Life after Little E
As mentioned on my previous post, the week Little E transitioned to a new home, was a very busy week. Not going to say it was easy sailing. The first evening when entering my apartment it felt cold, empty, and lonely. But needing to get the house in order and start preparing a birthday cake I got busy with no time to linger in those feelings. The following evening, I had a birthday girl and her sisters join me for dinner and cake.
Right after our time together I had to bake another cake for another birthday boy. Thank goodness I had lots of leftovers, so I only had to make another side and ta-da! we had dinner done. So the next day I had the birthday boy and his siblings over for dinner and cake. It was nice to get to spend this time with them.
I had been wanting to put up the tree so I invited the older kids to come and help after dinner the following evening. I don’t know what it is but I always want to feed them something, so I baked a few banana breads and made them hot chocolate to have after we decorated. They did most of the decorating and did a great job. I have to brag, the boys got so into it. They went and brought a manger one of them had made and then went to get some hay to add to the look. They did an amazing job! After the decorating of the Christmas tree we all sat and had the hot chocolate and bread. We talked for a while then the boys began sharing jokes. It was a fun night.
A couple days later I made breakfast for another birthday girl. Turns out we both have the same birthday. Even though I started out wanting to bless the young girl, the kids really blessed me throughout the day. I get tears just thinking about all that they did to make me feel special. One gave me a thermos he had won at a Christmas party they had gone the previous day, and he shared how he had tried so hard to win it for me. The girls came over and sang, then later they bought a pound cake and put candles on it. The boys put their candy, from the day before, on a plate to make it look like a cake and put candles on the plate with the candy. They all came about the same time and they lighted the candles and sang happy birthday. Then later in the day, the boys raked a ton of leaves and wrote out “Sarid felicidades” they came for me and led me with my eyes closed to surprise me. Once I got there and I opened my eyes they threw leaves up making it seem like it was raining leaves. It was wonderful! One for the books!
Don’t get me wrong, my family and friends have blessed me each year and I am so grateful for them. I don’t know, I suppose I didn’t expect it to be this way. I felt like, what I imagine, parents feel when their kids express their love/appreciation to them. How sweet of God to allow me to experience it this way.
That day I also had dear friends come and visit me. We kept getting interrupted by the kids, but I am was blessed to get to see them and grateful for their patience with the kids. And that was my birthday. I also had a Christmas dinner that night, and I enjoyed hanging out with some of the ladies that work or have worked at the Ranch.
The following week was also full with birthdays, two young ladies who are working here with the babies/toddlers had birthdays. It was funny that we had birthdays two days apart. Mine was the 14, Priscilla’s the 16th, and our newest caregiver’s was the 18th. Then it turned out that the 20th was another caregiver’s birthday. Now if you thought these two weeks had too many birthdays…January might just break the record.
