One of my most favorite
things to do as a mom is celebrating my children’s birthdays. Let me be
clear, this is not a let us only celebrate on the "day of" event at
the Zaila household. This is a minimum
of 6 day celebration that we like to call "Birthday Week".
Lucky for our house we have two birthdays; one on the secular calendar, and one
on the Hebrew calendar. I hang balloons...I HATE BALLOONS. I
decorate chalkboards. I make birthday wreaths. I go ALL out. If there is one thing I joke about, it is that
when I have lived my last day here on earth and I am buried, while my children
are sitting around talking about all the mistakes I made as a parent, one of
them will loudly proclaim "She may have yelled at us, and wasn’t always
nice, but man did ema do an amazing job celebrating our birthdays".
I LOVE how much my
children look forward to birthday week. How much they love the countdown,
as they take a picture grinning from ear to ear in front of the message on the
chalkboard sign in the playroom saying how long we have until the big event.
I love how much Bubbie looks forward to creating cupcakes for the big
occasion, making sure these little morsels of heaven are created perfectly for
her little grandbabies and transported with such care across the US. I
love how excited the kids get about blowing out their candles and eating the
yummy cakes. Birthday presents are not the focus, but trust me; the kids
are not deprived of that necessary 50th train, 100th doll,
or 4th stroller.
Like I said, birthdays
have been my thing. Until CDKL5. Gosh, I HATE this stupid string of
characters. This past week was our
little Moonchacha’s 2nd birthday.
I went through the motions of celebrating her big day, but a piece of my
heart was just not present. I tried SO
hard, I really did. I went back and
forth in my head with my thoughts, trying to get rid of the negative ones,
pleading for them to go away. But
through it all was the voice… “What is Sonya’s birthday going to be like?” “Will
Sonya be able to sit on her birthday?” “Will she be able to do her smash cake
for those adorable pictures we all live for?” “Will Sonya actually care about
her party theme when she turns 2?” With each ear to earn grin her sister gave
me in front of her birthday wall, was the looming question, “Will she smile at
the camera when we take her picture?”
As the thoughts
continued to pour into my head, the guilt came as well. I felt so badly for her sister that I wasn’t
so overly excited about her party. How
is it fair to ALL of her siblings if I let the CDKL5 overshadow every
event? It isn’t.
Like sour milk, every
little or big thing in our house is overshadowed...it is now tainted. Sure it is easy to say “Focus on the
positives”, “You have control over your thoughts”, and other such phrases. YES, I can control my thoughts; YES, I can
put positives in the bank; YES, I could not let CDKL5 ruin my day; but the
truth is...it wouldn’t change a thing.