For the third year in a row we experienced the rush of birthdays during the last week of school for all the kids who had summer birthdays. It’s a sweet gesture…they don’t want any kid being left out of having a celebration with their class, but still I have to wonder how confusing that is for a kid. Even though Brittain was older and had more of an understanding of what was going on, pretty much from this point until her actual birthday she continued to say that she was already 5…and we had to remind her every time that she still had a couple of months until her actual 5th birthday.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m writing all of this quite a few months after the fact. When I pulled up the pictures from this day I began to remember the emotions I was having. I can remember the feeling I had when Brittain was handing out the plates and napkins and the thrill she got from that. I remembered that when we went to pick out her plates and napkins she insisted on getting the exact same ones as Ellie had gotten for her own birthday party at school. Being different didn’t interest her. She wanted to be just like Ellie. Somehow I talked her out of getting the exact same favors as her…
Her party took place during one of the last 2 weeks of school. As I watched her with all her friends that she had now spent 3 years with, at our church where she felt safe, I wondered how she was going to adjust to Kindergarten. I remember saying a prayer at that moment, knowing it would be a prayer I would say for my child each and every year she started a new and different school year.
