This past week, Lily's much anticipated 11th birthday finally came.
Lily had been looking forward to it for weeks. Since she found out her's was next on my birthday 6 weeks ago she has been talking about nothing else.
Every time she would get dressed she'd talk about the new dress she would get on her birthday.
Every night she prayed for us before bed she'd pray for her birthday.
And when she'd stare off into space during school she'd come back talking about her birthday.
One day Nikki and I were doing a lesson on family as part of our book study with her and Molly and we asked her to identify who was in our family. She did it all correctly and we were kind of impressed until we realized she was actually naming off everyone who was coming to her party!
When it was finally the last bedtime before her birthday Lily asked to pray with Louise. She not only prayed for the usual birthday, my birthday, birthday, birthday, and Lily's birthday, but also for her new dress, cake, and the balloons that would decorate the ceiling ;)
After a long sleepless night of anticipation the day finally came and from the moment she woke up the smile never left Lily's face.
As soon as breakfast was finished the ayahs presented Lily with the gifts they had gotten her - a beautiful half sari and Indian jewelry. Their goal was to make her feel special and they definitely succeeded. Lily is our little fashionista and is very Indian in her taste so there was a lot of squealing and jumping up and down over the fancy traditional outfit and jewelry! While the outfit was for her to wear later in the evening, they let her try on the jewelry right away and she wouldn't stop staring at her reflection in the mirror. She was completely mesmerized by herself. She knew she was beautiful.
After school Lily got to put on her new fancy American dress and we took all of our kids and Lily's choice of friends (Andrew and Aaron from downstairs and our ayah Laxmi's son, Kumar) to Gymboree for a real birthday party.
Andrew and Aaron's ayah came along to help as well as two of our ayahs. Our other two ayahs stayed back with Nagesh's school aide to decorate the house as a surprise to Lily when we got home.
That left us with only 5 adults for 15 children but we somehow made it work and no one got lost or injured ;)
The kids had a blast and even the ayahs joined in the fun a little and had a good time. We were a little worried that Lily would just sit and watch the other kids play as sometimes she doesn't have the best play skills but she did great and was running around playing and dancing with everyone else, a beaming smile on her face.
None of our older kids had ever been to Gymboree before as only our little ones under age 5 attend classes there so it was interesting to see their reactions. Cedar, Jasmine, and Dinah enjoyed it when we were with them but got too scared to play on their own once we moved on to help another kid. Lily, Molly, and Nolan on the other hand, loved it and even though they were exhausted by the end, didn't want to stop! It was such a fun afternoon of hanging out and playing together and the way Lily enjoyed it made it even more special.
We also had the birthday girl open her gift before we left - a little stuffed dog with long fluffy hair she can brush (her favorite). She named him "Dog" and he stayed with her the rest of the day.
When we got home we rushed her into the bedroom with her eyes closed so she couldn't see the decorations in the living room, and left her to get dressed up by the ayahs in her Indian outfit.
When she was finally all dolled up we brought her out to see her decorations and if possible her eyes lit up even more. They had put a lot time and effort into decorating because they knew it meant a lot to Lily and all their work paid off. It looked great and Lily was thrilled!
The rest of us had all gotten dressed up as well to surprise her so obviously a photo shoot was in order!
After everyone had gotten all the pictures they wanted we went inside to sing and cut the cake, bringing the day of celebrations to an end.
Lily's bedtime prayer had a slight variation that night. It really just ended up being her telling Selah all about her birthday and not really a prayer at all! I'm so glad it was everything she had hoped for.
We all went to bed that night exhausted but happy. Lily was up late talking to Dog and eventually curled up with a content smile on her face.
I looked at her in that moment and saw the thing I had prayed for:
The knowledge that she is special and she is loved.
The thought of how everyone came together to make Lily's day special brings tears to my eyes. From those abroad to those here in our home, she was showered with so many blessings. Lily is loved so well by so many and this day was a beautiful expression of that. Thank you to everyone who helped make a very special day for a very special girl.
On Friday, Lily looked like a princess.
And more importantly, she felt like one too.
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