Happy Happy

right before she makes a wish

She's four.
and she knows to keep gates and doors closed so her brother doesn't "get lost forever." She likes Dutch Babies for breakfast, and playing babies. And wow, she really is a great mother to all of those little plastic dollies. They listen to her and she puts them down for naps, and she rocks them and sings to them and teaches them life lessons.

oh my little bald baby

She loves the soundtrack to Glee Season 1, and understands why someone should not, but might still, "Bust the Windows" (Out Your Car.) We discuss these things on the way to school each morning, along with the prospect of seeing aliens, or at least talking with them using the Dish. I found out today that she can name all of the planets in our solar system, (although one of them is "Jupe-peh-per.").. and did you know that the sun is a star?

When she grows up she wants to be a Cut You Open Surgeon or a Baby Doctor (obstetrics, not pediatrics), or a dog walker. She is willing to go to college somewhere far away, but has every intention of living with us for the rest of her life.

lined up to sing at school

She knows the city she lives in, and can count to I don't even know how high, and add little numbers and crack eggs without getting any shells in the bowl, and she knows that two quarters make a half and two halves make 1 cup.

with her cousins Easter Sunday

She loves the colors pink and blue and purple, and has fallen in love with headbands and ponytails. She loves to dress up. She has worn her Easter dress at least three times a week since March. Thankfully, it's a machine-washable white dress with polka dots and pink tulle underneath and she wears it with tennis shoes. She has worn it gardening, shopping, cooking and to school for every single free-dress day.

sweaty little
party girl

She has no patience, unless you are sick, or frail, or elderly, or hurt, or small, or sad, or tired, or lonely. She knows we stop to help people in need, and we don't stare, we say hello. She has friends and she loves them deeply. Her family is very important to her, a constant topic of conversation, and she grasps easily the ideas of birth mothers, and the mothers that raise you, having more than one set of parents or a family with two mothers or two fathers. She is not bound by blood, she loves and is loved by the amazing community that has embraced us, and has the same sense we do about the friends who've become our family.

Very little gets in her way. She's not afraid of dirt, or the dark, or touching dead lizards. She can keep up with Tahoe boys, and she hikes in princess dresses. She gets emotional, hysterical, and when she can't find her way out of a tantrum she begs to be held, my arms somehow helping her put herself back together.

She loves to sing, and dance and run and only rarely does she blame her brother for incidents or accidents his disabilities could not possibly permit him to accomplish. She is sweet with her brother, but not condescending. Her praise for him, when he does something new or wonderful, is a genuine cheering-on. She almost always saves half her cookie to take home to him. She's sympathetic to his disabilities, but has no problem being upset with him for walking through her play area knocking things over.

She is fiercely independent with her need to do it all by herself constantly in conflict with my need to be on time. And though she sheds me at the gate of most activities, she is still the loviest, coziest hand-holding, creep-in-to-my-bed-at-dawn-to-cuddle,  little girl.

her perfect little hand holding mine
on the afternoon she was born