But...
They had an amazing time!
Phoebe was overjoyed to get a birthday bag. She sang about it all the way to the uber (such a savvy kid—we all stared at the elevator, not quite sure what to do, and she just walked right up, punched the G and said, "G for ground! Going down!" so that solved that—to be fair, we had G, M, C, L, A, and B as options, in addition to the numbers. But G was the right call).
"I'm so happy, happy, happy!" she sang as she got into the uber, which made the driver chuckle. "I am exploding with happiness!"
Then she started to sing, "If you had a birthday, shout hooray! We want to sing to you today: Happy birthday to you!"
We tried to tell her that she was missing a line in there, but it was no use. She sang the song like that the entire ride home. Every so often the driver would glance at her in his rearview mirror and smile.
When we got home we recorded her singing that song for her little friend (because her friend's dad had mentioned wanting to gather friends to sing...but I'm not sure that ever happened).
She was, truly, exploding with happiness. But she was also quite worn out.
She was, truly, exploding with happiness. But she was also quite worn out.
I had signed the kids up for a illumination tutorial, which was at 8:00 PM. But by 8:00 PM it's been dark for two hours already and her little biological clock is telling her that logically she should be tired. She kept yawning while we were waiting for our lesson to start and...Andrew suggested she might not be able to stay up through the whole class.
"For a little bit of it..." she said. "And then I'll go to bed."
"But I want to go work out," Andrew said. "So if you want me to be in your room while you fall asleep, we need to do that now."
"But I want to do this," Phoebe said.
"How about...you can stay up to do this class with us," I suggested. "But then when you feel too tired and want to go to bed we'll do just a quick bedtime. I'll come tuck you in and sing to you and give you a kiss...but I won't sit with you because I need to be out here with the kids."
"Sure," Phoebe said, swallowing big. "Let's...do that one."
She sat back in her chair, her eyes welling up with tears, her little lip quivering (clearly no longer exploding with happiness).
"It doesn't really seem like you really want that choice," I pointed out.
"I don't," she moaned. "How about...they are recording this class?"
She wiped her eyes and took some deep breaths.
"Yes, the class will be recorded," I assured her. "Benjamin plans to watch it later, too."
(He went to hang out at a friend's house and watch Jurassic Park 3; Miriam went to the library for a philharmonic concert)
"Okay, okay," she sniffed. "Okay. So I will go to bed now and do the class tomorrow."
She wept while she gathered up her doll and blanket.
"This is what you want to do?" Andrew verified.
"Yes!" she wailed.
"This was a hard choice to make," I said.
She tends to feel big emotions—she can be exploding with happiness one moment and then experience gut-wrenching grief the next. There's definitely some in-between moments...but if there's an emotion to be felt, Phoebe will feel it intensely.
I went to help tuck her in and then Andrew sat with her until she fell asleep. And Alexander and Zoë and I went through the tutorial—make a D with a (medieval-style) dolphin in it.
Tomorrow we'll do it again—maybe we'll even explode with happiness while doing so.
No comments:
Post a Comment