Great Spock, she’s already three!

Spock turned three years old yesterday. I blinked and three years went by.

How can it have been three years since this wondrous being came into my life; a cone-headed and vernix covered angel? I can still picture, with crystal clarity, her tiny face and then the orange color she turned a few days later when she became jaundiced. I remember intensely how frantic I was that she was too tired from the jaundice to nurse, and how Sweet Babou patiently fed her my expressed breast milk by using an eyedropper.

Nowadays, the once wee Spock is all about pre-school. She loves math, and thinks Team Umizoomi is the greatest cartoon in existence. She can already do rudimentary addition and subtraction. I am still working on rudimentary addition and subtraction! Of course, with Lilo having Asperger’s I am occasionally concerned about Spock’s love of arithmetic and mathematical principles. She looks for patterns and shapes everywhere. She lines up her toys “just so”. Today, I noticed she was counting her steps because I could hear her softly saying “… 23, 24, 25 …” and to be honest that’s spectrumy. However, she hit all her developmental milestones like a champ so maybe she is just nerdy-engineer type and isn’t all the way “into” the spectrum where she would be an Asperger’s girl. I don’t want to accidently push thru a false diagnosis because of my paranoia, you know?

Her birthday party went extremely well. There were a total of 17 kids, including her, so it was happily full. We held it at the YMCA, because for a modest fee they set up the decorations, provide all the plates and whatnot, and include two staff members to orchestrate games for the kids. We just had to show up with cake and apple juice. Easy Peasy!

There was an obstacle course, coloring supplies for those so inclined, and many age appropriate games like Duck, Duck, Goose. It was amazing how much nicer the kids were than when I was pre-school. No one thumped anyone’s head when saying “Duck”. The older/faster kids deliberately went slow so the tagger could get back to the safe spot. Moreover, without grown-up instruction, it soon became apparent that the kids were making sure everyone was Goose at least once. At the very end some of the kids became confused as to who went next and would look to a grown-up who would whisper a name in their ear, but that was the extent of the help.

When I was in pre-school Duck, Duck, Goose was savage. It was an opportunity for some of the bullying kids to pound your head down into your shoulders. The same small group of kids would pick each other as Goose and the rest of us sat there like unchosen lumps. It was not a fun game for most of us. In contrast, the kids at Spock’s party had a blast. Much raucous laughter filled the gym.

We saved the cake for the very end, to cut down on the likelihood of some sweaty and hard-playing child yurking up his or her food afterwards. The cake, which I made myself from a box because the kids were too young to care if it was “fancy”, was moist and many children had second helpings. This included the birthday girl, who does lover herself some chocolate cake.

Last night, after she was in her pajamas and being rocked by her adoring Daddy, she thoughtfully said, “I would like more party tomorrow, please”. When we explained parties were just for special occasions she accepted that with grace, but did try to finagle the situation by asking, “how about just some more cake?”. I could never fault a child for trying to get more cake.

She is napping right now, still a little tired from all the excitement yesterday. Her cheeks are flushed, and her little lips make a perfect cupid’s bow shape. Her eyebrows are so dark and defined against her pale skin that they look like they have been penciled on with makeup. I cannot help but think that she is beautiful.

God, how much I love that child.

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