This week was all about TD2 as I prepared for her big quarantine birthday. Since the original shelter-in-place was extended to April 30, she has been sad about her birthday. Sad that she wouldn’t see her friends. Sad that she would miss the birthday lunch at school. She repeatedly told me it was going to be the worst birthday ever.

Dramatics aside, my heart hurt for her. So my brain went to work dreaming up ideas to make this birthday just a little less worse. Now, it was time to put all those ideas into action.

Lord have mercy on T-Daddy. The days leading up to the girls’ birthdays are always high anxiety for me. It gets worse the closer we get. I start to feel the pressure of making my ideas come together and seeing all the things still left to do. The execution of my ideas gets me Every. Single. Time. You would think I’d just stop coming up with these great ideas, but every year, here we are. It was especially bad this year because TD2 was already not looking forward to her birthday. No pressure, yeah right.

The beautiful, happy birthday girl.

God’s grace, answered prayers, and a community of awesome people brought everything together. I successfully baked and decorated my first cake. I was able to turn our living room into a drive-in theater. I decorated our windows and people actually drove by just to wish her happy birthday (this was probably my favorite part. I can’t express enough how much that meant to see so many people take the time to make her smile). T-Daddy cooked a bomb dinner. Our Zoom celebration was a success. Thanks to Amazon, she’s had a steady stream of presents being delivered every day this week (and continuing into next week because…delayed shipping). And she enjoyed the movie, which was Sonic the Hedgehog. 

And the best part: she said this was the best birthday ever. 

My heart is so incredibly full as this week comes to an end. I’m also tired from all the late nights. Thankfully, we have a long weekend to recuperate. 

We’ll see you here next week…from a distance.