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"Thank you all so much for your birthday wishes over the weekend, both here and on my Facebook page. The kids and I had a good day yesterday, heading out for a hike in the beautiful weather followed by dinner (courtesy of a gift card I got for my birthday). The food was great, but the rest of it was less than stellar. I had planned to come on here and whine about my just-turned-twelve-years-old daughter spending the entire dinner with her iPhone plugged into her ear, listening to music and playing Minecraft even after I nudged her with my elbow and said &amp;quot;Hey - it&amp;#039; s my birthday dinner. No iPhones!&amp;quot; She just gave me a deadpan look and said &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m kinda in the middle of this. Can&amp;#039;t it wait?&amp;quot; *sigh* Then the food got delivered and I got about five minutes into my delicious dinner that I was really, really enjoying when David suddenly finished his food and begged me to let him go play in the gameroom at the restaurant. We were seated pretty far from there, and while I had promised him he could &amp;quot;after dinner&amp;quot;, I hadn&amp;#039;t planned on him being done so quick and us being out of eyesight of that area. I asked Anna if she&amp;#039;d take him and even pushed a big pile of quarters at them both, but she didn&amp;#039;t want to go. So guess what? Yep. Autism doesn&amp;#039;t really care if it&amp;#039;s your birthday. I signalled the waiter, packed my dinner to go, paid the check (and by the time all this was done, David was bare minutes from a meltdown from having to wait) and took him to the gameroom, while my sullen daughter sat moping because she didn&amp;#039;t want to wait for him. I was seriously feeling irked and a bit sorry for myself as we were driving home, and I looked over at my daughter, ready to give her a few choice words about her selfishness. And then I saw her. I mean, really saw her. This beautiful girl of mine who&amp;#039;s on the cusp of womanhood and probably a tangled mass of emotions and hormones, just like I was once. I reached out and ran my fingers through her hair and she looked up at me with a question on her face. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re still the best birthday present I ever got,&amp;quot; I said to her, and I meant it. &amp;quot;I love you, my girl.&amp;quot; She smiled back, turned off her phone, and we turned up the radio and sang together. Then my son who never stops talking was chattering, chattering, chattering from the back and I remembered that once, he couldn&amp;#039;t talk at all. And I despaired that he ever would be able to tell us what he was thinking, or make conversation, or go to school with the other kids. There he was, talking my ear off and I was taking it for granted. I interrupted him to tell him I loved him, too. And I had all the gifts I needed as I finished my dinner on my coffee table at home. I am a lucky, lucky woman. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/relationships/dating-marriage/a47490/feeling-unappreciated/>