Tales of Super Zoey and Her Ordinary Mom: Surviving Our First Kid Party

This will just be a short post. I will do a more detailed post on Zoey's birthday in the family blog.
This past weekend was Zoey's first birthday party where we invited other kids. I was super nervous about it for several different reasons. 1) Would there be anyone at the party, 2) Would Zoey even care about the other kids at the party, and 3) How would the non ASD kids (and parents) react to the ASD kiddos. I ended up having no need to worry about any of those things.

In terms of kids at the party, we invited all 8 kids in her preschool class, a couple of kids from her speech group, 4 kids from daycare, and one of her cousins. We ended up having 12 kids at the party. So no need to worry about a lack of kiddos.

I'm not certain which kids have an ASD diagnosis and which didn't. All the kids did so well. We had a few small meltdowns by a couple of kids, both ASD and neurotypical (have I ever mentioned how much I hate that term), but nothing major. All of the kids were fully engaged in the baking activities we did. They also all played really well together when we had some free play time.

Probably the best thing to see was Zoey's reaction to her birthday party. One, she was super excited leading up to it and for the first time really understood what having a birthday party meant. The greatest part though was her reaction when her friends arrived to the house. She was so excited to see them and yelled their names when they arrived (except for a few from school, who I don't think she interacts with as much). She gave the first couple who arrived a tour of her party and introduced them to her family. There was girlie screeching when her best friend, Rohina, arrived at the party, which just made me smile.

I held off tears for the most part. There was a brief moment later at the family party when we were opening presents and the card from Rohina was signed "love your best friend Rohina". There was just something so sweet about that. It was validating to me that Rohina, and her mom, also view her friendship with Zoey as important.

It was just a really good day and gives me so much hope for Zoey's social relationships. I love that she is making connections and has actually made more than I was even aware of.