Five Ways to Turn Ten

Birthdays have a tendency to be rather long, drawn out affairs over her, but this year Malia’s birthday celebration spanned an even larger portion of the calendar than usual. Ten felt like a really big birthday to her, double digits and all that. Add to that the fact that last year’s birthday celebrations were definitely altered by COVID, and we really wanted to do it right this year. But sometimes life gets in the way and the best laid plans must be altered. That was kind of how Malia’s tenth went.

Celebration #1: After more than a year apart, we were finally able to resume our Sunday dinners at my parents’ house in July. We did switch to a once-a-month format though, so Malia’s chance to celebrate with the extended family was on August 8, two full weeks before her actual day. We made cake in her current favorite theme: How to Train Your Dragon. Lots of people means lots of cake, so we were able to create a fun dragon duo in chocolate and vanilla. We sang, she beamed, grandma gave her money, we had a lovely time.

 

 

Celebration #2: Both Daniel and Nathan moved to Logan on August 21, the day before Malia’s birthday. Daniel needed to register for marching band on August 22 and band camp started on the 23rd, so he had to move in on the earliest day possible. Nathan wanted enough time to get moved in, find his way around campus, and just generally get comfortable in his new digs so he opted to move on the 21st as well. In order for them to be here to celebrate Malia reaching the decade mark, we did our immediate family celebration on Friday, August 20. Malia wanted to recreate the dragon duo cakes, so that’s what we did, just making much smaller cakes than we did for the big gathering. Because that would way been way, way too much cake. Honestly, it was still a lot of cake, but it was tasty. Daniel, Nathan and Matthew pitched in for a big set of another of her current favorites, the Littlest Pet Shop, which she loved.

 

Celebration #3: Besides having two of her brothers move out the day before her birthday, one of the things Malia was sad about was how little celebrating there would be on her actual birthday because it was on a Sunday this year, and an abnormal one at that. Kev and I had some plans, but we couldn’t spoil them all by telling her, so we opted to celebrate a bit more on Saturday. After we got Daniel and Nathan moved, we raced back home so we could take her out to dinner. It’s a rare thing for her to go out to eat with just the two of us, so we let her choose the establishment and took her to a special parents and birthday girl dinner. She has good taste and chose to eat at Tsunami, one of our favorite (and completely nut free) establishments. She ate potstickers and teriyaki steak and was perfectly happy about it. And once we got home, there was leftover birthday cake.

Celebration #4: Sunday, August 22 was Malia’s actual birthday. We had stake conference that day which meant we didn’t have quite enough time for the fun birthday breakfast I had planned, so we had breakfast for lunch instead. I made birthday cake pancakes stacked high on the “You are Special Today” plate, decorated in whipped cream and lit with candles. We had to sing fast before the cream melted, but it was a fun way to celebrate her big day. And the pancakes were really good. I mean, what’s not to love about sprinkles and whipped cream? Kevin and I also had a bunch of balloons we had sneaked in the previous evening and some fudge stripe cookies, one of her favorite store-bought cookies. She got presents from Kev and I (an assortment of sketch pads and some good quality colored pencils) and from Kevin’s parents (two books in the Wings of Fire series that she is currently loving). I had choir practice that evening and had to leave at 4:00 to get there on time (more about that in a later post) which was one of the wrinkles of the day, but Kev made spaghetti, Malia’s favorite food, for dinner and she got to eat off the special birthday plate again. Having a birthday on the weekend means more than one meal on the special plate. It might not have been a perfect birthday, but it turned out pretty good.

 

Celebration #5: Malia’s party with her friends was scheduled for August 28th, but we had a big wrinkle with that one, a wrinkle caused by an exposure to COVID. Malia would still be in quarantine on the date of her party, so we had to postpone the party. Once her test came back negative, we rescheduled, but were smart enough not to plan anything for Labor Day weekend. Today, nearly three weeks after her actual birthday and five weeks after her first celebration of the year, we were finally able to have her birthday party for friends. It was “How to Train Your Dragon” themed, of course, and we had a variety of games and treats to go along with that. There was a sheep tossing game that featured pompoms with sheep heads glued on. I thought the kids would tire of that one quickly, but they played it for nearly forty-five minutes. We pinned the tailfin on Toothless and the girls found that facemasks also work great as blindfolds. Next came a super fun scavenger hunt with some golden dragon eggs filled with party favors at the end. We ate pizza and fruit salad and then decorated cookies, dragons, of course. The only downside of the party was the fact that Malia got a bloody nose just as things were winding down, so she dashed into the house to wait it out. And then she started crying because she was missing her own birthday party which made things even worse. But eventually she clotted and was able to rejoin her guests for a final round of pictures and the farewells.

