Happy 4th Birthday to Mikayla!

Today was my baby girl's fourth birthday. It doesn't seem she could possibly be that old. We had to convince her that it was today, she kept insisting that it wasn't until tomorrow. Then she helped me make blueberry muffins for breakfast. We went out for the afternoon, including a trip to Target for her to pick out a Princess dress with some of her birthday cash. I just let her pick out whatever she wanted from us (with some limits, its not like I just set the kid loose in the toy section with an empty shopping cart). She chose a toy blender and baking set to go in her little kitchen. And of course, some princess shoes. Those things make entirely too much noise on hard floors. I think I'll super glue some rubber pads to the bottoms.
Of all the things in the freezer, she picked out shrimp for dinner. She and I had shrimp, Aaric and Michael had veggie pizza. She didn't like the shrimp - it was Margaritaville Island Lime Shrimp, and she said it was "hot" - which means the flavor was too spicy or sour or too something for her. She ate some after I scraped off as much sauce as I could. I baked a cake, and she just HAD to be the one to put the candles in it. I was going to make homemade, but couldn't find any super easy, basic cake recipes. So I got the box of yellow mix and chocolate fudge frosting. Hey, she doesn't care how its made or who made it - all that mattered to her was that it MUST BE SQUARE! Luckily, I have no round cake pans anyway.
Then we watched Chicken Little together.
Now they are both finally sleeping, and it being nearly midnight, she's officially been four years old for nearly 5 hours. April 22, 2002, at 7:28 pm, in our bedroom at one of our many former homes. With all of the new baby talk, she insisted the other day that she was never a baby. I showed her the pictures, and luckily, we were in Georgia for the week, so I drove her past the house where she was born. I remember lots of things from the whole 13 months that we lived there (our record rental time, tied with one other), but of course the one memory that stands out the most is that day in labor at that house. Quiet, peaceful, sunny (though, I think it did rain a bit in the evening, but I wasn't really noticing anymore at that point), and perfect. I got a bit frantic for a while there when I was stuck at 4 cm for 12 hours, but other than that, it was perfect.
When she was born, she looked like she'd just stepped out of a salon. Rosy pink skin, perfect little pink lips, and dark hair that had a bit of wave and looked perfectly combed. We should have known she'd wind up the super girly-girl who is fascinated with The Princesses, even though she's barely watched any of the movies and we haven't really encouraged the whole "girly-girl" thing overall. Its just IN her. And she's just as perfect today as she was four years ago. Well, other than the pre-breakfast tantrum because her brother dared to take a sip of her water. Close enough.