#secondkid

[rpetersphoto]

Big sis goes to the pool, while you get a water bucket with a dog toy... #secondkid #shewasthrilled https://www.instagram.com/p/Bx5Z9ffpEXP/?igshid=o5wrcxi0vydp

[kingkaitexas-blog]

This is what happens when you have an older sister, you end up with pink Dr. Browns bottle. #secondkidproblems #secondkid #drbrown #drbrownbabybottle #pinkbabybottle #babyfever #babiesofinstagram #babies #babyphotography #naptime #milk #cutebabies #cutest #cuteoverload (at Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpf4rjgHOcO/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=12z0nipoqo48b

[babycocosays]

Hitting our 9 month appt. right at 10 months. #crushingit #secondkid (at Los Altos Center - Palo Alto Medical Foundation)

[annekewrites]

SecondKid is seven!

Hard to believe.  She’s such an amazing little person - different from FirstKid but not so much so that they don’t get along.  I am a lucky Mama.

[annekewrites]

I bought SecondKid a dress (on sale, $55 marked down to $15!) that apparently reminds Spouse of Kaylee's Shindig dress.  And she looks every bit as adorable and happy in it as Kaylee does.  :)

(She came to curl up with me on the bed and is asleep in it and it is so so cute on her.)

[annekewrites]

Let them eat cake. Or, y'know, not.

So, SecondKid was at a classmate's birthday party today.

As I've mentioned before, the kids go to a Catholic school, though we are not Catholic.  About 1/3 of the kids are also not Catholic, and many of them are there because the school takes things like food allergies seriously.  SecondKid has a friend, a very sweet and friendly little boy who is a great artist.  I'll call him Ron.  Ron has multiple severe food allergies and always wears a backpack that has epipens in it.

Back when it was SecondKid's birthday and I was planning her party, I got an RSVP e-mail from Ron's mom explaining his allergies and saying that she could send him with his own food, including a few "safe" cookies to have while the kids have cake.  I asked what he was allergic to, and she told me "peanuts, eggs, and milk."  OK, the peanut thing is a no-brainer, and these days we just don't eat peanut-containing things around other kids unless we know they aren't allergic.  Eggs and milk?  Well, vegans eat cakes, right?

So, I Googled "vegan cupcakes" and found out that Duncan Hines mixes and frostings are vegan (takes care of not-eggs, not-milk) and used the old lower-your-cholesterol trick of swapping out the eggs for mashed bananas.  I told Ron's mom that he's our guest and I was going to make sure there were cupcakes that he could eat!  I planned other food accordingly (snacks of the chips-and-pretzels sort, deliberately holding the party at a time that wasn't a mealtime) and read labels to make sure there was nothing there he couldn't eat.

Come party time, I let him know (in front of his parents) that I'd talked to his mom and made sure to make the cupcakes so he could eat them and that, in fact, everything at the party had been planned so he could eat it.  And he was so, so happy that you would have thought it was HIS birthday party.  He had this GIANT PILE of chips and pretzels and lots of pink lemonade and was obviously loving it. 

And when Ron's birthday came around, he didn't want to do the invite-the-whole-class thing and did want to invite friends from elsewhere...but SecondKid was the very first friend he asked.

Which brings things around to the party I was at for another of SecondKid's classmates.  It was in an arcade-style place that serves pizza, not Chuck E Cheese but a popular local variant on that theme.  And Ron was there, and they had to make his "special" pizza for him while the other kids were having pizza, which I get that and am OK with...and then he had this sad little pile of tiny cookies while everyone else was eating big fancy cupcakes.  And the other parents who were there were on about how sad it was that Ron has so many allergies and how hard it must be for him and his family.

Actually, it wasn't that hard to make Ron-friendly cupcakes.  It really wasn't.  Social model of disability, in action.  Sigh.

(Cute was on the way home when SecondKid said she wanted to marry Santa Claus, and I told her that he's married to Mrs. Claus, and then she said ok, she'd marry Ron because he's such a nice friend.  Hey, I'm fine with that - in many years, of course.  Ron really is a sweet, nice, polite little kid and I'm glad they are good friends.)