Aspergers and Birthdays

My sweet amazing nine year old girl just had her birthday and I am so amazed at her beauty and growth. I am so blessed by God to have such a precious gift. She helps me have fun and teaches me to loosen up! She is the one who stretches me like crazy too because I have no idea how to handle these issues that pop up out of the blue with aspergers.

Birthdays are part of the asperger adventure. I try to help protect her and help her cope when things are difficult. Here is a quick example of why it is hard.

1-Waiting! Waiting on a date is pure torture!!! When she realizes the date is coming it is daily planning out what she wants her day to look like, what gifts she wants, and begging me to let her celebrate early.

2-Changes! When her birthday looks different from year to year it is just pure difficult. She does not like change and this world is full of change. An example is the blessing given by the sweet lady at Chili's. She told our sweet girl she could pick any dessert for free off the menu. At first she was excited then realized when we got home we were having cake. When the dessert came out she cried about it. She wanted cake too and was concerned if she ate both she would be sick. It took much convincing that it was ok to have both and we were not going to change going home for cake! So exhausting to us both.

3-Everyone has to be happy on her birthday. As you can imagine that is difficult when life throws its own blows like sickness, tiredness because the sick one kept us up all night, and just plain old misunderstandings.

These are just a few of the challenges with aspergers and birthdays but I imagine as she gets older she will be able to handle them more and more easily. I can already see improvements from past years. There were things that upset her that happened and she did not respond inappropriately. I told her I recognized these and was so proud of her. I asked her the difference and she says, oh I am still irritated but I have learned how to be appropriate. :) Love this girl!!!