What Makes Her Special

For Kayla's 10th birthday she had a tea party at a Victorian tea room - Time Well Spent. The girls picked out their dresses from a selection of prom, bridesmaid, and wedding dresses. They wore the pinned up dresses across the hall to where the tables were set up for the tea party. They had lemonade in tea cups and some finger foods before having a cupcake. They all had such a great time and I'm glad we decided on doing this for Kayla's birthday.

After the tea party Kayla had 4 friends spend the night for her first slumber party. Now that she's had the requisite slumber party do we have to do that ever again?! Haha, actually it wasn't that bad ... it was just getting the girls settled down to actually sleep! I knew that would be the hard part; they finally fell asleep at midnight.

I had a neat conversation with one of the girls. While everyone else was upstairs she was downstairs with me as I was painting her toenails. She let me know that one of her toes didn't fully form because the umbilical cord wrapped around it. She told me it was her lucky toe.

Then she said, "I love my lucky toe. It's what makes me special."

I heard what she just said and ran with it.

"Kayla has an extra chromosome." I told her. "She does?" she responded in wonder.

"Yep. Most people have 46 chromosomes in their body."
"So Kayla has 47?"

"Yes. We usually get 23 from our mom and 23 from our dad, but sometimes we get an extra one. Chromosomes are numbered and Kayla's extra one is on number 21. It makes some things harder for Kayla to do."

"Wow, that's some neat scientific stuff. So that's what makes Kayla special?"
"Yes."
"Cool."

When she started to say "So that's what makes Kayla" I was expecting to hear, "different", "weird" or "that's why she can't do this or that" or "that's why she acts that way" or something like that.

But nope, it's what makes her special.

I don't usually like the word special, but this time it was appropriate in an innocent child's discovery about what makes each of them special.

She is special because of her toe, and Kayla is special because of her extra chromosome.