Happy Birthday Pipo!

Pipo turned 11 today... a quiet family celebration of presents after church and dinner out tonight, bringing his best friend Guillo. Next week we have an outing planned with a good friend and neighbor whose birthday is Tuesday. It's amazing looking back over the short time he has been with us. Pipo's first birthday in America was only weeks after arriving. He had only found out about coming here a week before leaving Haiti. Our friend Conor was so afraid of anything going wrong, he didn't want to get his hopes up only to disappoint him. He had never celebrated a birthday, and didn't even know his age. On the way to Visa Appointment, Conor kept quizzing him, to remind him his full name and his age. He did very well with it... so well that when his birthday happened a few weeks later he refused to believe us that he was 9 years old. In his limited English he kept repeating "No... I am Philippe and I am 8 years old! Conor tell me I am 8 years old." It took some convincing, but once he realized that being 9 made him older than Margaret, he jumped right into the whole birthday scene. He was also happy to get his very first bicycle.

Last year was Pipo's first real birthday party. He understood things much better by then, and was counting the days. We had about 10 little boys over and took them down to Warrior's Way for some good fun sword fighting, and then back home for pizza and cake. He was in absolute heaven.

This year it is old hat to him. He was happy but calm this morning, very thankful for his few presents, and incredibly gracious out to dinner and having cake, making sure siblings all got what they wanted too. Once again, I am reminded that we are the ones who received a gift here, having this incredible boy in our lives.