Subject: Birthday Party Delima/ HELP!

April 3, 2006

Subject: Birthday Party Dilemma/ HELP!

Didn't have time to read through all messages, so maybe you've gotten lots of

helpful ideas, but here's my two cents. At my non-ASD daughter's birthday party

this year, we ordered cupcakes from a bakery for all the guests. They were

frosted with white frosting and decorated with colored polka dots to match the

birthday theme colors. A friend of mine took our favorite banana muffin recipe

(and some of my " hard-to-find " ingredients) to her house and made my ASD

daughter SCD muffins and frosted them with SCD white icing and colored polka

dots, colored with natural ingredients (the blue and red from blueberries and

strawberries came out the best, so I recommend a blue and red theme. :-)

I could have made the SCD cupcakes myself, but as soon as my ASD daughters sees

me baking, she's seated at the table waiting for the item to come out of the

oven. So, there would be no surprise and delight in having her think she was

eating the same delightful thing all the other girls at the party were eating.

(Unless I waited until 11:00 PM, when she is in bed, to start the baking

process. I've done that in the past, so I am especially thankful for this

friend this year!!!)

My friend also picked up my cupcake order from the bakery, so no child from my

household saw the cupcakes before they were served at cake time during the

party. When they were served, my ASD daughter's " cupcakes " were mixed in with

all the other cupcakes on the beautiful platter, alight with candles while

singing happy birthday, and we just served her hers when we were serving

everyone from the platter. This is the first birthday party that we so

successfully included little sister in big sister's festivities, because we took

the time to think through the details and because we're blessed with a friend

who took on the burden of doing the extra cooking and decorating. This was big

sister's 16th birthday, and she was quite moved at finally having little sister

a part of her celebration--we were all moved. We had gotten into the habit of

celebrating her birthdays in hiding because of the diet factor.

I guess my recommendation can be summed up this way: Be creative; be sneaky;

seek help. Those 3 suggestions actually apply to about 90% of our challenges

with autism. :-)

Nannette, IBS, SCD 7 months

daughter, , 14 yo, autism, SCD 7 months

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