This is my Spicy child at age one, enjoying her cake very much, thanks.
(She does not, in fact, have laser beams for eyes. She’s just very cat-like when it comes to flash photography.)
In a little more than a month, she’ll turn five.
Turning five is very important. She’s pretty certain that amazing things happen when you’re five, because being five years old makes you “big.” She has two cousins who are five now (and two who will turn five just weeks after she does), and those “Fives” are doing so many nifty things! She’s eager to join the ranks of the Readers and Writers, she loves working on School. She’s convinced she’ll grow much taller this coming year (and I hate to break it to her… she very well might not. We call her Short Stack for a reason.)
She’s changed from telling people she’s four. Now she’s “Nearly Five” and “Five Very Soon.” She puts on her most mature expression when she does this, too. Dignity is a big thing for her.
The hardest part about birthdays is deciding which present we’ll do. We don’t go overboard for birthdays, but we do like to add something really fun to our children’s lives, to celebrate the fact that they are with us. So now, I have to choose.
Will it be more doll clothes, or a matching doll and girl dress?
Maybe a kitchen playmat and some felt food to go along with her tea party playmat? (My sister sends me links of felt food projects, because she knows me, and she is also slightly evil.)
Something new for the dress-up box? More Fancy Nancy books?
Spandy-new math flashcards just for her? Or a custom-made, laminated Memory game with all the faces of her loved ones?
Maybe I can bribe the Eldest to make some clothes for the four stark-nekkid Barbies that lurk in the doll bin? Poor cold things. It’s winter, and they’re constantly unclothed, which is most likely the fault of the Youngest. She runs around nekkid, too.
While gifts are still up in the air, a few things are settled.
She’d like to have a few girls over for a tea party. There should be cake (which Eldest will probably bake), and if it’s Small Cake, that’s even better. Small Cake with pretty frosting would make her swoon. We will probably buy her a small bouquet, because every young lady deserves live (well, used-to-be-live, now-cut-and-slowly-dying) flowers now and then. She’ll choose our dinner menu. We talk about it a lot, because she likes to plan ahead.
Not so far ahead as Eldest, thank goodness. That one has her birthday planned a year in advance, and Halloween is often two years out.
In the month between today, and Birthday, I need to get down into my stash… so much fabric, so many projects, and so many days to procrastinate them!
Not Molly 