Birthday Girl!

I just logged onto my old blog -the private one.  I was looking for pictures from my daughter’s past birthdays.  I finally bagged the idea.  I HAD to.  I wasn’t finding any pictures because I was too busy laughing too hard.  That blog was hilarious!  What’s happened to my writing?

My husband and I have have been huddled next to the lap top for the past hour reading, reading, reading.  And laughing, laughing, laughing.  There was the one post I wrote about how I think about death and he thinks about phone upgrades -I longed to be normal like him.  There was the one post where I tried to make birthday invites for my daughter and ended up losing my mind.  I called my husband crying and he laughed at me. He told me it was no big deal that I invited everyone to have cake at Lacy’s Grandma and GRADPA’s house.  That’s right.  I forgot the “N” in gradpa.  I cried.  I literally cried.  But that’s only because my daughter had knocked over a display of batteries, chewed up a box of crayons (which I then had to buy), opened a carton of yogurt, gotten snot on my scarf, dropped her bottle repeatedly in an effort to get yet more attention, and leaned up against the cart in order to SCREAM as loudly as she could.

Makes me want to cry all over again just reading about it.

I didn’t make invites this year.  In fact, I didn’t even plan a party.  She doesn’t care.

My external hard drive has come to the rescue of this post.  I wanted to post 5 pictures -one for every birthday (including the original birth day).  I’m doing this for my sake.  I honestly don’t BELIEVE it’s been four years.  I’m going to prove it to myself.

So that was yesterday, right? RIGHT?!
No. I know.
Because aside from being at her actual birth day, I threw her a party a year later.
She HATED that bow on her head. Seconds after I snapped that picture, she yanked it off her head and threw it down with all the vehemence a one yearling could muster. And I laughed. Any good mother would do likewise.
Her second birthday:

We gave her a small wooden rocking chair that he father promised to sand and stain… Ask him about that next time you see him, won’tcha?
We also gave her an art easel. DON’T ask me about that. Ever.
Third Birthday:

These pictures aren’t having a good effect on me. Can someone hand me a paper bag to breathe in?
Here she is first thing this morning. She’s wearing her birthday princess ribbon and sporting a headband/crown/veil/everything a princess could EVER ask for in headgear.

We just finished decorating her cake. You should see my kitchen. She asked for a square rainbow cake. I’ll make sure she gets it on Sunday when we gather the family together to have cake and eat it too. In the meantime, I thought she’d appreciate making her own cake. She (im)patiently sat on the counter and helped me mix everything up. Can I brag for a sentence?
My daughter is a queen egg-cracker.
No shells! No breaking-of-yolk!
Okay, that was three sentences but I couldn’t help it. My buttons are popping.
A rainbow and clouds -as IF you even needed to ask. Since I snapped that picture, she’s added grass. And her name. And an unfortunate little cake-snowman.
While she decorated, her brother grabbed some of my carrots and made something all his own. You think MY buttons were popping? You should have seen his!
“I MADE IT, MAMA!” He practically screamed at me, hopping up and down.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to log off. My house is strewn with carrots and I’ve got to scrounge around for some pride. I lost it all this morning when my four year old spanked me at Candyland. Thrice.