Happy birthday to my spunky middle child who keeps us in giggles all day long! As a good friend puts it, you are the perfect combination of sugar and spice.
Three was a fun age, and your imagination has grown to be much bigger than you are. There are days when you never stop talking, or singing, or sing-talking. You still have have a lisp, pronouncing your Rs and Ls like Ws, and your Ss like a TH. I want to always remember the way you sound right now with all of the musical inflection of a girl who is enthusiastically enamored with the world.
You have the perfect middle position between your siblings, with a friend on both sides. Well designed for our most social child. You are growing into an excellent older sister, being sure to teach younger brother all of the rules, while enforcing a few of your own at times (we are working on that.) You and your older sister have become the best of friends this year and each other's preferred playmate. Together you are learning to get along most of the time, and are practicing fair fighting strategies the rest.
Four is truly a magical birthday. You are excited to finally be a big 4-year-old, and now insist on taking four more bites of dinner instead of three before being excused. Of course, you are well beyond your years in many ways. You have memorized the names and calls of hundreds of birds from your bird song book, identifying more than I can. You are the youngest child in your pre-school class, but the teachers assure me that you are well placed (meaning if you were in the younger class you would be bossing everyone else around.) You learned to swim this year, which I believe was possible because you have no fear. Your independence and strong opinions can feel like an overwhelming job to parent, but I have to remember this is our opportunity to help shape those personality extremes into future greatness.
We celebrated all four years of you with your very first birthday party of your own. Like Annike's, it was a last minute affair with no extra frills. A cake and plenty of tutus and tiaras to share from the dress up bin is all a group of 4-year-old girls really needs to make it a party! You appropriately convinced the other girls to pretend that you were the queen while they were your daughters. Because it was your birthday, everyone seemed to think this was just fine.
Oh yes, and you gave up the idea of an osprey cake in favor of a much more colorful peacock cake. The inside was flavored like pink lemonade, just one step tastier than bubblegum. We may be giving the rest of this cake away to the neighbors, but at least it looked pretty.
Happy Birthday sweet Sommer! Love the cake :)
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