Quarantined for Alida's 9th Birthday

On Alida's birthday, I noted (with an over-exaggerated amount of sorrow) that we were leaving behind the cool number combo of having a 4 year old x 2 = an 8 year old x 2 = a 16 year old. Without missing a beat, Kali informed me that now we have 3 girls in ascending square numbers. 2x2=4; 3x3=9; 4x4=16. Ok, so that is even cooler! So, until August when Kali messes things up by turning 17, we are good!! 😉

For weeks leading up to Alida's birthday, Terah wanted to give her a present. Most days at some point she would ask Alida, "Can I give you your present now?" Finally on the eve of her birthday, Alida gave in to her younger sister's excitement and insistence. Terah had drawn a sweet rainbow and hearts picture and had wrapped up her little glow in the dark duckie for Alida. I didn't even know what she had been up to, but she had clearly caught on to the joy of giving. It was very sweet!

With all the birthday party plans cancelled, Alida was "stuck" with her parents and sisters for her birthday. Weeks and weeks before her birthday, when I introduced the idea that a large gathering may not be in the cards, she piped up that that was ok and that she had already thought of that. That gal doesn't miss a beat. And while I'm sure there were flickers of disappointment, my sense was that through and through she felt loved and celebrated on her birthday.  But here I am getting ahead of myself.

With so many fun things planned for her birthday, we had to get a head start the night before. One silver lining to not having 40 or so other people join us for her birthday dinner was that the very special cherry pie only needed to be divided by 5! Why so special you may wonder? As Alida's due date was approaching in 2011, we learned of a cold storage unit that was pitching pallets and pallets of sour cherries from a unit that someone had stopped paying for. Thanks to some personal connections, we got several boxes of pitted sour cherries. Too many for the freezer, so on March 26 my mom and I got into a sour cherry canning project and partway through labor started! We canned cherries while I labored and at 9:08 that evening (right on her due date), Alida arrived! We've been saving the very last jar of cherries for some special occasion: how about her 9th birthday!?

The other thing happening on the day before her birthday and spilling into her special day was the first chicks hatching! Most beat her, but a few lingered and hatched on her actual birthday. These fuzz balls were more a gift for Terah, as she would have just sat and held them all day. She had a large meltdown the night before Alida's birthday when she held a chick, washed up for bed and then noted that Kali and Alida were still holding them. This was right before Jason took a dishpan full out to stick under the broody hen who was hatching some at the same time. This was too much for our tired little gal and she grieved loudly for quite some time! At least she got it out of her system BEFORE Alida's birthday!

It was only about 7 a.m. on her birthday when I heard the first peep out of Alida. I invited her to snuggle with me in bed, but I could tell there was no chance of her going back to sleep. She was too excited for the day ahead. So the two of us got up and enjoyed a quiet game of Cribbage with some hot chocolate for sipping to kick of the day! The night before I had put my auto-responder on my work email so I was fully dedicated to celebrating with Alida for the day, and was looking forward to the break from screens too!

Terah must have worn herself out the night before as we finally had to wake her to all go out to do chores together. But before that we woke Kali to join us for giving Alida one of her presents. I had created a personal email account for her on the sly and emailed her party attendees, family and some other friends, encouraging them to send her messages. She had over 35 emails waiting for her when she opened up her email account!  Her response was all I had hoped for - she was thrilled! But even she needed a break after getting through about half of them. She got through all the emails that day but we didn't even get into the google photos folder that folks had dropped videos and pictures into - also for a surprise. We just started those last night and she felt asleep cuddled up to me before we got through them all. So the celebrating is being spread out (not to mention that the little present we ordered for her online has arrived but we've been quarantining our mail for a few days so she hasn't actually gotten that yet either)...

But I digress! Once we roused Terah, we all headed out to do chores together at Alida's request. I think it's sweet that she didn't ask that someone do her chores for her, but that we all go out together. I love that her "perfect" day is also a gift to all of us - as we all enjoy doing as much of our day's activities as we can TOGETHER! And getting outside for some fresh air and a little exercise before breakfast always makes it taste even better. We got to mixing up pancakes just as soon as we got in - she liked that we pulled out the recipe I always used to make pancakes for my daddy on Saturday mornings when I was young. They were a hit!

