, while Lamar was on the phone with his parents, we told Luke we were going to see them for Christmas. It just hadn't occurred to me to tell him. I had no clue he would comprehend that. He was so excited when we told him and said, "It's going to be lots of fun." During the whole eight hour trip he kept saying we were going to see Grandma and Grandpa and that it would be lots of fun. I even had to entice him to watch a video to pass a little time (because at that point I'd heard about 1000 times that we were going to see Grandma and Grandpa).

He was pretty enthusiastic about his gifts, but I don't think he has any clue that Santa brought them. I figure by the time he gets that concept, all his friends will be leaving that phase behind. Luke's actually pretty scared of Santa. A friend asked him if Santa was going to come to our house and he looked at her with terror and said, "NO!!"

I think Luke enjoyed Christmas on a very simple level. It was no magic Hallmark moment with milk and cookies (There is no way he'd have left cookies sitting there uneaten.) or waking up extremely early (well, he's always up by 6:30, which was 7:30 eastern. Sweet!) to run downstairs in eager anticipation. But my life isn't very Hallmark, and I'm really okay with that. Most importantly, Luke has learned who Jesus' mommy and daddy are and that Jesus loves him.

Everyone in Lynchburg who saw Luke last Thanksgiving was amazed by his progress. We are too. Amazed and thankful. And it's good to get the perspective of people who haven't seen him in a year. It reminds us again how thankful we need to be.

We arrived home at 11 p.m. on Sunday night. I worked Monday (which was my birthday though I had a hard time remembering it) and Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. I took my parents to Vanderbilt for Dad's surgery. I suspect those of you who know Dad and read this blog already know this information, but he had a recurrence of his multiple myeloma in his left arm. I won't go into to details, but it caught all of us, particularly his doctors, by surprise. He had a pretty lengthy surgery on Tuesday and came home from the hospital Thursday. He's still recovering. All seem optimistic the cancer was in the arm only this time. So that was a busy couple of days of back and forth to the hospital.

Luke went back to school on Tuesday. He was pretty adament he wasn't going for days beforehand, up until Tuesday morning even as I was getting his clothes out. But as he got dressed he said, "Let's go to school" not a particularly excited tone, but not defeated either, just kind of matter of fact. He did fine on Tuesday, but was a little unfocused. Thursday was a little better and Ms. Judy said he was much better today. We have his annual IEP next Wednesday (Can you believe it's been one year since he started preschool?!). The autism coordinator observed him today in prep for the meeting. I saw her when I picked him up and she commented on all his progress. She said, "I'm just thinking about the observations I did last year. Wow, is this the same child?" Makes me tear up. I'm so thankful. And so proud of Luke. I hate it that he has to work so hard for each milestone, but he's such a trooper.

He's done so many funny things lately. Not that this is funny, but he's in a habit of saying, "Do you want . . . . " when he means, "I want" or "May I have". As in, "Mommy, do you want some juice?" when he wants it. Of course we're working on it. So the other night Lamar got a handful of Skittles from somewhere. I have no clue where. Maybe leftover Halloween candy. Nasty huh? Both that he's eating it and that I haven't thrown it away. So Luke sees them and is begging for one. I don't really want him to eat one, but realize he's seen them and say, "Let him have one." So Lamar gives him one and tries to hide that he's got a handful. Luke knows there's more and his hands are moving 90 miles/hour grabbing and trying to open Lamar's fists. And he frantically says, "Uh, Daddy, do you want two somethings?"

There's another story I wanted to share that's slipped my mind of course. Hopefully I'll think of it later. One last photo that for some reason blogger stuck at the end of my post. Do any of you other bloggers get frustrated with the order blogger posts photos? Anyway, we learned while in Lynchburg that we've been wasting our time slicing apples.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Happy New Year!