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And then I got old

First of all, let me just say I feel like a tool writing about my birthday. Clearly the topic has been covered ad nauseum, but I’m so tired and I just can’t be sparkling and brilliant right now! Apologies. But anyway, let me tell you having a birthday when you’re a social media whore is fun!  I’m sure you read Emily’s mortifying touching post about my birthday, and my Uncle Paul wrote one as well over at Redneck Latte Ravings.  My Facebook notifications were going cray-cray all day with all the birthday love!  And then, there was twitter and instagram!  So. Many. Wishes!  It was great! Even GOOGLE knew it was my birthday!

But it was also a very normal day.  And that was good. I was in a rush to get to the grocery in the morning because I wanted to get there before the really creepy people that go to my Kroghetto got out of bed (the skeev factor goes up significantly after 11 a.m.) and just after 9, as I was slapping on my final coat of lip gloss, my cell phone rang.  It was my friend Celia and I figured she was calling to tell me HAPPY BIRTHDAY but turns out, she had a flat tire and three kids that needed to get to school! So Jonah and I ran to pick them up and came to the rescue, got the kids off to school, Celia got a tow, and Jonah and I headed off to Kroghetto.

WHERE, I rocked the Mega-Event and saved 43% on my shopping trip! Woot! And then, after I put the groceries in the van and put the cart away, I found someone had left a FREE MICROWAVE in the cart corral!

Happy Birthday to me!

Just kidding, I don’t touch dirty microwaves left in the Kroghetto parking lot.  Even though, my friend Matt told me I could’ve gotten a few bucks for the scrap copper in the motor.  Ummm. Pass.

After Kroghetto, I did some work for my you know, job, took care of Jonah, ate a very unhealthy lunch, and abstained from doing the dishes.  Then when the big kids got home it was homework time.  Just another day in the life.  But it was good!

Since my birthday fell on a Wednesday, it also fell on swimming lessons night for the big kids!  So, Bobby sweetly took all three kids to lessons so that I could go out to dinner with my girl, Cortney.  We had a great time, and when I exited the restaurant, I was greeted by this in the sky:

Birthday rainbow, yo! Rock on!

It was a great day. Here’s to an even better year.  With many more Instagrammed pictures of my face to make Emily’s each and every day complete. You know she secretly loves it!  But just to show her it’s not ALL about my face…I did leave this post mug-free. YOU’RE WELCOME!

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Happy 35th Birthday, Jenny!

Since Jenny LOVES pictures of herself, I thought I’d post my personal favorite.

Today is a momentous occasion – Jenny’s 35th birthday!

It is hard for me to believe that Jenny’s 35, because that is soooooooo old it seems like JUST YESTERDAY that we were celebrating her 30th birthday, right here on this blog. Which means we’ve been doing this for a long time. Blogging, I mean. We’ve been celebrating her birthday much longer than that.

I love giving Jenny a hard time (my favorite topic right now are the pictures she posts of her FACE – have you seen them? Lord have mercy. The girl loves her some make up. And also her face.), but I can only get away with that because she knows how much I love her. We talk/text/IM/tweet/FB just about constantly, and I don’t know what I’d do without her.

I could do without all the pictures of her, however.

Just kidding! I love you, Cousin.

Please join me in wishing Jenny a very happy 35th!!

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The Big Ideal

Sunday morning I was doing my coffee-and-newspaper ritual thing (hooray for Saturday night church! Best thing since sliced bread.) and I flipped open the Target ad.  I do loves me some Target so I always check out what’s on sale so I can see if I have an excuse to visit that big red circle this week. As I flipped through the brightly colored pages, my eyes landed on this:

And I promptly instagrammed, facebooked, and tweeted it because, oh my gosh! Target put a sweet little gorgeous boy with Down Syndrome in its ad.  And it filled me with absolute joy.

Now, Target has done this before.  And I am certainly not the first person to write about them doing so.  But I’d never flipped open my Sunday ad and discovered on my own that they had used a beautiful special-needs child as a model. It took my breath away.

Why?  Why did it affect me so profoundly? I had to think about it as I wiped away tears – why did this picture make me so emotional? And then, after awhile, I was able to put it into words. This photo touched me so deeply because this child is a model. And you know what a model is? According to Dictionary.com, it’s “a standard or example for imitation or comparison“.  It’s someone’s definition of perfection, of the ideal.  It is not “normal” but “extraordinary”.  A model represents the best, most beautiful, most picturesque of its kind.  Something we should imitate, maybe strive to replicate.

Target is saying, by using this child as a model, “This child is ideal.”

In a world that most often shuns or ignores those with disabilities, this is huge. 

 I feel I can say with full confidence that this child’s parents already know he is ideal. He is everything they ever hoped for or dreamed of in a child, special needs and all.  His parents most likely do not want him to be anything other than who he is.  To them, he is perfect.

When we were figuring out Sophie’s developmental delays, there were times I felt that people who were evaluating her wanted her to be someone different than who she was.  And I never wanted that.  No matter what we did or didn’t find out about her delays, I was okay with Sophie being Sophie.  No matter what “accessory package” came with her.  She was my girl, she was perfect, she was fearfully and wonderfully made.

The beautiful boy in the Target ad is ideal. He is perfect.  He is fearfully and wonderfully made.  You and I shouldn’t feel sorry for him or for his parents, because their family is what it was meant to be.

A model family.  Because they were made for each other. Fearfully and wonderfully made.

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