Sayer turned 5 today ...

My baby girl turned 5 today. Where did the time go?!

This morning when we got up I made grahamcakes for breakfast. I put a big ol' candle on Sayers :)

After breakfast I told her she had to get dressed for our super secret birthday surprise activity, so she went and took of her jammas and tossed 'em into the laundry bucket and started to go in to the bedroom to get her pink dress. I told her that she needed to change her undies, too, so she took those off and went to her dresser to discover new 'big girl' panties :) Her old ones were still the Gerber 'training' style of underwear with the thicker lining in case of accidents. They still fit her around the waist, but the leg holes were pretty stretched out. New ones were needed, so she got nifty new panties in bright colors and with 'cutie' or little cat faces on them :)

Then she got dressed in her favorite pink dress and I pulled out a crown for her to wear as the birthday girl :) Many pictures later we were running through the rain to get into the car to go to the movie theater. She didn't know what we were doing until we sat down in front of the screen to see all the pre-movie advertisements. And even then I was having fun getting her to guess what movie we might be there to see. We watched the Tale of Despereaux. (It was cute, but NOT true to the book in uncountable ways ... *I* was disappointed by that, though she wasn't, and if I hadn't just read the book I probably wouldn't have been either.) We weren't even out of the theater when she was asking when we could come back again to see more movies :)

On the way home we stopped at the store to pick up dinner. I'd asked her several days earlier what she wanted to have and she enthusiastically said 'sushi!' By which she meant California rolls, of which she usually eats the crab, rice, and carrots, though she has been known to very occasionally eat the avocado and seaweed ... So we got CA rolls and some tuna and salmon on rice, and some popcorn and cranberries to string for a garland to put outside for the birds and squirrels as a holiday offering :)

We got home and made pizza for lunch. Then we made the popcorn and strung the garlands. Then the kids helped me make Sayer's birthday 'cake,' which was really brownies that I made in a circular pan :) She'd asked for chocolate cake, and brownies are WAY better than cake, so that's what we made :)

The kids played for a bit and we made calls to family to wish them a joyous holiday, then I put the Muppet Christmas Carol in for them to watch. While they watched I started cutting the coupons I had made out of a sheet of laminating film. Then we had a sushi picnic on the livingroom floor. I was thrilled that Duncan wanted to try the tuna and salmon sushi - and he loved it :) Sayer eventually tried the salmon sushi and did a 'yummy dance' afterwards :)

When dinner was done I lit the candles on Sayer's brownie cake and we had dessert. And then I brought out the presents. My MIL had brought some with her for Christmas and bday when she came for Thanksgiving. I pulled them out of the closet. She got Sayer a huge bubble wand, a book about manners, a couple shirts and a pair of sweat pants. Sayer also got a book of Christmas stories from a grandpa on my side. She also got two dresses and 2 skirts from us, and a 'lunchbox' game called 'Cookin' Cookies' which we've already played about 9 times (both kids think it's great), and the coupons. She got really really excited when she read all the different activities on the coupons. Her face totally lit up when she realized she had coupons for going to the beach and the 'Clifford' (aka Childrens Discovery) Museum and bowling and mini golf. She also got them for family movie night, family game night, baking with mommy, reading together (not that she really needs a coupon for this ... :), going to the park, having a picnic (in the backyard or the park), going to the Exploratorium ... Mark explained to her how coupons/tickets work - that when you redeem them by giving them to one of us so that we do the activity described, it goes away. But he said that we'd keep them so that if she did something especially good and/or helpful, we might give some of them back to her as a reward so she could re-use them. I hadn't thought of that part myself, and am glad he suggested it. Duncan will be getting a similar set of coupons on his birthday :)

Then, as the last birthday gift of the evening, I brought out of the fridge a sippy cup holding the efforts of 3 days worth of hand-expressing breastmilk. It was *maybe* half an ounce. My boobies ain't what they used to be. Sayer has been very sad recently about not having 'bies anymore. She hasn't had any in a year and has been fine with it, except that she's been hearing me tell Duncan that after his birthday my 'bies will want to rest and stop working so his birthday will be his last day of nursing. Sayer is distraught about the 'bies resting forever. She's been saying that she doesn't want to get older, she wants to stay young or get younger so she can have 'bies again. Last night she was sobbing in her bed about it for a while. :( I went in and calmed her down and we talked about other things for a while, then I told her that the 'bies going away wasn't a punishment because she'd done something bad. I explained how mommies bodies make food for their babies because the babies don't know how to eat anything else, but once the babies do start eating real food the mommies bodies know this and start making less and less milk. I wasn't ending 'bies because I didn't want her to have them, I was ending them because there wasn't any milk left because my babies ate real food. I told her that she had been extra lucky because she'd gotten 'bies twice - once when she was a baby, and once when Duncan was a baby. But there was no new baby, so my 'bies weren't making any more milk. She hasn't asked me to have a new baby, yet, but she still talks about moving or going to visit Miss Lisa so she can have some booby milk because Miss Lisa had a baby John. :) In the end, last night, she said she was sad but not as much, and I told her it was very okay to be sad.

But anyway! She took the cup with the pathetic little swallow of breastmilk in it and sucked it down in a heartbeat and said 'thanks, mom!' afterwards. :)

Now everyone is asleep and I'm sitting here wondering where 5 years went. How can she be 5 years old?

I love this crazy little princess girl! Happy Birthday, Sayer!