The answer to whether Kali is solidly an adult now or in her last year of adolescence depends on who you ask. But the hard fact is that she is now 19! And that she arrived home in time to celebrate her birthday with us, which was probably as much a gift for us as it was for her. It is also worth noting that there was so much emphasis on August 9th in our household (welcome home signs, a chain with loops noting how many days until her arrival, etc...) that I didn't do nearly as much advance birthday planning as I normally do. And Kali wasn't around to talk about what she wanted, and the birthday person choosing what they want for their bday is a pretty big thing in this household. Kali did confirm with me just now that she had a nice birthday but also agreed that even for her the emphasis up to that point had really been on the bigger transition of returning home after 2+ months! So here's how things shook out:
Her ducks chores were done for her, so this was her first activity of the day (well, after brushing her teeth and changing). This is not an unusual scene ever since the acquisition of her phone! In addition to her many word games and any number of other things, she now has friends all the way across the world to connect with.
I pulled her away to take a meander down to the ducklings for a visit and to husk corn for her birthday brunch.
Emily, Jonas and Ivy joined us for brunch centering around Kali's request of sausage quiche. While I was making pie crusts I added funny cake pies to the menu, and then just loaded the table up with veggies. I cannot get over all the colors and textures of this time of year.
She was literally loved upon throughout the day!
She got some new co-op snacks and some coupons to spread out the birthday fun (there'll be a sister movie night and sister game night and a day hike with her parents and watching a show with her dad coming in the future). There was some game playing sprinkled into the day somewhere.
She also found herself a 4-leaf clover!
The big adventure of the day was getting her behind the wheel of our car again. She had wanted to do some driving where she gets to try to find her way around or just enjoy exploring wherever she feels like going. This was very fun for her and Jason and I think Alida enjoyed it well enough and Terah was moderately stressed - at least that is what I gathered from the report. But all arrived home, after 4+ hours, in good spirits. They had three stops to accomplish - a visit to the library, a visit to Sharp Shopper, and a visit to Smiley's Ice Cream. The rest of the time was spent galavanting around the countryside. I happily stayed at home and chopped many veggies, while listening to an entire audio book (maybe more on How to Keep House while Drowning another time!).
The celebrating continued into the next day when we had her birthday dinner with my parents, and also her great, great aunt Eleanor (who had joined us that afternoon for the week - more on that also in a later post!). Another colorful, delicious meal and a new food experience, blackberry cake, that Terah now wants for her birthday even though blackberries are no longer in season then. It was my mother who made the fried eggplant and okra, which is always a labor of love!
As I type this she is wearing her birthday t-shirt and giving ME a foot massage. I'm writing about her birthday while cashing in my last birthday coupon from September 2021. So if any of this doesn't make sense, it's because I'm half focused on what I'm typing and half focused on the wonderful sensations in my feet!
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