SS's birthday party.

I had the narrative done, a long one, then Bl0gger screwed me by crashing. REALLY UPSET. SS had a blast, and the love of her life (JJ) was present. Even if every kid in her class attended, SS would not have been her happy self if JJ was not there.

Cute birthday outfit a gift from Abuela and Abuelo. And by the way, those are Capri pants.

That is one intense look. SS was probably envisioning the cars she annihilated.

P, JJ and D can't recall what the heck they were looking at in that moment. Aunt D is the woman in the green top.

The idea behind having the party at Chuck E. is to have them provide decorations, food and entertainment. P was hell bent on the Cars theme, so we basically paid twice for the decorations. We do owe SS, because this is her firs birthday party. We missed her first birthday. Her second birthday was celebrated with Abuela and Grandpa, and she shared the celebration with JJ. For her third birthday we took her and JJ to Monterey Bay Aquarium. Her fourth birthday was celebrated at school with her classmates. Yep, we owed her big time.



Remember Cowboy? He was going to take a six week break from school, starting in September, due to cranial surgery. He did not return, and SS missed him terribly. The teachers had no information, they just did not hear from the family again. SS talked about her buddy every day, would make drawings and asked us to mail them. We wanted L and SS to at least see each other again before our move. I brought an invitation with postage and asked SS's teacher to please mail it to L. We thought it was worth the long shot. We were delighted when L's mom was the first RSVP we received. L's mom was devastated when I told her we were moving. L was ready to return to school next week, and she was looking forward to their reunion and "watching them grow up together." We decided to keep L's presence a surprise for SS.

It turned out that withholding the information was the right thing to do. L did not arrive until more than half an hour after the party began. P, D and I had our eyes glued to the door, anxiously hoping that he would make it. Until L arrived SS was rather uninterested in what was going on around her. Check out how she gets in between L and H, when the girl tries to encroach on SS's territory. And on her birthday party of all times. How rude! SS's move had all the adults in stitches.



Poor L, seven plus months of social isolation took a toll on him. he was more outgoing pre surgery. At least they have two more weeks together. We are planning to have them keep in touch through Skype, for as long as they are interested. We are also going to create a blog to document SS's move, and will make the site available to her classmates. After all, it's not like there's much going on in our lives now, right?

SS made sure that no one would steal L's attention. We are seriously locking her up until she is 45.

















It's interesting that we measure SS's progress different than most parents do with same aged children. SS just does things a bot different, backwards at times. P, JJ, D and I thought there was no way SS would enter the cabin. Even of she could see us, we thought it would upset her. Once she willingly entered (and blew us away) we thought she'd flip when the air began to blow. But again, SS was a trooper, and we are proud of her progress.