Happy twelfth birthday, Rowen!
Most of the kids at school – including Rowen’s brother –
think that she’s blown her big annual chance to score a bunch of gifts by
skipping the whole birthday party thing and just doing a dinner, movie, and
sleepover night with me instead. I
suppose that’s true, but Rowen didn’t want to have a boy-girl party; so she
decided not to have one at all. I can
relate to wanting to avoid having a party; though Rowen’s main reason for that
is a bit different than mine.
She was thinking about that a lot today, and finally came
out and admitted to me that she’s crossed over.
We’re still talking about that, and the boy primarily responsible for
that change; but let’s back up a bit and cover the rest of her big day before
getting to that.
I had a little birthday gift for her this morning; and she
wore the new earrings to school. While
she wasn’t doing a party, there were still a few cards and a couple of presents
from friends and a cousin at school.
There was a large box of Olde Bakery cupcakes at lunch with enough for
everyone in our class and the next-fastest two-dozen kids and teens. We skipped our usual lunchtime music practice
today, and instead went outside to enjoy the warmer weather and hang out with
some of our friends.
Birthdays may rate get-out-of-work cards at home, but that
doesn’t happen at school. Rowen at least
has the advantage of being able to get perfect marks when tests fall on her
birthday like one did today. I’m sure
that all of the work today seemed more fun for both of us, and we continued to
stay entertained after being set free for the day. We stopped in at the computer store and my
house for visits; and so that Ethan and Ehlana could give Rowen the gift they’d
picked out for her while we were in Arizona; but then we were on our own until
Rowen’s mother came home early to start cooking her birthday dinner.
We went for a short bike ride, but then decided to just hang
out in Rowen’s room and enjoy the quiet time while we could. It was just the five of us for dinner, and
while Rowen loved all of the gifts from her parents, grandparents, brother, and
me; one of her favorites was the gift card advising her that our sleepover was
going to be brother-free. I’m fairly
sure that Patrick would have rather stayed, and had Scott spend the night here
instead of him staying with the Faulkners; but he managed to hide the
disappointment, and even gave Rowen a rare night off from any teasing or little
brother annoyances – something that Rowen and I both really appreciated.
After dinner, Rowen and I were sent off to the living room
to get started on our movie night while her parents cleaned up, and Patrick got
ready to head over to Scott’s place. We
were on our own again for a little while when Patricia and Owen took Patrick
over to the Faulkners, and then went on to game night at the Inn. Doing that too had been an option for us, but
I wasn’t surprised when Rowen didn’t want to hang out there tonight – or get
the birthday attention that always comes with being at game night on your
birthday. The other reason she didn’t
want to go was because there was also a good chance that a certain boy and his
current girlfriend could be there too; and Rowen didn’t want to mess up a
perfectly good birthday by having to deal with that tonight.
Not that we didn’t talk about it – him – a fair bit anyway;
but Rowen waited for that part of our girl chat until we went up to bed after
watching two movies and doing a bedtime, leftover birthday cake bedtime snack
with her parents.
We’re almost back to the present again, and the last little
while has drawn Rowen and I closer together while also being more than a little
weird for us too. The weird strictly
comes from only having one of us crossed over, but I’m not sure that isn’t
actually better for both of us. Rowen
may be too shy to do anything about how she feels about the guy she likes, but
if I was in her position; I’d probably just go and get him.
Yes, Aunt Leanne, that does sound a lot like you, and no,
I’m not interested in crossing over too, or doing that with anyone; so don’t go
there!
Getting back to Rowen and her first public, if confidential,
admission; she’s feeling better about the whole thing now, so that probably
means that I didn’t screw up my end of dealing with this too much despite my
admitted inability to relate to why any girl would be even remotely attracted
to guys around our age. It’s not that
they’re total freaks all of the time, but there is definitely way more weird
and gross than I’m interested in being in close contact with. I will concede that Rowen does at least like
one of the least-weird boys; but that is still relative.
You may be wondering if we worked out a plan to help Rowen
catch her guy, and the short answer is that we didn’t; but I did promise to be
there to help out when and if any opportunities came up to give my best friend
a chance to do more than admire her favorite boy from afar. I have no idea right now as to how I’ll
manage to keep that promise, but hopefully it won’t still be as scary a thought
as it is for me right now.
I don’t want to go to sleep and end up dreaming about things
like going shopping with Rowen to help her find date-hot clothes or other
similar scenarios; so let’s move on.
We’re watching random YouTube vids while chatting, and I’ve already
wrapped up my usual nightly computing.
I’ve skipped the archive and language studies, and I’m going to wrap
this up and get back to concentrating on having fun with Rowen until whatever
time we run out of steam and crash for the night.
Say ‘goodnight, Cassie’.
“Goodnight, Cassie.”
