Faith Celebrates Turning 12 with the "Best Birthday Party Ever"

For the past couple of weeks I've been asking Faith what she has wanted to do for her birthday. The only two things she requested was a cake with dinosaurs and a party with family only. When I asked if she was sure she didn't want cupcakes, she said, "I want a cake with Buddy, Tiny, and Shiny on it." (Characters from the show Dinosaur Train). The only way I could get those particular characters was to order an edible image from Amazon. Because this was like five days before her birthday, I had to get expedited shipping. I prayed it would arrive in time.

In keeping with the train theme, I thought it would be neat to have her party at the zoo so we could ride the train on her birthday. It took some coaxing but I did manage to talk her into the zoo idea. Unfortunately, the forecast looked a little chilly so I decided to try to reserve a space at the zoo's Discovery Center so we could be indoors for the actual party. If it ended up being nice enough, we could still do a train ride. I thought I had come up with a perfect plan.

I hit my first roadblock when the zoo said the Discovery Center had already been reserved. I decided to go with my backup plan of having the party either at my mom and dad's or downstairs in our lobby. If the weather cooperated, we could still make it to the zoo.

Another part of her day was going to be church. She loves going to church and I was so happy she could go there on her actual birthday. I had even offered to bring pumpkin muffins as treats. But on Friday when her respite care provider came over, all birthday plans came to a screeching halt. She told me she had to take the stairs because the elevator was out of order. I knew there would be no way they would fix it before Sunday. (The last time this happened, it took about 5 days to get repaired).

The good news was that when I went downstairs to get the mail, the cake image had arrived so I was able to drop it off at the bakery. I messaged my mom who told me there was only going to be five out of the nine family members we had invited that would be able to make it to Faith's party due to conflicting work schedules. This made things easier and it would work out to have the party in our apartment.

Faith ended up sleeping in since she wasn't able to get to church. Rob went solo taking the pumpkin muffins with him. Around noon, Grandma and Grandpa arrived with auntie Lisa. Uncle Todd and auntie Barbara showed up shortly afterward. Faith was a little anxious at first about having so many people in her space. She was pretty tense in her chair but as soon as we took her out and I sat on the couch with her to open presents, she began to relax.

Even though our original plans had fallen flat, we had all that really mattered right here in our small third floor apartment, broken elevator and all. Faith echoed this sentiment by declaring, "that was the best birthday party ever," after everyone had left.

Her special day continued when her Canadian grandparents called. She had been waiting all week to talk to them. Auntie Joh called too and Faith was especially happy to hear Joh's cat, Ruby purr over the phone. It was a great 12th birthday and I am already bracing myself for having a teenager this time next year!