After brunch, she "zoomed" with my parents while she opened a present they had left at Tangly Woods for her. That was a new experience to be sure - but we are having a few of those these days. A bit later in the day, she had another zoom call with her aunt and uncle in Pittsburgh so they could watch her when she opened their emails, the one complete with a very entertaining dance to our 9 year old (she has been known to give out ballet lessons at family gatherings and so her uncle was showing off his skills from those lessons)!

With brunch dishes done and Jason in from doing the hiding, the next planned fun in the day was an Easter egg hunt! Alida and Terah had gone through all our plastic eggs and picked out 108 to hide. That was important because it was divisible by 3 but also take note that it just happens to be 9 dozen! Yes, I was indeed thrilled by yet another fun number coincidence! Alida had chosen for Jason to hide them along the lower part of the wood's trail that we just completed on Sunday. That may be a topic for a future post, but I'll just say that we LOVE it! It's a perfect short doable hike that I have a feeling we will be doing often. From the top we can see mountains in both directions. Oh, I should add that we found 107 of the 108 eggs - not too bad!

With another dose of fresh air in us, we settled in with the snacks from inside the eggs and the Farming Game. I really can't believe I used to like games like this or Monopoly. I really needed a knitting project as I was antsy from the beginning. But I was able to settle in enough to enjoy her enjoying so much having all of us (well, Terah was in and out doing her own thing) playing with her. It was well worth it, but I do consider it a birthday present to subject myself to several hours of the Farming Game. I'm glad that we were all ready to bring it to a close at about the same time!

It was time to work on the "fancy" birthday dinner, for which there was a dress code announced. Alida set up "shop" and folks lined up to get their "fancifying" accessories. We then sat down to enjoy a dinner of baked sweet potatoes with sausage gravy and sauteed green bean with garlic (just one more bag of green beans left!). Her choice of birthday meals was a hit with all of us. I can't say we maintained our "proper behavior" for the entirety of the meal, but we all enjoyed ourselves! Jason didn't seem quite ready to turn his "thneed" back in at the end of the meal. 

Jason was happy to give up his spot in the Dutch Blitz game after dinner, so he cleaned up while us gals played. We had just enough time to look through the rest of the 1000 or so pictures my parents had shared of Alida before she officially turned 9! Around 9 p.m., I decided that maybe I should double check in her baby book that she was indeed born at 9:18 p.m. Good I checked - she was 10 minutes old then as 9:08 was the actual birth moment. So we had to get the candle lit in her cherry pie fast and we were just a few minutes late singing!

Her party was to include a sleepover so sleepover we did - all in the living room. Alida picked a nature video on Netflix and we all bedded down (some of us falling asleep during the movie). I can't say that I slept wonderfully on the futon, but it wasn't too bad. Everyone was up earlier than normal but that was a good thing since their was one more birthday meal to enjoy together - her post-sleepover brunch of sausage quiche, funny cake pie and fruit salad. That officially ended the festivities but I see the birthday sign still up, there are Easter eggs all over the house, and we still have more photos and videos to look at that family and friends shared with Alida. Oh, and that quarantined present is in her future also, along with cashing in a variety of birthday coupons received.

Overall, it was an incredible day - she kept commenting throughout the day what a good birthday she was having. It was truly a gift for all of us. While the focus was on Alida, in many ways the focus was also on celebrating love and togetherness and I think we all were in need of a dose of that. We have been together a lot (more or less 24/7) and while we often spend days on end together, this day had the unique flavor of not having a lot of other "intrusions" into the sacred space of the day. I was so in need of a media and email break and in many ways the day was also more enjoyable and relaxing for me not prepping much of the day for a big party and hosting responsibilities. I felt more present with our special, spunky, creative, giggly, sweet, intelligent, and mischievous now 9 year old! The future feels really uncertain in so many ways, but for that one day our family celebrations felt like a really bright and beautiful burst in all the anxiety churning around.

p.s. For any consistent readers, it seems important to note that I also got the good news yesterday morning that my repeat blood work had my white count and platelets solidly back in the normal range. I'm relieved!