Thumper Turns Seven

Sweet little Thumper,

Today you are seven years old, and you are more little boy than baby now.  You are a study in contradictions.  You have the lanky limbs of a boy, but can still snuggle down like a cuddly toddler.  You have an innocent and sweet face, but possess the hacking skills of a tech wizard.  You are charming and use your amazing eyes to get what you want, and then we find you climbing counters to get to cookies.  You struggle with speech, and yet you know exactly every word that is said to you.

All this makes you the most challenging, but in some ways the most rewarding, of little boys.  You are too smart for your own good, and yet not quite where you should be.  But you are absolutely adorable.

And that missing front tooth that we’ve now immortalized in these pictures just adds to your charm, as does the slight lisp you’ve acquired with the extra space in your mouth.

This is a tough time for you, my little Boo.  Your 7th birthday is going to be forever remembered as being in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic shutdown, but you don’t understand that.  All you know is that the adults that are closest to you, outside of our immediate family, have all disappeared for the moment.  No teachers, no paras, no therapists, no behavior techs, no great-grandparents, no grandparents, no people at church, no swim teachers.  For the last several days, the only adults you have seen have been the neighbors (at appropriate social distances) and Auntie (no social distancing there).  And because we could not celebrate today, the best I could do was contact your teachers and invite them to meet us at the park (which has its play equipment wrapped with caution tape now) so you could get the one thing you truly wanted for your birthday – hugs.  And some of them came because they love you, they miss you, and they willingly hugged you.  And you, Mister Sensory, loved every second of it.  So much for social distancing, but I will plead for a special exception for you.

In the meantime, we have tried to provide some stability to your days, even if they contain way too much screen time.  We want you to know that even in the messiness of a historical moment that you can’t fully comprehend, you are loved.

You are our sweet, stubborn, silly, talented, adorable, bouncy, snuggly hacker ninja.  Happy 7th birthday, Thumper – we love you more than we can say!

Love,
Mama

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 21st, 2020 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Announcements, Children.
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