Our Latest Four Year Old

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It’s always fun to see how excited kids get for birthdays. The younger they are, the more excited. (Well, up to a point. They have to have a concept of “birthday” to really get into it. One year olds? Not so much.)

I think MC is at the “Peak Birthday Excitement” age. She’s turning four, and she’s off the charts hyped for it. Some of that is no doubt that she’s also had the chance to see other people have birthdays in the family so often. People her age. I remember it took Tomas a while to catch the “True Spirit of Birthdays,” meaning realize it gets to be a day all about him, where people bring him presents, and he gets to have a party and pick the food. But it wasn’t like he had examples to check. Parent birthdays are different beasts, really. MC has been able to see Tomas and DC get birthday parties, and so she knows what to look forward to.

What does she want out of the day? “Bags of presents,” she said. I think it’s because DC had some presents that were in gift bags, rather than “Garbage bag-sized bags of presents.” But you never know. We’ve been trying to manage her expectations on that one. She also wants a chocolate cake with strawberries and raspberries on it, going in the vein of DC’s birthday cakes. So Denisa’s taking care of that. Beyond that, I think she’s just looking forward to people singing her the happy birthday song.

So a few presents, a chocolate cake, and people singing to her. Maybe we all could learn a thing or two from how excited four year olds can get for relatively little investment, and how pleased they can be by it.

Really, she’s a fantastic little girl. I still remember how calm and quiet she was right after she was born. No crying at all. She was just looking around, interested to see where she’d ended up. Four years later, and she still(!) takes a two hour or more nap each day. The girl prioritizes sleep, and I fully support that. She has a strong independent streak in her. but she’s also very happy to know her place in the family and to fill it.

Her idea of a perfect day right now would probably be waking up, having sweet cereal for breakfast, watching Netflix, and playing games. (She’s on an Octonauts binge at the moment. She also loves Little Einsteins.) She’s both sad the snow has gone (meaning she can’t ski) and through the roof hyped for flowers incoming. She loves dressing up as a princess, and loves Disney princess movies. Cinderella is her favorite, probably because it doesn’t really have anything scary in it other than a mean woman who’s handily dealt with by some mice.

Hard to believe Denisa and I were wondering if we wanted to have a third child. The family feels perfect with her addition. Happy birthday, MC! You’re awesome.

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