Mission Accomplished, well sort of

We did it, Claire had fun at her first birthday party with her peers. It was a little awkward to walk in as I had no idea what the birthday girl looked like or who her parents were. Claire goes off to class with Donna in the mornings so I haven't really met many of her friends yet. It was pretty crazy when we got there, kids running around like crazy, balloons all over the ceiling and Claire got overwhelmed pretty fast. Good thing I thought ahead and invited the amazing Sara to join us, she is our ABA trainer and is so good at helping Claire to calm down. We went for a walk and Claire came around pretty quickly. She is so brave, she went back into the party with a big smile on her face. We opted to watch from the window of the dance studio. It was pretty fun to watch the other kids dance, they had no idea how to break dance, but they sure tried! I always love seeing her bright smiling face after we do things like this with the rest of the world, but it always makes me sad, really really sad. I hate that the world doesn't know what to do with anyone who is different. One of the girls who is a friend to Claire asked why she wasn't feeding herself the cake with her own hands. On one hand it is sweet that she thinks that Claire should be able to do it, on the other hand it is so screwed up that she can't. I hate this game of having to walk on the edge, trying to keep one foot in the world of the typical people, where I know Claire loves to be and the other foot rooted safely in rettworld. I keep telling myself that this will get easier with time, and while I do believe that it true, I know that it won't get to the place where it will be easy. I guess I get the privilege of grieving for the rest of my life or so I hear. No time for that today though, we get to go to Jared's company Christmas party tonight. Two parties with the normal world in one day, I think I will be done for a while after this :-)


Here is a little clip of the kids dancing, you can't really see us sitting in the mirror, but Claire had a huge smile on her face, promise.