For the Love of a Child –Birthday Madness!

by Shannon Penrod

I remember when my nephew was born and my parents became grandparents for the first time; my mother would stop at nothing to make that baby laugh.  When asked about it my mother proudly said, “I would dye my hair purple and dance on top of the public library if that’s what it took to make that baby smile.”  As it turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  This weekend we celebrated my son’s 7th birthday.  I suppose a 7th birthday is a big deal in most families, but I feel like it has special significance if you are in the Autism community.  We have a thing called a “window of opportunity”.  This is a wonderful/terrible ticking time bomb that is ever reminding us that early intervention is the key.  While progress is still possible after the age of 7, the statistics show clearly that the most progress can be made before age 7.  I have always known in my heart that 7 was our magic number.  Recent studies suggest that maybe the window is closer to 7 1/2 or 8.  7 is still a big deal in our house.  

When planning birthday parties I am always stunned at how much money you are expected to spend.  Every year I say I’m not going to do it.  Then I think about how hard my child works, how much he has overcome and how much he loves getting together with his friends.  Then I go completely and totally insane.  I set out to do something small and inexpensive, somehow that becomes something large and inexpensive, which always just becomes expensive. 

This year my son decided he would like to bowl with his friends.  Actually his first choice was to have a Lego party.  Did you know that it ONLY costs $600 to have a Lego party in your home?  But it has to be on a Tuesday, that doesn’t cover the cost of any food and you can only have 15 children?  Clearly I am in the wrong business.  Next week I am going to become a Lego party planner.  So, we settled for bowling.  Not cheap either, but not $600.  

I made the decision that we would only serve cake.  Let them eat cake, I say!  The party was at 7pm on a Friday, I’m sure I broke some party rule by not serving pizza and chips and everything else under the sun!  Oh, well!  I can hear Jamie Oliver saying, “It’s 7 o’clock they just ate dinner and now we are serving them pizza and cake?”  Besides, it wasn’t in the budget.  Fine, all I have to do is bring a cake and some parting gifts.   Finally a low maintenance, stress free party!  Which is when I decided to make the cakes myself.  Because that’s what crazy people do.

I asked my son what kind of cake he wanted.  You have to understand that he doesn’t eat cake, not really.  I knew that I would be making him a gluten-free, sugar-free version of a cake, but he and I both know that I was talking about what kind of cake did he want to serve his guests.  Even though he doesn’t eat it, the cake is a big deal.  Whenever we go to a party he wants to see the cake.  It’s like another “toy” to him.  So I asked and the answer I got was a “Lego cake with Lego guys bowling on it”  Can you forsee the insanity coming on? 

First there was the researching of Lego cakes on google, then the search for a brick mold, then a gummy candy recipe, and ultimately the search for a sugar-free vegan gummy candy recipe.  Insanity.  But this is what we came up with:  Three cakes (I can’t do one cake – we had 8 different cakes at our wedding)  The first cake  was chocolate fudge with a raspberry and chocolate mousse filling, the second cake was strawberry with banana raspberry filling.  Both of these were decorated with white and dark chocolate bricks as well as gummy bricks in cherry, berry, lime and orange.  The third cake was gluten-free carrot cake sweetened with pureed pear (no eggs) frosted in (are you ready?) red pepper humus!  It was decorated with gummy bricks made from agar-agar and pear juice.  I have no idea what it tasted like but that wasn’t really the point. 

As if that wasn’t a big enough adventure, three days before the party, my son lovingly turned and asked me how I was coming dressed to the party.  I thought this was part of his growing concern that I would embarrass him.  A few months ago he informed me that one of the boys in his class said I had crazy hair and that I really needed to do something about it.  I suppose my feelings could have been hurt, but this is a little boy with Autism, the fact that he cared what his friends thought – this is the equivalent of winning the lottery!  And it was windy that day, everyone had crazy hair!  Anyway, I asked my son what he thought I should wear to his party and that is when he informed me that I could only come to the party if I dressed like a clown.  He further went on to explain that when you turn 7 years old your mom can no longer come to the party.  However, if your mom dresses like a clown and works the party by blowing up balloon animals, it turns out it’s okay.  I wasn’t going to do it.  In fact I told him no!  Cue the crazy music.

Fast forward to my husband and I scurrying around to put together a clown costume.  Look, he only turns 7 once.  I don’t want to be at his college graduation and thinking “Why didn’t I just dress up like a clown?  How hard is that?”  The truly hilarious thing is that we didn’t tell him I was going to dress like a clown.  When he saw me in the costume he said, “Oh, Mom I hope they don’t make fun of you!”  Autism 0 – Jem 2.  In the end it was all good.  I blew up balloons and the kids had a ball twisting them into shapes themselves, I think I was only forced to make one dog.  Color me crazy but if that’s what it takes to make my kid smile,  that’s what I’ll be doing.

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