Happy he's communicating... not so happy he wants a present at 6:30 in the morning!
All in all I think he had a pretty good birthday. We went with a class only party this year since it was his first year in "school".
We've been blessed with a wonderful group of parents in the class and it was fun to see them in that environment away from school playing with their little ones. We felt bad for excluding our friends and neighbors but there's more than one special needs kid in Z's class and we wanted to make sure all the families felt comfortable coming out and didn't want them to shy away because they didn't want to deal with a room full of strangers. I know how anxious we get when we take Z to a party full of people we don't know.
We opted to cut the party short and take presents home because it takes Zander HOURS to open presents. I hope it didn't feel like, "Thanks for the presents... now get out!" He just insists on playing with each one for a while before he will even consider opening the next.
We could also feel the usual balloon-ageddon meltdown coming as soon as we hit the party room and our son zeroed in on the balloons.
(In my best Seinfeld voice)..." BALLOONS!" (Newman!)
Who would have thought that my biggest nemesis in life would be stupid freaking birthday balloons!
I actually know what it is, this balloon madness he goes through; Zander likes SETS/GROUPS of things. He thinks all the balloons should be TOGETHER! All around our house you will find various items grouped together and man does he flip if you try to move them around.
We managed to get one balloon away from him for each kid as they left and he wasn't happy but he managed to hold it together until the last one. For some reason the blue balloon with green string was the final straw and he lost it. I felt so bad but there's just no way to talk him through situations like that. It doesn't matter what I say, all he knows is that we broke up his happy balloon family.
Jeez, teaching kids to share is hard enough but then throw in an auditory processing delay, hyper sensitivity, lack of sleep (he'd been up since 5) and "Only Child Syndrome" and frankly SHARING IS A BITCH!
With the class party behind us we turned our focus toward his real birthday which is Valentines Day. I found the perfect present, a little blue Grumpy Bear, Care Bear (blue is boyish and it's from his crabby ass momma so it fit).
He's been watching the Care Bears a lot lately, thanks to Netflix. I guess it's better than She-Ra Princess of Power... that was a fun week) anyway...
When Grumpy arrived I couldn't wait to give Z the bear and was so happy to see his eyes light up when I handed it to him. He grabbed him and made him dance and then looked at me and said, "Present?" I was so proud, "Yes baby it's a present for you! That's right, good talking!"
He shoves the bear back at me and says, "Present!" to which I said, "Yes it's for you!" He stands up, grabs my hand, drags me to the living room to where a left over birthday box is sitting, pushes my hand toward the box and says, "Present!"
Apparently it's not truly a present if it isn't wrapped! He is so my kid! I tell ya life is all about the details!
Fast foreword 20 minutes later and here comes my little guy with his new buddy in one hand and his i-pad in the other. I am thinking, how cute is this right? Then I notice he looks upset, uh oh, he sets the i-pad down and pushes play on the Care Bear movie, hands me the Care Bear and very dryly says... "GREEN" and I realize he doesn't want mommy's dumb blue bear he wants the green one that is the main character in the movie he's been watching:(
Guess how much the green Oopsie bear costs? Yep, he's the rare one... of course and of course I'll get it for him because I'm a huge sucker. It's hard not to over compensate when you have a child who has limited communication.
When Zander works so hard to tell me what he wants, how do I say No to that? It's imperative that he knows when we understand what he's said vs. when we don't so that he keeps trying to find the right sound/word when he's speaking.
So I am tasked with trying to figure out how to teach him he can't have everything he wants in life, and keep him from being a spoiled brat while still motivating him to keep trying.
No worries right? Should be A PIECE OF CAKE! hahaha get it? cake/birthday tee hee hee.. (this is what happens when I blog before I've had my coffee... sorry) :)
Happy Birthday my lil love bug!
