Ashley's Birthday

Ashley turned 6!  Way back in June!  I am behind!

Ashley wants to be a veterinarian.  She loves everything about animals.  When our neighbors went out of town and asked us to give their cat insulin shots, Ashley was in heaven.  

Most of her school work has been about animals or being a veterinarian.  This particular page was from her kindergarten year.

The dog is sliced open and there Ashley stands with a butcher-ish knife and a grin on her face.  Macabre.  

Ashley's favorite things in the whole world is still cats, large or small.  I really think she wishes she were a cat.  She prides herself on the authenticity of her four-legged run.  She'll patter all around the house and gracefully leap onto the couches, just as she imagines a real cat would.  Why would we ever get a pet when we have Ashley?

With all that in mind, Joel and I gave her a veterinarian-themed birthday.  I built Ashley a little white operating table with a silver top, and we bought her all the supplies we thought she would need to operate on her little fuzzy friends.

We bought her tweezers, scissors, bandages of all shapes and sizes, light-up veterinarian tools, and a scrub top so she could be official.

The lamp I bought was great for illuminating the work area.  When Ashley saw it, she exlaimed "My X-Ray machine!"  

Joel was the first to operate.  The kids were wowed with his skills.

After her birthday, Ashley brought all of her equipment to the alcove under the basement stairs.  After decorating the bare studs with chalk designs and words such as "Welcome", and after setting up a nice waiting room with books to read and bundled sleeping bags for benches, she was permanently open for business.  

Everett saw this little grey and white puppy at the store and had to get it for her.  Ashley loved it.  Someone stepped on it few weeks after her birthday, causing Ashley to have her first stuffed animal with a real broken leg.

My favorite part of the gift was the homemade x-rays.  I found a bunch of x-ray images online, printed them on vellum, and had them laminated.  They really made the entire vet operation more believable.  Ashley enjoyed holding them  up to the light.  It is amazing what the internet can provide--I found images of pregnant cats, dogs with broken paws and swallowed needles and spoons, animals of every kind including owls, snakes, rabbits, and fish, all with a number of interesting injuries.

Ashley wanted black forest cake for her birthday.  Since that is one of my favorites, I couldn't disagree with her choice!

Cherries are always in season that time of year, so she was delighted to have real cherries atop her double-stacked birthday cake.

Ashley is a real treat.  We all love her dearly.  She has a lot of love in her heart, and though she prefers to keep that love close to her, she loves doing good deeds.  This is Ashley a few days before Easter.  We had a lesson about Jesus being the bread of life, and she was thrilled to help me make raspberry almond bread and get a little goody basket together for a kind woman we know.  

Ashley also jumped to assist a sick boy we knew--after finding out some details about his illness, she suggested we bring him some goodies to cheer him up.  Her favorite idea was a puzzle, so off to the dollar store we went.  Ashley volunteered to buy a puzzle with her own money (a big deal for a girl who doesn't get allowance) and delighted in choosing one she thought he would love.  

When we went to buy our stuff, I asked Ashley if she would like me to pay for the puzzle since I was already paying for all of the other goodies.  She insisted on paying for it herself and was thrilled to bring it over to our young friend.

Ashley still loves Art.  She drew this picture when she was five and was very proud of it, so I hung it up on my kitchen wall.  She considers herself an artist and I agree--she thinks like an artist, is forgetful like an artist, and sees the world like an artist.

Ashley sees beauty in everything, including herself.  Ashley loves the way she looks and she loves what her body can do.  One day after I heard Ashley mention yet again that she thought she was beautiful, I asked her why she thought being beautiful was so wonderful, and she replied, "I don't know, Mommy, I just think everything in this world is beautiful."

And she does.  In kindergarten she brought home a worksheet with the prompt "If I could have one wish. . ."  Ashley answered with, "I wish everyone could have love."

Ashley has a unique ability to see ways to transform regular objects into something interesting.  When she was four she made a realistic 3-D model of Sebastian the crab in his seashell chariot pulled by fish--all out of paper.  She went through a phase this past winter of making sleds for her stuffed animals out of cardboard boxes--shaping the tops in interesting ways and affixing skids on the bottom.  She made elaborate harnesses out of yarn and had her own sled dog teams to drive the sleds. 

Just last night, I caught Ashley gazing at a plastic hanger.  "Mom!" she exlaimed, "I'm going to make ice skates.  Could you take me ice skating?"  Ashley then showed me her plan of trimming the top off the hanger and attaching the bottom to a boot.

When Ashley was three years old, we found that we were all locked in Everett's bedroom.  The latch for the lock was on the outside of the door.  We were stuck.  I asked the kids if they thought they could find anything to fit in the slot that could unlock the door.  Ashley immediately jumped up, grabbed a nightlight out of an outlet and used one of the prongs to turn the slot, unlocking the door and freeing us all.  I had been thinking of doing the same thing, but I am an adult and Ashley was just out of the toddler stage.

I will never forget teaching Ashley to sew when she was four.  I was finishing up a project and when I turned around, Ashley had threaded her own needle and gotten to work sewing a little bag for herself out of scrap fabric and ribbon, despite me never showing her how to do any of that.

Ashley is fun.  She loves to play and she doesn't hold back for anyone.  She was playing kickball with her brothers and some of their friends a few weeks ago when suddenly she came in for a jacket and announced, "Mom, we're playing kickball out there and I'm going to rip those guys apart!"  

Ashley just finished up her second softball season and relished achieving her goal to be a switch-hitter.

If everyone had the light and joy and confidence that Ashley has, the world would be a better place.