Sunday, January 22, 2012

1/22/2012 The Sympathist

One of my numerous logistical errands this weekend was printing the boys' birthday party invitations and getting them to fill them out with their friends' names. I so overshot Julian's birthday -- and now Gabriel's -- that since I'd planned to have their parties at the same place anyway, I might as well combine them. Sort of. The date and time and place will be the same, but each boy will have their own set of friends, and they'll just have to live with the table and pizza being in the same place. Two separate cakes, of course.

This means that each boy invites 4 friends max, which actually works pretty well. That makes it more of a birthday playdate than a "party," and they actually interact with their friends more.

Both boys had an easy time naming party playmates, though Julian easily has a much longer list. Gabriel was decisive, and included a kid named David who was in his 2nd-grade class as well as his 4th-grade class. I didn't think he and David were great friends, though I recall now that Gabriel got in trouble at the end of 2nd grade for fighting -- and his explanation was that David was in a fight and he just jumped in to help defend him, without having any idea what the fight was about. I remember that Gabriel made no excuses and didn't complain about getting into trouble for this, though he'd been to the principal's office so many times, we were still annoyed. David is a nice kid, and your classic bully-target: small and wears glasses.

Tonight Gabriel was writing out his party invitations, and he told me casually, "David told me he never gets invited to birthday parties -- so I thought I'd invite him to mine."

Oh. My. Goodness. This is my son who's qualified for extra "services" because of his weak social pragmatics and not being empathetic? I just about burst into tears. How utterly, totally, sweet. There's such good in him -- it just comes out in a different way than we're all used to.

I took a few photos of Katrina and her beloved "Ditty" today, to print to put in a craft-project frame for her.

Of course she insisted on wearing her "snow hat," which has never been worn in snow. We have a one-night trip to Bear Valley scheduled next week, and it has finally been snowing a little around Lake Tahoe, so maybe this is a good omen!

1/22/2012

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