 

Five weeks and five celebrations later, we have finally finished celebrating Malia’s tenth. In my opinion, that is a celebration worthy of a big birthday. We are all so glad that Malia is a part of our family. She adds a little girly flavor to our mix, but not so much that the boys can’t handle it. She is capable of bantering with the best of them and is developing a bit of quick wit as well. She loves school and does well there. She also loves to draw and is working to develop the ability to draw dragons, an endeavor that is going very well. Seriously, she is heaps and loads ahead of my own stick figure capabilities. She has started taking a sketch pad with her almost all the time and I love that she is working to develop her talent. She loves reading and is currently flying through the “Wings of Fire” series just as quickly as she can get her hands on the books. And one of the things I love the best is that she is counting down to the day when she can go to the temple. With the rules allowing her to go starting in January of the year she turns twelve, she is a mere year and four months from being able to go in and is very much looking forward to being able to do baptisms with all her brothers. I’m looking forward to that as well. It will be a blessed day when all six of us can be in the temple together.

And the Verdict is…

Today was the seventh day since Malia’s exposure to COVID which meant today was the day she could test. We scheduled her test for first thing this morning thinking that if it came back negative, she could still make it to school. We were all a bit anxious which is understandable considering the state of the world at this point, so going first thing in the morning was a good thing in terms of stress levels as well. I drove Malia over, she got her nose swabbed, we drove home and thirty minutes later the email with her results arrived. Thankfully, they came back negative! She was absolutely hyped, we were all relieved, and after calling the school to report her results, we hopped in the car. Her results came back to quickly that she was only fifteen minutes late to school. And she was one happy girl. Seriously, I’ve never seen her get ready for school that fast before. If only it didn’t take a weeklong quarantine to get her to move like that.

Quarantine Crafts

Today is day four of Malia’s quarantine. She has been a trooper, keeping herself busy, having a generally good attitude, etc. She has read a lot, drawn a lot of pictures, done some homework, etc. Today my mom sent some Swedish weaving bookmark kits over for her and Malia loved it. She picked up the technique very quickly and had her first bookmark done in about 45 minutes. She often struggles to complete projects, all enthusiasm as she starts then her interest waning before she can see significant progress. That’s one of the great things about Swedish weaving. It moves quickly and a simple project can be completed in a short time. Malia really enjoyed herself and is already making plans for how she can create more things using her newly acquired skills.

 

We Did Some Emotional Eating

In the year and a half since COVID officially hit the fan, we have somehow managed to avoid being quarantined. Now I know there are a lot of people who have managed that, but we had three kids in three different public schools last year and we still managed to dodge the bullet. However, our winning streak has ended. With school and primary starting again and nearly all COVID protocols, including masks, being tossed out the window, I am harboring a sneaking suspicion that things are going to get ugly. And the first bit of ugly came today. I got a text letting me know that one of the girls who was at activity days yesterday afternoon tested positive for COVID this morning. That means Malia is now officially quarantined. She was wearing a mask at the activity except when they were eating their cupcakes, but she was the only one. And even so, we had to call the school to notify them. I knew Malia would freak out when they pulled her out of class (which she did), but it was unavoidable. It also means we will need to postpone her birthday party, which was scheduled for this Saturday, and she will miss her best friend’s birthday party on Friday. There were tears of fear and disappointment and I suspect there will be more before we are done.

Matthew had a bit of a panic attack as well. Because he has been vaccinated, he doesn’t need to quarantine at this point, but it is still a mighty big bit of stress as we have no idea what the next week may bring. It took a good hour for him to calm down enough that his hands stopped shaking. Kev’s focus for the day was shot and he told his boss he would be back to work tomorrow. He is still working from home so at least that is not a dilemma we need to deal with. I’m so grateful Nathan moved to USU last weekend rather than waiting for this one. Starting his first semester in college by being quarantined would be pretty darn lousy. Since Daniel was renting the same basement apartment he had last summer and is vaccinated, he probably would have been ok to skip quarantine, but since he moved last weekend too, there is no question and he can keep enjoying band camp for marching band. I’ve been to one whole conference choir rehearsal, but at least they are being flexible with attendance due to COVID and are recording rehearsals so that if we need to miss one, we can still get the practice and information we need. We will be skipping church and cancelling appointments for the next bit as we wait out the quarantine. We are and hoping and praying she remains healthy but feel that erring on the side of caution seems wise and responsible. Overall, it has been a pretty high stress afternoon.

Thank goodness there was some ice cream in the freezer.