Happy Birthday

This is a very long post, but kind of cute for those of you whose children have been through the middle school years and gives those of you whose children still have to go through these years something to chuckle at.

My youngest had a wonderful birthday week. She received presents almost everyday last week from friends and family including the spot light on Monday evening at church. Even her volleyball team sang to her. The one boy on the team we tease her about even tried to give her a hug and she just rolled her eyes at him and climbed in the car without the hug! Yea for my daughter and too bad for the coached son! I keep trying to drill into my girls that boys are not worth it........navy boy keeps showing up so where have I gone wrong! Anyway......

Saturday was very busy for the birthday girl with a volleyball game in the morning and her slumber party in the evening. Her team lost the match, but my kid was awesome. She was starting server and showed the teams and crowd why the coach plays her the majority of all the games in a match. Go kid! There were eight kids over for the party starting at 4:00 when all of them jumped into the pool with the temperature of 79 degrees. A couple hours later they ate pizza, then went out front to play spin the bottle on the lawn. Mind you, I had the painters and the AC repair man here so my older daughters were supposed to help me contain this group of middle schoolers. Jessica was home first, Julia followed a couple hours later and Rochelle made it home for the once the girls were tucked in their bags watching movies.

I found out today that there were a group of guys who were bugging my girl all week because they wanted to be invited to her birthday party and if she didn't invite them they were going to crash the party! Hum. Jessica was home at this time when the boys or at least one of them (the story changes each time it is told) came around. The boys didn't make it in to the party, but from what I understand it was fun flirting(?) out in the front yard! Where were you Jessica, while I was depleting my bank account paying the painters and the AC repair man? My older girls never put me through this, so this is new to me. Although, little by little stories are coming out about things the older girls have done and my jaw is dropping and I'm still trying to pick it up! Dad, who says he is going to be ready with the shot gun when the boys come, was at work so he was no help!

After the mosquitoes attacked, the party moved back inside and birthday cake and presents happened. My daughters lovely friends actually smashed cake in her face which was planned by all to take place when she read a certain card. It was great! Even more exciting was watching all the girls clean up the mess which of course I didn't expect to happen at all. Eventually they all calmed down and started watching movies. It was fun listening to them plot pranks. It would have been more fun to watch them pull them off, but they didn't. I want to know why the 3 older and tougher sisters chose to literally lock themselves in their bedrooms for the night. The excuse I got was something like "I remember the pranks we pulled on our friends older siblings and I didn't want to take the chance". I call that chicken miss 21 year old!

During the middle school years, David and I began giving the option of a swimming party (boys included) for their birthday party's instead of the slumber party. Rochelle took advantage of this and Jessica and Julia stayed with the slumber party. I really having doubts about offering this option to the baby whether in middle school or even in high school because of the crashing boys this year!

Now I get to feel some sympathy for the kid. She was just taking to me this past week about how something always goes wrong for her birthday and she was wondering what was going to happen this year. Well, I thought I did everything in my power to keep anything from going wrong and we were doing great until the volleyball game. The kid was the 3rd hit of the play, so the ball had to go over the net. The setter hit a wild ball and it was in the kids part of the court (she was serving this ball), and the kid had to chase the ball down and jump at least 10 in the air and stretch even longer to save the ball. She actually hit the ball and got the point! What I find out later while driving home is that during this play, when she hit the ball she heard something pop and felt pain in her thumb. She said she felt like crying because it hurt so much but because she was serving she didn't want pulled out of the game so she didn't say anything and continues to play the rest of the game and most of the 3rd and last game. The thumb wasn't really too swollen and she didn't seem to be in pain and was able to move the thumb, so I chalked it up to jamming her thumb and left it at that. We iced it when we got home and she didn't have an issue during her party that was described above so there we are.

Sunday morning, the girls were up by 8:00 and back in the pool again. During a game of Fish Out of Water or something like that, the kid was lifting herself out of the pool and place all her weight on this injured thumb without thinking. Well it reminded her that it was injured in a way that brought tears to her eyes complete with swelling and bruising. I left Rochelle in charge of getting the girls ready for parents to pick them up so that the kid and I can go to urgent care. After a good part of the day at urgent care, we find that her thumb is broken. The first thing she tells me is that she will attend all volleyball practices and games even if she has to sit on the bench. Kudos to the kid and her positive attitude. Of course she asked the doctor for a note to get her out of PE! Now we have to wait another year to see if this losing streak will come to an end.