Emergency Celebration

Erik turns 4 on Tuesday, but we celebrated his birthday yesterday. I have thoroughly enjoyed being able to count down the days with Erik, as he truly understands what birthdays are this year and was excited about who was coming to visit. The theme for this year's party was emergency vehicles. We had a full house, even though some of Erik's biggest fans were unable to attend. I find myself daring to invite more children with each passing year, as Erik handles the extra activity and noise with more and more grace. He did beautifully, and many people commented on how much he has matured. I certainly felt as if everyone here was celebrating all of our hard work over the last year with us. I was incredibly excited to see Bev, the woman who worked with Erik in our home those dark first months, at our door. She misses Erik immensely now that he has moved on to preschool and was able to stay for most of the party. The cake was yet another incredible confection sculpted with love by my parents. It was shaped like a bright red ambulance, complete with working lights and siren. Erik was absolutely thrilled. It soon became mildly dimpled with fingerprints from Erik and the other partygoers of shorter stature who admired it on their way by.

One of my friends from my old job at the clinic offered to arrange for an ambulance to come to the house. I received a text message providing a heads up that they were blocks away, and I quickly told everyone inside to gather on the front porch. There is nothing quite like a group of adults holding wine glasses cheering on an approaching ambulance. We giggled and hoorayed with gusto as it approached with its spasmodic lights piercing the slightly gloomy afternoon. The neighbors probably thought that one of my wild parties had finally claimed a life. The kids were amazed and ran without hesitation to greet my friend and the slightly bashful EMT driving. The back doors were opened wide, and Erik was coaxed inside. Erik stood next to the stretcher and said, "Look at YOU on that ambulance!" He cautiously inspected everything, including the vehicle's undercarriage, by the time we headed back inside to feast on pizza. It was a very surreal and oddly festive sight to behold.

We then sliced into the cake. The candles were no match for Erik's lung power. He unwrapped presents for the first time, encouraged and guided a little by Brian this year. It was good to see him actually tearing wrapping paper and being interested in what was inside the boxes, not just the boxes themselves. He enjoyed the kids and adults around him and understood that it was his day. Towards the end of the party he played with the other children in his bedroom, although they mostly played around him and asked him to join them in their very imaginative games. Erik said goodbye as each of them left, and the sweet, strange formality of his words made us smile.

I was a little emotional today. After some of the stress that comes with planning an event like this finally lifted and all was said and done, I realized we had been given the best gift of all: A rare day of feeling almost completely NORMAL.

Sweet!

(Videos and slide show coming soon)