The panda? The panda on the wall? It is very sad today!
For weeks Sarah has been asking how the panda picture on her wall would feel when she and Amy were away for Amy’s birthday bash sleepover at Anna’s. We have been predicting that the panda would feel sad, forlorn, bereft, and dismayed. And indeed we were right!
Yesterday Amy had a wonderful birthday party at Urban Air, a trampoline park filled with many activities beyond mere trampolines. It was also filled with noise and various flashing lights. I was not pleased about the lights and felt a bit anxious about Sarah’s night, worrying that the lights would cause a seizure. All was well. Perhaps she wasn’t around the lights enough to be a problem. Or maybe it helped that we increased her anti-seizure meds, under the guidance of her neurologist of course. I don’t understand why places need to have flashing lights to make you think it is more fun. Anyway, it is probably akin to things like food allergies. Unless you are personally connected to someone with an allergy, you may not even think about such things. So if you aren’t connected to someone who may get a seizure in response to flashing lights, you may not consider the lights to be a problem at all.
Anyway, both Amy and Sarah had a great time at the party and then went off to Anna’s for the sleepover. Amy’s birthday theme had been the four elements (earth, air, water, fire) and she and her BFF decorated cupcakes with that in mind. Amy dressed as a water element and created a “What element are you? quiz for her friends to complete. To support this theme, Anna made a sign for Amy representing the elements. They also made hair-bows for Amy to add to her water/mermaid look.
Carl and I have not been doing a good job of picking movies to watch when the kids are on their sleepovers. We keep picking things that look interesting in the preview but actually are weird and uncomfortable to watch and then we need to watch something funny to recover. Last night we watched “White Noise” which was enjoyable in some ways but I think they showed all of the funny parts in the preview. The part of the movie I found most difficult to accept was that the whole family went grocery shopping together. This is a family with 4 kids! Who does that? Who has time when they can actually all be together at the same time? And if they are, why would they choose to go grocery shopping?! That is just as unbelievable as all of the characters in the freezing realms of Game of Thrones not wearing hats! I mean, come on!
We also watched Dumbo with the kids on Friday night. We were stunned to realize that parts of the movie we remembered as long and significant are actually quite short, and the neon pink elephant montage when Dumbo is drunk lasts a ridiculously long time – and has flashing lights!! What is with the flashing lights? I was nervous that night too but again all was well.
I got an alarm clock for Sarah to help her be more independent in the morning. Since she likes Carl’s sunrise clock I wanted something similar but easier to use. I also wanted something that didn’t have a flashing/rotating color light option. It was difficult to find something simple and then it isn’t actually as simple to operate as we had hoped. But it is simple enough and Sarah likes it. She especially likes the option to go to sleep with ocean sounds playing in the background.
In other news, our oven died. We knew the control panel was on the way out, but we thought we had more time. The plan was to make Amy’s birthday cupcakes Friday afternoon, and we did! We just took the pans filled with batter to Amy’s BFF’s and used that oven. Thank goodness for friends. When the cupcakes were cool then Amy’s friend brought the pans back and the two of them spent hours doing elaborate decorations.
Lots of love to you. I hope your ovens are working.
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