kiwords

Guess who turned three? Her actual birthday was Friday, but we postponed it, because Good Friday seems like such a GRIM day for a birthday. How do you word those invitations? "Come celebrate with us! The party theme is torture and death!" 

So instead we waited until Monday. Sophia didn't even know we'd missed her actual birthday, although the boys keep telling me they're going to tell her about it when she's older. I hope they wait until she's 13 or so, because I'm guessing she's going to be looking for reasons to be furious with me right about then. It's like a delayed-release birthday gift, really!

Since it was HER birthday (more or less), she got to pick what we had for dinner. This explains why we had fries and pink smoothies as an actual meal. Clay and my parents think I'm insane. But it was Sophia's birthday, and she enjoyed it.

Eventually, as she does with any meal that involves catsup (or chetchup, as she calls it), she moved to a true gourmet's appreciation of this wonderful...vegetable. Totally a vegetable. 

The party activity was decorating her cupcakes. Her PINK cupcakes. 

Those bowls of frosting were for her use alone. That was a brilliant move on my part. Genius. I like to set the bar low for myself, in terms of achievement, but let me tell you: that was the exact right thing to do. 

Once the cupcakes were decorated, we stuck three candles in hers and sang to her. This was such a hit with her that once we were done, we were allowed to do it all over again.

And now she is three, which is very, very big. Sometimes she comes sauntering out of her room and informs me that she was just now, in our house, growing. That is why she is so big. 

She loves to make her brothers laugh, which is not actually so hard. Tonight she sang them a song about tooting, and they were hysterical with laughter...okay, I laughed too. You had to be there. It was good. 

She paints roughly one million pictures a day, and tells that many stories and sings that many songs. She is funny and bossy and animated and strong willed and likes pink. She is our Sophia (aka Camel, Tweety Ann, or Lamination Ann. Max comes up with most of the nicknames. I cannot explain them). 

And someday we just hope she comes out of her shell, just a little. 

She is such a joy and yes, a million times yes, she dresses her own stubborn self. She is three, and she takes my breath away.