Happy Birthday to Our Katie
Connor and Ror are such cuties. Wow, that’s news, huh? No, but really, I’m thinking of one thing they’ve been doing, lately, in particular. They have assigned personalities and human traits, and even genders to their blankies. It is adorable.
Connor talks about the things Blankie wants, thinks and dreams about. He compliments Blankie on her (yes, both boys have girl blankies. Go figure) softness, her cuddliness, and selfless acts of comfort. Ror talks about his Blankie in terms of what she wants to do with her life and how she wants to change the world with her message of softness, cuddliness, and sharing. Ror is a rough-and-tumble kind of boy, so I especially love seeing him talk with and about his Blankie. He uses such a sweet voice (otherwise reserved for Reagan and when he thinks he’s taking care of me when I’m sick), saying things like, “Mommy, don’t you love my Blankie? Isn’t she sweet? She wants to share her cuddles with everyone. She wants to give kisses and cuddles to everybody. She says you’re a good girl. She’s going to be a BIG Blankie someday.”
Unfortunately, he has the not-so-safe habit of wanting to “share” Blankie with Reagan, and Blankie is sometimes found covering her face. Thanks be to God, he also has the habit of always wanting to boast about his chivalrous acts of sharing, so we always get there before she becomes upset. But it is extremely disconcerting—hasn’t this kid had more than her share of near-suffocation by now?
Riley-Katie has a blanket of her own, but Covey (not Blankie, but Covey, and woe be to the person who refers to it as Blankie) doesn’t seem to have any personality assigned to her yet. When she does, I’m thinking she might be a person with poor hygiene, because she always smells faintly of urine. GROSS. Covey doesn’t get shared, and Riley-Kate even screams, “DON’T TOUCH THIS BLANKET!” at anyone who gets too close.
Speaking of our little Lolly, she spent her morning deep in pursuit of the perfect birthday gift for Katie. This has just practically knocked me over with pride and fascination. This is the first time she’s ever seemed to understand the concept of gift-giving. And she really spent a lot of time deciding what to give! She debated among the usual gift options from a two year old (“Half eaten apple? No…Several strands of My Little Pony hair? No…A fluorescent green hair barette? Nah…”) and finally settled on a shiny penny, which she cleaned with Covey, and is now going to glue to a piece of paper. I’m sure it will be priceless to Katie.
Gipper has begun crawling. And, in true Gipper fashion, she did it IN THE BEST WAY. She’s my fourth child, and try as I might, to have the camera always at the ready, I have never caught any of my children’s first crawls on still photos or video. Until now. Gipper waited until she had a full audience. Chris and I were playing with all four kids in the playroom, and just happened to have the camera on hand AND TURNED ON, when suddenly Riley Katie said, “Look-a Reagan! Good girl, Reagan-Bacon!” And we turned, camera in hand, and watched our little Gip crawl for the first time. It was priceless. And because I have a camera that switches between video and still, I captured the moment FULLY!
Tomorrow we are off to Long Beach for a fun day of celebrating the existence of our Katie for a quarter of a century. There is a lot to celebrate—scientists have made astronomical breakthroughs in Huntington’s Disease research in recent weeks. The breakthroughs have been so astounding that we feel confident that we’ll be celebrating birthdays with Katie for many, many years to come. We’ve also recently learned that the HDSA will be honoring Katie at a fancy dinner in August, so we can also celebrate that HDSA has figured out what the Elio kids have known for their entire lives—Katie is fabulous, and with a cure on the horizon, the best is yet to come.
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