Maggie turned 4 on March 31, and Kevin and I are absolutely loving her at this age. She’s fun, sweet, full of personality, confident, kind, curious — we can’t get enough! She’s also said or done several especially adorable things lately that I wanted to jot down here to make sure I remember. (I’ve never been much of a journal person, so in many ways this blog serves that role for me!)
Here are a few things I want to be sure I remember about Maggie at age 4:
-We recently went to the doctor for Maggie’s 4-year well checkup, and two things stood out: 1) When asked about her favorite foods, Maggie listed these three, in this order: “jelly, bananas, and beets.” 2) She got four shots at her appointment and didn’t cry a bit! (We’d talked at length ahead of time about envisioning something happy to help distract her from the shots, and when we asked her afterward about what she’d imagined she told us, “Riding on a unicorn with all my lovies and Cholupa Batman,” who’s my in-laws’ dog and Maggie’s BFF. Sounds pretty happy to me!)
-The other day, Maggie told me that, “Vance is a lot cuter than I thought he’d be when he was in your belly!”
-A part of town we frequent for walks, picnics, donuts from Dough-Joe’s, etc., is a place called Reynolda, and Maggie loves going to “Granola.”
-When Vance cries in the car (a not infrequent occurrence), Maggie’s good at keeping her cool and usually just asks that I “play some ‘belaxin’ music” to help him calm down a bit. And the neatest part? It usually works!
-There’s a cardinal that frequents a tree right outside our kitchen window, near where Maggie sits to eat most of her meals, and she gets such joy every time her “cardinal friend” comes for a visit.
-This girl LOVES her little brother, and her first words every morning are always, “Where’s Vance?”
-Speaking of babies, Maggie told me that she wants to have four babies. When I told her that would make her a very busy mama, she agreed and said, “You know that cup Daddy got for you [referring to my Ember mug that keeps my coffee hot]? I’ll DEFINITELY need one of those!!” She also said that once her babies get big she’s going to be a firefighter, but not before then because, “If they cry, I’ll have to stop workin’.”
-We were at the beach a couple of weeks ago and found a near-death butterfly stuck in the sand. Maggie named the butterfly Renny and attempted to revive it (I knew things wouldn’t end well), but it eventually died. (Kevin accidentally stepped on it, which caused tons of tears but was ultimately better for the butterfly, I think!) Anyway, I suggested we have a funeral for the butterfly to help provide some closure, and Maggie liked that idea. I asked her if she wanted to sing a song for Renny and she thought for a brief moment before announcing that we should all sing “O, Christmas Tree” (in the middle of April) to this butterfly on the beach at its funeral. It was so sweet and so…4. And so we all sang (mainly just repeating, “O, Christmas tree, O, Christmas tree, how lovely are your branches…” since those are the only lyrics anyone knows, right?) and I wanted to cry it was all so precious and funny and perfect.
-We love having dance parties in the kitchen, and watching her dance and just feel so good and comfortable in her body — without, of course, giving it a shred of thought — is so neat to get to witness. I know that complete sense of freedom she has as it relates to her body and to movement won’t last forever (if only it could!), which makes it feel extra special to soak in right now.
Getting to watch my children grow and change and become the people they already are inside just a little bit more each day is truly the biggest privilege of my life. Watching these humans up close from the very start is awe inspiring, and I’m so lucky to be their mama.
