Birthday Party

Kaelyn went to her first "real" birthday party Sunday afternoon.  She came home with an invitation in her backpack but she seemed to already know all about the party from the student who it was for.  We went Friday after school and she helped me choose a couple presents for Justin, the birthday boy.  She was SO excited that she asked every day after she got the invitation what day it was.  There were, I think, six kids from her class at school so that was exciting to her.  The biggest surprise of the day was for me.  When we walked up to the house, another mom was walking up and it was someone I went to college with here in Hobe Sound.  I hadn't seen her probably since college.  Her little boy is a friend of Justin.  The kids all played in the pool and bounce house and there was a pinata.  The boys [in her class] all seem to kind of "watch out" for Kaelyn - at least that's the way it appeared by watching them all interact. Several of the moms seemed to know about Kaelyn and they would say, "Oh that's Kaelyn" because they hear about her from their little boy.  After the candles on the cake had been blown out and we sang, ALL the kids were standing around saying, "I want some cake!  I want some cake!"  much to the distress of most of the parents who tried to get their kid to wait patiently and quietly.  :-)  Of course Kaelyn joined in but for some reason when Justin heard HER saying it, he decided the cake cutting process was taking too long for her.  He turned to her and said, "Do you wanna' cookie Kaelyn?"  She said, "Yes" and he grabbed one out of a dish (that was with all the regular food people had already been eating) and gave it to her much to everyone's amusement.  A few minutes later, his mom went in the house and discovered he was already opening his presents, which was really fine since there was so much going on.  When Kaelyn saw that he had opened a present, she ran over very excitedly and found our presents and took them to him.  He said, "Okay, you can open that one."  His mom and I explained that it was for him so then he helped her.  They all played in the bounce house and in general, had a great time.  It was interesting being at a party where so many of the kids were autistic but mostly about the same level Kaelyn is.  It certainly took the pressure off as a parent for everyone to understand it when one of the kids would be off in a corner in the house by him/herself playing with the new legos for a little bit or when another kid flipped out because the bounce house got wet when someone got in it after being in the pool.  I don't mean any of that in a negative way at all.  It was just nice to be in a "social situation" with other kids where you weren't holding your breath wondering if your kid was going to do something that looked strange to everyone else.  All three of us really enjoyed ourselves and Kaelyn has talked and talked about it.  Their teacher told me Monday that she was so excited that so many of them had gone and had that social interaction.

Kay eating her cake.

Kay and Justin playing with one of his new presents - a table top air hockey game.

They were funny to watch.  It wasn't played very competitively, which was just fine.

There were a bunch of other kids at the party but toward the end, these four, all from school were the last ones and none of them wanted to leave.

I was trying to get Kaelyn to leave and she wasn't wanting to leave.  Then she saw the three boys run by to go back to Justin's room and she burst into tears.  She had been asking all afternoon if she could go to Justin's room and see his toys.  She was so amazed and fascinated by the fact that he lives in a house too. 

:-)  She didn't say that exactly but you can tell that they all associate each other with school only.  When we went into the bathroom she said, "Is this Justin's bathroom?"  "Look that's Justin bathtub.  Do you think Justin takes a bath in that bathtub?" etc.  So when she saw that they got to see Justin's room, she was just crushed.  I didn't have the heart to not let her go with them.  Justin decided to spread a blanket out on the floor so they could all sit and watch a movie.  One of the little boys can't watch a movie without having popcorn so Justin's dad happily fixed them all popcorn.  It was so cute.  They only watched for a little bit and then we all headed out.  It was a great experience for Kaelyn.

Thanks blogger for randomly deciding to flip this picture.  Anyway... when Kaelyn saw that the other two classmates got Toy Story favor bags and she had gotten Rapunzel as the last three of us families left, she informed me that she wanted Toy Story.  I didn't think anyone heard or was paying attention when she told me that she HATED Rapunzel (which she doesn't really) and then was scolded for it.  Much to my embarrassment, she came home Tuesday with a Toy Story favor bag in her backpack.  I asked her about it and she said Justin brought it for her.  Little rotten stinker!