295 - 4th of July

Based on a true story…kinda. Our kids have the funniest habit of thinking it’s their birthday, even when it isn’t. They hear that another kid is having a birthday soon and they announce that it’s their birthday too. Sometimes it’s arbitrary and they just decided today (or tomorrow) is their birthday. We will tell them no, and even show them a calendar. At times they are okay with it, at other times the revelation they aren’t going to get cake and presents any time soon leads to tears. I guess that desire to have your birthday every day is just strong in some kids. Our son, Raif, is autistic. He is 12 now, but the whole idea and concept of birthdays didn’t even register with him until a few years ago. When he was younger, we would do a big party for him every year and he wouldn’t have a clue why–he just enjoyed the cake and games. That did change eventually and while I don’t know if he truly understands that he is a year older, he does know it’s a big day, and the fact he is becoming a big boy. One day I was making a cake. It was just a cake for the heck of it. Raif came into the kitchen, saw it, clasped his hands and said, “for me???” He did his best wide-eyed look and I have to think he was imitating some cartoon he’d seen. He then said, “My Birthday” and ran off. I got a chuckle, but thought that was it. However, a few minutes later he returned with a pack of candles. Since we are always very quick to encourage this type of awareness in him, I thought it would be a good idea just to play along and do the birthday thing. When the cake was done and frosted, we put a couple of candles in it and lit them. Everyone sang, “Happy Birthday”. Raif was so proud and happy. At the end, he blew out the candles…and then promptly left the room and never returned. To him, at that moment, a birthday meant singing and blowing out a candle. He wanted no part in the cake or anything else. I still get a chuckle out of that. Thankfully, when his real birthday rolled around a few months later, he was a bit more receptive to the cake-eating and other activities.

All of that said, today we do have birthday celebrations going on as 2 of our kids, Monty and Violet, celebrate their birthdays today. I don’t know if it’s fate or not that both of them have quite firey tempers. We call them our firecracker babies. They are not twins, however. Monty turns 7 and Violet turns 3. They were both born on the 4th of July, 4 years apart. Pretty cool, eh?

We originally were going to start our next storyline, but I wanted to do something that tied in with the 4th of July a bit. Happy Independence Day to our American readers. For a neat little fireworks trick, check out this post on my personal blog.