. . . five

It's a milestone. One of those numbers that feels weighty and significant.  And the baby-turned-toddler-turned-little girl-adorable reached it today, a sweet bundle of smiles and laughter and readiness on her fifth birthday.

She remembered last night that we dress up the house the night before this anniversary and asked her dear Dadoo if he and Mama were "going to decorate after I go to bed".  Funny how one year changes things, how a year ago yesterday she didn't remember about that tradition and was genuinely surprised to wake on her fourth and find dinosaurs and balloons adorning the table.  This morning, though, our girl smiled widely  when she saw the streamers in spite of her foreknowledge.  It is still a precious view - her in pink little girl jammies, tip-toeing out to see what kind of party spectacle is waiting for her.

When asked on her last day of four-dom what she liked best about being four, Averie replied without pause, "I liked best being a big sister".

And last night, as she lay snuggled up next to her Mama beneath her 'princess canopy' in her twin sized bed, her last four-year-old words were, "Is it time to get up yet? Will you lay by me?  I love you, Mama."

Oh, Averie. Mama loves you, too.

Happy Birthday, my Darling.

. . . four, and then some.

This is a three-year-old girl.

This is what a three-year-old girl looks like on her last day as a three-year-old girl. And now, she's four.

Her less-than-fabulous mama didn't throw her a big party, but her so-awesome-he-rocks-too-Dadoo planned the perfect surprises for her and invited her Mimi and Grampy to come all the way from North Carolina and her Auntie and Uncle to come all the way from Mississippi (Eagles are FIERCE) to help celebrate.

Our sweet girl spent her last days as a three-year-old playing all her favorite games, eating all her favorite foods, and visiting all her favorite parks with her mama, dadoo, her baby sis, NC-grandparents, and her Auntie & Uncle. It was two weeks of cake, cupcakes, ice cream, multi-colored sprinkles and more cake: sweet on so very many levels.

The sweetest of all was our precious four-year-old. Here she is on the 4th anniversary of her birth. Oh how we all love her.

. . . Two

It's hard for we-the-parents to believe that our tiny baby is now two. It's hard to believe that it's been that long, so many days, since the minutes we first held her and kissed her tiny head.

Our Mardi Gras girl was born at 9:18 a.m. on Fat Tuesday - a fitting date for parents who spent many a courting day in La Nouvelle-Orléans. Her arrival was the miraculous result of almost 3 years of hoping and waiting - a day of joy for us like none we'd ever had before.

She spent her 2nd birthday enjoying all of her favorite things - including having all three of her favorite snacks for breakfast: cheerios, animal crackers and 'bubble-bubbles' (goldfish). She watched Sam and Ty about ten times each ('watch Sam? watch Ty? watch babies, Mama?), and spent nearly an hour doing 'ark' with her crayons and stickers. She watched her beloved George so many times Mama can't remember, and had a special birthday lunch at Clary's before heading off to see the ducks at the park.

Later in the day, she opened cards (she loved this) and presents, 'talked' to her Aunties & her Gram & Grandpa G, and had a dinner of her favorite foods (mostly red): spaghetti, strawberries, tomatoes, sweet red peppers and grapes. And then there was cake.

Though she wasn't much of a fan last year, this year found our tiny girl shoving tiny handfuls of cake into her mouth. Cake was everywhere, just as it should be.

And just because it was her very special day, the girl got to play rock-star and stay up late with Mama and Dadoo so she could spend an extra bit of time watching . . . George.

The face of our tiny two:



**Photo of our newborn baby girl by our friend Tim.

. . . her first birthday

The days, 365 of them, and all the milestones in between the first and last of that number, came and went faster than baby-adorable's parents imagined. Maybe it was our still-sleep deprived brains that couldn't process the speedy countdown of days, maybe some of those weeks were magically gobbled up by the black hole that exists inside the diaper genie . . . babymama does not really know how it happened, but the truth is that time really did move faster (just like other parents promised it would) in the minutes, hours, days, weeks and months of the last year. And suddenly, our baby-sweetheart is one.

Of course, one comes with many accomplishments. Baby-smartest is learning more and more everyday, (how to quickly empty a kleenex box, how to circumvent babydaddy's improvised baby gates, how to remove handfuls of fur of the back of the 'meow').

An athlete as well as a scholar, she crawls faster than any adult can navigate the labryinth of her toys, and pulls up on anything that appears stationary. She loves to walk when babymama and daddy are holding her hands, and will randomly throw caution to the wind and let go - though it must be said that both her forward motion and vertical stance end at that moment.

Like all other special events in life, 'One' deserves a celebration, and baby-grown-up had 2 of her very own: One small one with babymama & daddy and her very own birthday cake, and a second, larger one with more children, balloons, and an even larger (and, babymama will say it, better) cake.

Baby-social partied hard and as guests were leaving, she promptly fell asleep.


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