So Much for a Happy Birthday

Being full fledged members of the Red Robin Birthday Club, we are rewarded with coupons for a free burger on our birthdays. It's sa-weet, let me tell ya. Micah got his free burger coupon in my inbox, so we printed that thing out and headed to the restaurant.

Micah took his Voice and amazed us with some speech, of sorts. He saw the folded up kids' placemat with the mini crayon box inside. Instead of tearing into it, or asking for help, he pressed COLORS on his Voice.

So. Cool.

Then he made the sign for HELP to set the crayons free. I did. We reward any form of communication other than yelling and grunting readily. And you know what was really fun? Before he'd reach for any crayon, he'd find the color on his Voice and say it. BLUE, pick up blue. YELLOW, pick up yellow. PURPLE, pick up purple. I was thrilled. Mr. Stubborn will not go over colors, numbers, letters or even point to a dog in the book when we ask him to. It's all about doing what he wants in his own time. So you may be able to understand, just a little bit, that I had no idea that he knew his colors. My boy. He's growing up.

The waittress took our order, and we got him some apple juice. He was listening. Who knew? He reiterated by saying, DRINK, JUICE. We told him that it was coming. He was happy. The boy is using his Voice to communicate. That makes me happy.

After the meal, we handed the waittress our birthday burger coupon and she took it on her merry way to process our bill. When she came back, she brought several other staff members with her and presented Micah with an ice cream sundae and a helium balloon while they sang him the Happy Birthday song. The look on his face went from "Whoa! It's someone's birthday? I know that song! How fun is this?" to "Hey, they're stopping at our table. What are they doing here?" and ended up in "For the love of all that is good, please make them go away!" He hid behind daddy and refused to make eye contact. He also wouldn't take the offered balloon.

Sam offered Micah a bite of the ice cream. The boy lives for ice cream, but would have nothing to do with that sundae. Those People brought it. It was probably poisoned. We were clearly taking our life in our hands eating that stuff.

Then he started reaching toward the balloon that I was holding. I handed it across the table but he wouldn't take it. He crawled under the table to come get it. Hey, whatever works for him, right? He just didn't seem happy with it though. Did he want it tied onto his arm? Oh, definitely not.

The boy crawled out from under the table and took off running, balloon bobbing behind him like a kite on a windy day. Thank goodness it was trailing rather high in the air so that I could follow him as he weaved through tables, ran through the bar, and ended up at the entrance. There, he released the balloon to be with it's herd in the wild. Once it was safely reunited with the other balloons, he casually made his way back to our table. Mission accomplished.

I just hope he's not too traumatized by the Happy Birthday song in the future. Who knew that ice cream and a balloon could scar someone for life?