Friday, September 26, 2008

Birthdays are of the Utmost Importance

Ever since Bethelle's 2nd birthday (she's now 3 1/2), playing "birthday" is the favorite game.  She makes a cake (a pile of play necklaces, silverware, whatever), sets the table (with play dishes), and wraps presents (various small items wrapped in washcloths and kitchen towels).  Then we sit at the coffee table and have the party.  She gets so excited about each bite and every present: "Oh, thank you so much, Grandma Jackson!  A diaper!  I can share this with Rigby!"

Recently, when stopping for a free cookie in the bakery section of Safeway, she found her next cake.  It's something like this:

A few days later we saw this:
It's now in line for her 5th birthday.  Yesterday she found one she wants when she's six.  I hope I can keep track of all this.  And I hope she doesn't mind my homemade version of these.

Nick's sister, Trish, and her family have recently moved back to the area.  She has a daughter, Joee, who is just younger than Bethelle.  Every time they see each other, Bethelle invites her to her birthday party and they both get very excited.  They jump, scream, and clap.  It's not for six more months.

If Bethelle knows one thing, it is that you get to go to school when you are five and that you get to take your own umbrella (OK, that's two things).  Yesterday at the YMCA, she heard a mom talking to her daughter about her school.  Bethelle said, "Mom!  She's five!  She goes to school!"  I guess I should explain that you keep going for several years beyond that.

At Grandma Patsy's house, Bethelle is keenly aware of some little bags of chips.  After she ate one, I explained to her that they are for Kyle to take to school with him in his lunch.  This morning, Bethelle told me that her cousin, Haley, will be five soon.  We should take her to Grandma Patsy's house so that she can get some chips, and then she can share them with us.  Isn't that a good idea, Mom?!

This is how loopholes are discovered and exploited.  I can't wait until she's 15.

4 comments:

Our Ohana said...

What a cutie! I love hearing stories about that little munchkin! The birthday party one made me laugh - Savanna recently got in trouble at school for handing out a whole bunch of 'birthday party' invitations she had made during free time. I guess some of the kids and parents were confused and thought there was a real birthday party coming up and the cards weren't very easy to read... Yeah, we had to tell her to only play 'bithday' at home!

JM Inc. said...

I'm sure you can make beautiful cakes...better, even than the ones pictured. On a different note though, I am curious what you thought of the debates. I felt McCain did better than I expected him too; I don't consider oration among his strengths. However, I wish he would leave his well-known forays into the service and the deprivations he suffered out of it. I think he over-emphasizes that whenever he doesn't have a good answer or clear thought. Do you think he has a good grasp on economy and domestic policy? I wonder if either of them really do. It's times like these that really make me wish we could turn back the hands of time and make Mitt the rep. candidate. I just think he would've done a fine job finding the right fixes for our current dilemma.

Elise said...

I wish we were close and our girls could be friends.

Sigh.

Trisha said...

LOVE HER!