Happy Birthday Can't Believe It

Our Lily Sue is turning four tomorrow.  Man Alive.  I don't know what happened.  

 today, in the freezing pool with Uncle Adam

I remember holding her tiny miraculous bundle that first time, just completely overwhelmed and her fingers and her fuzzy head and suddenly we're right where I never even dreamed I'd be...blowing up princess balloons and assembling a pink scooter, balancing Ariel in her "purple booby covers"(MUST-have, apparently) atop Aunt Lisa's adorable cake, taping pink steamers to the ceiling.  

one week

I never taught her to love pink.  I HATE pink.  I have pink NOTHING, and yet she loves pink EVERYTHING.  Pink on top of pink.  And I hate the princess thing, and I don't even know how it happened.  Glitter is in her blood, and princesses and Strawberry Shortcake and Hello Kitty just enthrall her.  

And suddenly she's saying so many grown up things and talking about her emotions and dreams, like having a magic wand to turn everything into candy and telling me how she can't wait to spend lots of time in heaven and how glad she is God made so many colors of people, and telling me that she is the happiest and that I am loved.  

1st birthday

2nd birthday

She is smart and sassy and sweet and cheesy and distracted and busy and caring and hilarious and devastated when someone is sad.

3rd birthday

Suddenly, needing me at every moment has phased into doing so much on her own...going down the slide, getting her own snack, picking out her own clothes.  Pink clothes.

When she loves her sister well, and says thank you without a reminder, and when she shares, when she tells me she loves me right out of the blue, when she laughs so hard she pees, when she wakes up excited to be alive and to get moving every single morning way too early...I realize my love has done nothing but grow in ways I never thought it could.  

I tell you all the time that you're a gift from God, and I'm so grateful for every moment of that gift.

I love you Lily Sue!  Happy 4th Birthday!