Then I start to think about how fast other things are going to be coming up. In about 20 months she's going to be starting school! She's also now half way to eight, which is nearly double digits! Once she's in school it seems like it's such a short time until she's graduating and moving on to her own life. I'm not saying that I want to keep her forever at this age, I love that she's growing up and getting interested in things, having thoughts, and developing the most awesome personality. At the same time, I also love that she's at an age where she still thinks I'm the best, where she likes to play a game where I grab her and tell her I'm keeping her forever before I let her go and then snatch her back up and say that I'm still keeping her forever.
I feel like I also probably have a low level of worry about her getting older just simply because of the family examples I've had in my life. No one in my family particularly likes their parents, and have various levels of separation and estrangement. There are some valid reasons for that, say not accepting who they are as people, or being absent, or being addicted to drugs or alcohol. Those aren't factors that we have hanging over us, but it's still a nagging little voice there in the back of my head that some day she's going to grow up and hate us. I don't think that's really going to happen because that's not the life she is living, nor the support system that we provide for her, but brains are stupid and they like to throw things at you.
However, to help celebrate her birthday weekend, we started today with a little trip to her favorite restaurants. For breakfast we went to "the fruit restaurant " and even got our favorite waitress. She insisted that she wanted fruit, AND a waffle, AND bacon. I ordered it all for her and she did a decent job (plus I got all the waffle she didn't want). After that we went to have some fun at the Hands-on Museum. It was unfortunately a total zoo, and she's very standoffish about doing things if other kids are already there. On our way she told me all about how she wanted to go play on the projection floor games, but when she got there aren half a dozen kids were already on it she told me "there are too many kids" and decided to go elsewhere. It's weird because I feel the same way about things, but it's never anything that she would have observed me doing. An interesting study of nature vs. nurture when I see her doing some things that she's never been taught and really couldn't have observed but are exactly like things that me or Becky do.
To cap off our celebration day, we went to her other favorite restaurant "the walrus" which means La Fuente. For some reason the sign next to the restaurant for The Dance Pavilion, which is two people dancing, she thinks look like a walrus. I really don't see it, but she's called it that for as long as I can remember (picture for reference). She also calls La Fuente "chips and cheese" and when she wants to go she used to say she wanted to go "visit her friends." It was actually the first place out to eat we took her, though she was only like a week old so obviously she didn't eat. We go there pretty regularly so they know her, and she even has let a few of the regular servers pick her up. They brought her a birthday treat and a hat and sang to her. She was not prepared for that and melted out of her chair and under the table (she reappeared near Becky to sit on her lap). It was funny and cute. I think it was the unexpected way they came up behind her and put a giant sombrero on her that set her off. She also had this random old man walk up to the table and ask who was having a birthday (since she had a Mickey Mouse balloon tied to her chair. When we said it was Sal the man looked at her and said "AH! Mija!" and then gave her five dollars and ambled away. I think he may have known some of the workers because he was over where they were before he stopped by our table.
It was a pretty exciting and busy day, and a busy four years. It's crazy how grown up she has become in such a short time. I love her at this age, but then again I have loved her at every age. I look forward to how she's getting more interested in learning and doing things, and to the years ahead. Happy Birthday!
Picture(s) of the Day:
Picture 3
A whole day out and my stupid phone died right after breakfast even though it had only been off the charger for maybe an hour. Sadly, this is the only photo I got form the entire adventure today.
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