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When you have toddlers and young kids, children’s birthday parties will always be there. Apart from theirs, your friends’ and other acquaintances’ children’s birthdays will keep the family busy. And if you have a huge circle of friends, you’ll receive an invite probably on a monthly basis.
Children’s birthday parties will always have cakes, ice cream, games, goodie bags, and perhaps a magician, clown or a mascot. It’s really fun and it’s a good place and time for children to learn to interact with both kids their age and adults alike. Take advantage of these opportunities, for you’ll have a hard time bringing them to parties, as they get introduced to gadgets and computers.
Like most parents, I was always excited to bring my kids to birthday
parties. I don’t know why, but every birthday party would always exhaust me. Having both Brad and Ryu, both active, can be very tiring. More so, if one is hyperactive. But still, I bring them to every birthday party we get invited to whenever possible.
Ryu, my younger son, is the reserved one, even at parties. He is very sweet and caring. But with Brad, his energy is unleashed. They will end up running around enjoying their own world, while I go chase them to ensure that they don’t disrupt the party, turn a table upside down, or hurt other kids or themselves. Until the point that I need to make them stop, though only Ryu will.
Ryu would sit on my lap and watch the children playing games or the mascot doing a dance. He is capable of sitting still for a long time. But not Brad.
In one birthday party of a friend’s child, I brought Brad and Ryu, aged 5 and 3, respectively, then. There were 2 mascot entertainers. One mascot was a girl with a golden yellow spaghetti-like hair, wearing a pink jumper, similar to a pinafore, over a white shirt with ruffled sleeves. Let’s call her Goldie. The other one was a cute, orange and yellow striped bee wearing a laced pair of shoes. Let’s call him Barry (like the one in the Bee Movie). Goldie and Barry were about 6 feet tall, very huggable, and the children loved them.
These mascots would typically lead a few games, do a couple of dance numbers, and take photos with the children. These events transpired while Brad spun around the place like a robot vacuum (maybe kids like him gave the Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists (inventors of iRobot) the idea!). He would crawl under chairs and tables (iRobot’s upgrades?), try to climb where he can, punch the balloons here and there, and even poke the icing on the cake with his fingers to create little holes. These were normal things for Brad and for me, so I knew what to watch out for. Until he did something new, much to my surprise and all the other guests in the party.
Goldie and Barry were sitting on a chair while distributing the goodie bags to the children on queue. I was accompanying Ryu in the queue to collect 2 goodie bags for him and his elder brother. Brad would not be interested and have the patience to queue up. After we got the goodie bags, we went back to our seats and I started looking for Brad. I looked around and didn’t see him. Even my peripheral view did not catch anything like the Tazmanian Devil, aka Taz, spinning like a vortex across the room. Then, much to my surprise, I saw Brad under the seat of Barry, pulling off both the mascot’s shoe laces and tying it together! Before I could do something about it, Barry had just finished distributing the goodie bags, stood up, and lost his balance with his shoes tied together! Luckily, the party host and organizers were nearby and able to hold Barry before falling into the floor.
It didn’t end there. After Barry, Brad went behind Goldy who was already standing up, ready to say goodbye to the children. Brad pulled all the way down the zipper at the back of Goldy’s pink jumper!
“Oh my God!”, one of my friends said, “Brad is undressing Goldy!”. And
everyone seemed to had fun with that. Probably everyone, except me., at least not instantly. I didn’t know how to react and was worried that either me or my son, or both of us, will be judged negatively by my friends in the party. Fortunately, the genuine smiles on my friends’ faces got the better of me. I smiled back and somehow, felt proud of my son’s curiosity, guts, and shall I dare say, creativity?
I learned a vital lesson that day, that no matter how well you knew your children, they will always have surprises to pull. You’ll never know what, when, where, how, and why. And in the case of Brad, with his ADHD, it can be even more exciting and unpredictable.
I used to lose my temper and reached the point of spanking him a couple of times. Until I started getting anxious and even had palpitations and breathing difficulties. I knew I must be doing something wrong, because children are not supposed to make parents fall sick.
That prompted me to start researching more about ADHD and the proper way of handling it. It changed my perspective and attitude towards Brad. I learned that it is not a disability, but a gift. That it can be used to the child’s advantage. That children with ADHD are usually intelligent and have somewhat better thinking capabilities. That they may have very little attention span, but if they are interested in something, they can absorb information like a sponge.
So instead of looking at Brad’s actions in that party as something naughty or bad that needed disciplining, I looked at it as his curiosity on things around him and his ways to explore and learn. And instead of stopping him to keep him safe, my husband and I taught him how to do things correctly and safely, such as climbing the stairs on the side of the rails or climbing fences, so he won’t fall and get hurt. We taught him at a very young age how to operate the TV, the radio components, so he won’t break anything. We even taught him how fire can burn his skin by slightly putting his finger near a lighted candle, close enough for him to feel enough heat to pull his hand away from the fire. And such approach made him more curious, allowing him to learn more.
Brad is a gift to me and my husband, and so is Ryu. Together, it’s not just double, but multiple blessings. Brad’s ADHD is a delicious icing on the cake that will always leave a sweet smile on our face and bring opportunities to make our lives exciting!
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