Ethan the Teen

Last night I did a quick Cinderella run to the store (had to be done before the stroke of midnight). I was doing a last minute gift and ice cream grab for my soon to be a teenager, Ethan. Luckily Corey had killed his high expectations (Ethan had texted him a long list of b-day requests, as usual). But Ethan had already received his gifts from grandparents and Corey took him shopping for a few things, and told him that that was it - that was all he was getting, with a "Your mother asked me to take care of your b-day presents" (which was true). After they got home, he wondered it if was true, and asked me "Did you get me anything for my birthday?" I said yes, and gave it to him - a fresh new bottle of Got2B hair glue. His smile was huge and genuine, telling me how he didn't know what he was going to do to survive while we were gone with his hair glue gone. So I got him a present! But now he still had the same problem, cause now I gave it to him before his birthday too, so he was still a little sad that he wasn't going to get anything on his actual birthday day day, even though he'd gotten a lot the whole week leading up to it. But at 11:30 pm I ran to Walmart and grabbed ice cream and doughnuts and a few other things, put them in gift bags on the table making it look festive, and it looked like we were going to be able to pull off  a decent happy birthday for Ethan before we leave the country and abandon him. Stayed up until 1 putting up a banner and a few decorations. 

Served him breakfast in bed, but then he was still weeping all morning. Last night they had a "this is our last chance to play night games" event, and he bonked his lip really badly - it got nice and fat. As I gave him his breakfast (2 doughnuts, a banana, and milk) he asked me how it looked. It was still fat. And the tears started to flow ~ He was so worried about what people at church would say, cause of course everyone was going to notice. We tried to console him, I gave him the option to stay home from church if it was so bad that he couldn't face the world, just no more crying, please. A fat lip is NOT a big deal. Try to keep some perspective here buddy, as I shared a few stories about Stephanie Nielsen. Your lip will be here one day, maybe two. Try to imagine how you'd feel if it was for life. Please calm down. Then the real reason for his pity party came to the surface: "Why does it have to be on my birthday!?!? I look so weird!!" He did come to church, good choice, and it looked almost completely normal after church. I teased that his crying must have made it worse, once he was calm (since he wouldn't let himself bawl about it in front of people at church) - low and behold, being calm made his blood and swelling calm down. He was in a better mood after church. But phew, that made for a rough hour before church. He's quite a drama boy sometimes. (Love ya Eth).

After church he opened his gifts and his siblings all made some presents for him too. We gave him lots of birthday love, had some strawberry short cake and oreo ice cream, and now we've all basically just eaten junk all day.

 Happy Birthday Ethan!

A few more parties in store this week in Florida, but first we gotta get there. Now with everything finally out of the way - school, birthdays, music lessons and bands, parties and adieus, plus most of the cleaning - maybe we'll be able to get out of here. I'm going to farm out all the little mess makers tomorrow and hope with a few older kids helping we can get our act together by 3:00. The plane leaves at 5.