Penelope celebrated her 13th birthday over the weekend. Happy Birthday Penelope! It was just her grandparents and I for her birthday since neither parents are permitted to see her and my other brother and his family have written her off. It is for the best as she could barely handle just the date coming and going. I bought her some balloons, a bouquet of colored daisies, made her a chocolate chocolate cake with chocolate chips on it. She helped me pick out the cake mix and icing at the store. She wanted party plates and those cone hats - I got them too. I had to work on her birthday so my mom took her to get a mani/pedi at one of those walk-in places for her birthday gift from Grandma. Papaw got her some DVDs of the Three Stoogies which honestly was the hit of her birthday. I got her a pink heart necklace, some cool shoes and a fashion scarf and hat. I made all of us spaghetti which is one of her favorite meals. She really struggles with hyperness. She kept hopping in place or bouncing in her seat. Ready to combust. She got a little out of hand and angry but got it in check with a little "sweet talk" so to speak. So overall it was good.
Then the next day was when her friend was scheduled to come over and spend the day and then stay the night. It's really her only real friend. But they haven't seen eachother in about a 3 weeks. Penelope was so excited Jackie was coming and kept calling me at work to let me know she wanted Jackie there "now!" Too excited, didn't know how to contain herself or spend those agonizing couple of hours before she was to arrive. Somewhere along the lines, something got crossed and Jackie didn't know we were going to a water amusement park with a huge HUGE swimming pool. So our schedule was delayed which caused Penelope's anxiety to get worse. We finally get to the pool and got into the dressing room to change into our suits, but her friend had started her period. Great. Love the kid but I just spent $50 on this.. but I remember learning in an economics class in college that just because you spend money on tickets to a show (or whatever) shouldn't obligate you to go see it. If there is something that you will enjoy better, go do that instead. It's not a waste of money - the money has already been spent. The money should no longer be part of the decision making as to what you do.
Makes sense to me (and one of the only things that has really stuck to me from the class) but no one else was buying it. Penelope didn't want to go do anything else. So we decided we would stay and my mom and I would take turns going into the pool with Penelope. But, Penelope really wanted to ride the tube rides/slides with Jackie so she was in a very disappointed mood and when we found chairs to sit/lay out, Penelope decided she was going to "go cool off in the pool" and took off. I followed her but the place was so crowded it took me 15/20 minutes to find her in the pool. (It's a huge pool) I was trying not to freak out. I debated asking a lifeguard for help but I did eventually find her and she was fine, just very disappointed. We played/swam around in the pool for probably 45 more minutes. She wanted to hang on me like a toddler. Wanted me to hold her like a little kid. I did, regardless of the looks, for a little bit. Then I tried to redirect her into older stuff like racing me one side to the other and things like that. After some of that, she was ready to go. Okay. Jackie was ready too and everyone seemed good about everything and leaving.
When we got to the house, Penelope wanted her and Jackie to go play in her play room. Jackie wanted to lounge on the living room couch and watch tv. Penelope called her a couple times to come in and play with her and eventually she went in. They played and everything seemed fine. But it wasn't. Jackie is a nice kid. She is only 13 and would never want to hurt anyone's feelings. But she is much more mature than Penelope. Penelope seems to get younger while Jackie gets older. Penelope obviously isn't getting younger but is regressing into a safe place for herself. The problem is, from a social standpoint, kids her age don't want to "play-pretend" anymore. Girls are into fashion and makeup,boys, music.. more mature topics. Penelope is into these things too, but like a little girl trying to dress up like mom. It's different. And being the way Penelope is, it's her way or a pouty tantrum and knowing how Jackie is, she let Penelope pick because.. it's just not that important. The next day, Jackie was a tired pup and slept in. The night before last, she had stayed up with her brother and watch scary movies until 3am. However, Penelope was up early bouncing off the walls, ready to play. I made her NOT wake Jackie up too early but even then, Jackie was mush for the first hour after she woke up. But by then she had already texted her mother to pick her up in the next hour. But you would never know she was upset. She is a sweet kid. But I can't necessarily say that Penelope and her are going to remain friends much longer.
Penelope did settle down and actually took a nap. I think it was the meds. They knocked her out. Kinda weird because they don't do it normally but maybe having to bring her down from such a high energy place where she was at that morning, her body just decided to go to sleep. But before she did fall asleep, Jackie wanted to work on their movie they have been planning to make. So that was a good sign. There was a lot of headway, but not too much input by Penelope. She was in zoned out, ready to pass out mode. She even did this thing where she was purposefully letting phlegm or whatever roll down her lower lip and then when I said "Penelope?" she sucked it in. Is she trying to draw negative attention? But then shortly later she wanted to go sit on the couch to continue the planning and she passed out. I left the room for a couple of minutes to get something and when I came back, Jackie had written "Jackie &Penelope BFF" and things like that on a piece of paper. That was right before she left.
But found out through her mom that Jackie still loves Penelope but "She just wants to do stuff that I used to like to do. Like a couple of years ago." We will see.
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