fiiiiiiiiiiive!

So, Betsy said to me the other day, "I petending to be a grownup!" Then she thought for a minute and said, "I still have a long time to be a kid."

Boy, don't I wish that was actually true.

When I was buying the paint for Betsy's room before Thanksgiving, I saw a pack of princess wall decals and they were less than ten bucks - I always thought stuff like that cost more. So I picked them up and last night, when Betsy was sleeping, I decorated her walls with princesses. (This only worked because Betsy sleeps the sleep of the dead. I don't think I could get away with that for Porter - he's more like me and actually can be awakened by things like a herd of elephants stampeding through his bedroom.) So, this morning when I was trying to get my extra hour of sleep after teaching seminary, "Why my walls have princesses on them?" repeated A THOUSAND TIMES AT FIFTY THOUSAND DECIBELS. (The word of the month, by the way, is Why.) So I kicked Matt awake so he could go explain to her that the princesses are there because we like her, and it's her birthday. And I went back to sleep until it was time to go make the frosting for her cake.

We had to open gifts before Matt left for work. (If it seems weird to be eating cake at 10:30 in the morning... believe me, you get used to it.) I got Betsy two more DVD's of Charlie and Lola: Vol. 5 "But I AM an alligator!" and Vol. 6 "How many more minutes until CHRISTMAS?" Betsy shows signs of becoming a Yulephile like me, so she was really excited about the Christmas one. (Which also features the episode I do not ever want my wobbly tooth to fall out, which I think is timely because Betsy has a wobbly tooth of her VERY OWN.) That's what she was so happy about in the first picture.

And in the second picture, Betsy is unwrapping her heart's desire... an Island Princess Barbie, "the one with wings like a heecop." (Porter calls her 'Barbie Iyyand.' He knows a lot about girl stuff. He'll make a great husband someday.) Actually, she's been telling us that Santa was going to bring her a Barbie so I'm hoping she won't be all upset that she got it a whole twelve days ahead of schedule. I mean, the only difference is the wrapping paper, right? She's been over-the-moon happy with her new toy. Once I extricated Barbie from the 56,798 little twisty ties holding her into place, Betsy's been brushing her hair and gently stroking the heecop wings and pushing the little stone on her necklace: Barbie sings two songs from the DVD. Yeah, I bought a noise-making toy for my kid. But the batteries probably won't last that long.



Matt's mom got Betsy this neat princess art kit. She brought it when they visited in early October: we theorize that she actually bought it sometime in January or February. It has a DVD to show you how to draw the princesses, and a book where you can trace the princesses with a dry-erase marker, and it came with stickers and glitter-glue too. As soon as Porter went to bed, Betsy attacked.

>>NEWSFLASH: BETSY LIKES PRINCESSES<<

Actually, she likes anything art-related (don't tell, but Santa is bringing an easel! ssshh!) so this was definitely up her alley. I was pretty pleased: she really seemed thrilled with her presents.

There was definitely some Cake Angst, though. When it came time to blow out the candles she didn't get them all at once, and I think she hadn't realized that they smoke a little after they go out. Which resulted in this.

I think maybe she was afraid her hair was going to catch on fire or something? Bless her little heart. So I leaned across the table and blew extra hard and together we got the candles out. All five of them.