Dear Hayley,

Please tell me how you did it. Please explain how someone who is still “little” in the grand scheme of things was able to invent some sort of device that makes time speed up. Really, such an invention is the only way I could possibly make sense of the fact that in the blink of an eye, you have grown from a tiny baby to a very determined four-year-old child.

Brand new:

One year old:

Two years old:

Three years old:

This morning, a whole four years old:

I don’t know how it happened and I’m not sure I signed any sort of consent form, and yet here you are, growing up day after day. You’ve changed so much and in other ways you’re still the same. You’re still the same very determined girl who knows exactly what she wants from life (or from us) and refuses to quietly accept substitutes. When it comes to bargaining for things like what time is appropriate for a cookie that is a frustrating quality, but when you grow up even more I know you will be destined for success because of it.

You’ve become somewhat picky about food, but you’ll eat more things than you’ll refuse. You still love fruits and vegetables, and you enjoy chicken and sausages, as well as a bit of pork. You’d rather pass on beef but that’s not so bad. You finally decided you love pasta but you’re very strange in your approach: You MUST have sauce on the plate, but it must NOT touch the noodles, and in the end you won’t even eat any of the damn sauce anyway, but it must be served nonetheless.

You love to sing songs and not only songs that we know from television shows (especially from the Backyardigans repertoire), but also songs from my own CDs (the sheer horror for you poor father to have to hear you singing along with the Buffy musical soundtrack or my Duran Duran CDs), most of the songs that play on the Country station, and also songs that you make up and sing to narrate your day. You’re a very enthusiastic dancer too. As far as playing music is concerned, it’s practically in your genetic code thanks to your father, but we still don’t know if you’ll play guitar like he does or perhaps drums since you seem to have a freakish natural sense of rhythm (according to Jules the drummer, so it’s not just parental bias). Then again, sometimes you still say you want to play violin like Kalan Porter (who is still your imaginary music boyfriend, but that’s okay, Mommy has an imaginary television show boyfriend too so I understand) and you really like playing Daddy’s keyboard too.

You are a computer geek like both your parents so you enjoy playing a variety of online games on the Treehouse and PBS Kids websites, and you can also navigate my own web stuff so more than once I’ve caught you clicking away through my Flickr photostream. When you aren’t hogging the computers, you like to color, do random crafts, and play with Playdoh. You love to help me in the kitchen whenever you have a chance (ah, the cooking gene from me!), and you enjoy a good game of Snakes & Ladders or Go Fish.

For your birthday today, we took you to the store and bought you a big girl bike. You had been asking for one for months; the tricycle we got for you earlier this summer was just a temporary thing and we were so excited to get a real bike for you. You saw the one you wanted immediately and were so beside yourself about it that I thought you might explode in utter joy right there in the bike aisle. You looked so cute when you got to try it out after Daddy put the training wheels on. You looked like such a big kid in your little pink Princess helmet with the matching knee and elbow pads.

Tonight, after supper, I took out the last bit of the leftover cake from your party and I stuck some candles in it again, and Daddy and I sang “Happy Birthday” to you (Breanna clapped), and I wondered for the umpteenth time today how you could possibly be four already.

I hope you had a wonderful birthday. I thought back to how you were so small as you laid there in the hospital after you were born and how I never could have pictured you at this age now. I was wondering what the heck I was supposed to do with you as I sat there in my hospital bed, staring at this beautiful tiny baby beside me, and now I wonder if you’ll ever slow down and let me just watch you again. Take your time. You don’t have to grow up overnight, okay?

I love you. Happy birthday Princess MonkeyButt.

Love,
Mommy xoxoxo

Riding her bike for the first time:

Getting used to it:

Looking like a big girl in the booster seat she got from her grandparents:

She couldn’t even take off her helmet for her cake:

“Happy birthday to my big sister!”