Birthday Season

We are deep in the throes of the birthday season here. We have had one or two a week for the last few weeks and it looks like it's just heating up. Acrosports seems to be the favorite venue. It's nice because kids can burn off some of their extra energy in a wonderland of kid-oriented gym equipment before they are re-energized with pizza and birthday cake. There are trampolines, trapeze swings, climbing ropes, zip-lines and of course the perennial favorite: The big parachute!

We have had birthdays there back to back for the last few weekends. Since I am completely comfortable with the routine, I volunteered to take the kids to the party there and give Kristin a break. (also, truth be told, I have a soft-spot for the big parachute).

When it was cake time, there was one little girl who couln't have any because her mother doesn't allow her to sugar. I happened to be standing next to the mom and I asked if she has some sort of food allergy.

"No," The mother said "I just don't want to her to have sugar." There was a little indignation in her voice too, as if to say "You mean you don't care if your kids have sugar!?"

Just then one of the other parents who was passing out cake set a piece down in front of the girl. The mom literally swung into action, promptly removing the cake and scolding the parent for being so careless. Needless to say, the little girl was crushed and started crying immediately. Annabel noticed right away and came over to me.

"Why is that girl crying?" she asked.
"Because she can't have any cake." I said.

"Why not?" Annabel Asked.
"Because her mommy doesn't like to her to have sugar, and there is a lot of sugar in cake." I said.

Annabel went back to her seat and ate a few more bites of cake. Then she came back over.

"We need to get a piece of cake to take home for Mommy and Gaby." She said.

"Oh, well I'll bring my piece home and they can share it, I told her."

I don't know exactly what was going on in her mind during those few bites of cake, but I guess it was probably something like "Its sad that that girl can't have cake. I'm glad I can have cake. And then the surprising: Mommy and Gaby would be glad if they can have cake. We should bring them some".

She just has a natural tendency to empathize with people and to imagine their feelings.

Follow up: Last weekend, I had another birthday party. This time, I took Gaby and Annabel stayed with Kristin. As soon as Gaby and I got back, Annabel came running over:

"Did you bring me a piece of cake?!"

Of course it never occurred to me to bring her cake even though I took special note of her empathy the last time.

Clearly, she must get it from her mother...

Those are other books that I made that you can get

Not only is Annabel getting close to reading, but she is also writing. And not just writing her ABCs, as you might expect, but writing complete books.

I wasn't around for the first one, but Kristin says that Annabel came to her and asked for several pieces of paper. She went off and drew pictures on each of the pieces and then she back and said that she had made a book and wanted Kristin to help her put it together. She narrated the words she wanted written on each page and then she punched a hole in the corner and tied it to together with a ribbon.



The back cover is the funniest part. It has 6 little squares on it. Kristin asked her what they were and she said:

"Those are other books that I made that you can get".

She's already learned cross-promotion. I'm so proud.

Since then, she's made several books. I've helped her with a few of them and I can testify that she is very precise about what she wants written. She narrates the text word for word.