For Anna on her Fifth

Well, she did it. She went and did it.  She finally turned the milestone "whole hand" 5 years old last week.  I won't hold it against her though. She's actually felt 5 to me for awhile now ... probably because she is such a smart, exacting, and capable little creature!  You wouldn't know she's as little as she is unless you knew about how she can't say the th sound to save her life and how she still needs sippy cups because she spills open cups EVERY SINGLE TIME I let her try them.  What an intriguing little fusion of ahead and behind she is.

Anna, my sweet, you won't know til you're a momma one day the weight and depth and severity of my heart for you.  And every year it grows and grows with every new facet of you I come to know as you mature.  Heaven help me, because I can't help but adore you.  You are altogether delightful and interesting and amusing and BEAUTIFUL!  I love every. little. bit of you.  Every bit.  That's why I continue to catalogue all the snippets, bits, and details of you every year, especially on your birthdays.  These letters to you have pretty much become annual time capsules. So read on right now (and years later for enjoyment and sweet remembering) many of the quick facts, daily notes, unique pieces, and quirky bits that make up you in these days when you turned a fantastic five. ♥  What a special creation you are!

• You are enjoying Pre-K at Treasure Creek this year.  Your teachers are Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Leah. And a few friends you have made there are London, Sadie, Mallory, and a certain little guy named Brady. You are especially proud of learning the ABC's in sign language. Kinda neat!
• Since last year, you have grown 3 inches (now 43 inches tall) and 4 pounds (now 34 lbs).  That puts you in the 63rd %ile for height and a poor little 12th %ile for weight. Accordingly, you wear size 5T clothes right now and size 9 shoes.  You are almost as tall as Noah at this point.

 

• You still nap every day, even though now at 5 we don't require that you do.  We downgraded you to just some quiet time on your bed for an hour, but so far that has left you asleep every time. :)  By the way, you invented your own pre-nap greeting.  Like bedtime's "goodnight", you always say, "Goodnap" before your nap.  So funny to me!  And you ALWAYS, ALWAYS greet me after your nap with a diplomatic, "Good afternoon, Mommy." ♥
• Your birthday "firsts" this year included that party with friends, dinner at a new-to-us restaurant on your actual birthday (Fulin's), and your first ever Facetime chat that night. What fun to share that with your cousins.  
• You have begun struggling with seasonal allergies, so you recently began another first - prescription nasal spray like Noah has as well as an over-the-counter medicine.  You have an upcoming appt now for allergy testing, too. 
• You continue to have such beautiful porcelain skin.  Others comment on it all the time.
• You are a silly bit and you love to play.  You roll and wrestle with Noah as well any brother could have.  You two get along like best friends when you are not yelling at him for bugging you. You once wrote Noah an angry note that told him to stop making fun of you ... but by the end of its making you must have cooled off because you included the reminder that you still loved him.  :}
• You are a collector at heart, usually outdoorsy stuff - leaves, acorns, rocks, flowers, sticks, and feathers.  Most recently, you found your new favorite ... a flamingo feather! 

 

• You like tickles, but not FAST tickles. 
• You crack me up with how you say "evil single morning" (every single morning),  "cavinets" (cabinets),and "privaseat"(privacy).  And like I said above, you can't say anything with th in it.  It is always a d, v, or f  for you ... and that is starting to worry me. :S
• You favorite meal is the same as my favorite meal when I was a little girl - chicken poppyseed casserole. 
• You still grab side tags on the inside of your shirts like you did when you were a toddler. 
• You are learning to read with ease and excitement more and more very day thanks to your bedtime lessons with Daddy. 
• You recently let me in on a secret password to your room: banana. 
• You naturally love new words and retain them with ease, often murmuring them to yourself when you hear them (something you have done for awhile now).  Your Pre-K teacher stopped me one day with wide eyes to remark on what a huge vocabulary you have.  I giggled and agreed and marveled with her at how verbal you are.  And I told her I keep a running list of some of the words you say that surprise me to hear such a little girl use: similar, might as well, several, delicate, usual, gleaming, properly, hurdle, interested, neutral, habitat, perhaps, crescent, pitiful, excouraged (discouraged), exhausted, collage ... just to name a few.
• You are such a messy, disorganized, and easily distracted little thing. The flipside of that is that you have a free and imaginative and creative mind. 

• You still can get lost in your own little world playing out in a field of grass.That means you get many a bug bite, unfortunately.  One day in your frustration at the mosquitos you declared, "I must just be too yummy!"
• You speak to the "funder" and tell it to be quiet because you are not afraid.  But, you said this to me the other day, "I wanna tell you somefin dats true - I am not afraid of da dark when I am sleeping inside, but I am afraid of da dark when I am sleeping outside."
• You never sing in tune, but you have no idea.  Your flat notes are precious to me. 
• You are so sweet and feminine and you are such fun company for this Mommy of yours.  I see many girls-only shopping trips in our future.  One morning when you woke up and saw the new rainboots I got for myself, you perked right up and cooed, "Oh, Mommy! Are those new boots for you?! Yay! They are so cuuuute!"
• Sometimes you just wanna be left in your dreamworld and not be bothered with the facts.  For example - all summer you kept calling your bathing suit top a bra, no matter how many times I explained that it wasn't. :}  And just this week you said, "You know what country I want to go visit?  The New York City."  I said, Ok, but you know that's not a country, right?  That is just a city in a state in OUR country.  "Well, I just want to explore other countries and places so I just want to see New York City."
• You can't help but force your way into the school stuff I do with Noah. Honestly, sometimes you carry the lesson/conversation better than him! Other times you get busy in some sort of craft beside us that you make up as you go along.

• You are so snugly even though you are such a bony thing.  
• This may be TMI, but it has to said ... you take FOREVER on the potty.  No matter what number business you are attending, too, you have to sit and get in the zone mentally before your body will do its thang.  And if I rush you, you get pretty exasperated. 
• You are quite convinced that you are supposed to be a "helper" when you grow up.  You say the Lord told you that in your heart.  When I asked how you know He told you, you said that you just "felt it."  
• Behavior-wise, you are so easy on us.  Sometimes I have to pinch myself and chuckle at the almost too-prefect things you will say.  For example, one day I got on to you about a house-keeping detail and I showed you how I wanted it done instead.  You dutifully and seriously answered me with the following,  "Ok, Mommy. I will try my best to start doing that." Today when I picked you up from school you said, "Fank you so much for my lunch today. I loved all of it!"
• Attitude-wise, you can be more taxing.  You have been known to wield that pouty lip and a lot more lately you have taken a sassy tone with me when you are frustrated or a bossy tone with Noah when you are annoyed.  For example, the other day you sneezed and when no one did anything about it you literally grunted and then griped, "Why when I sneeze does no one say excuse me?!"  Another time you complained to me, "Mommy!  Why don't you just understand me?!"  Oh, the drama.  This year, we will certainly get our hands dirty dealing with your tone, baby love.  Yikes!

• Typically though,  you aim to please and you amaze us with how alive you are to learning about God.  It was such an answer to prayer when you prayed to receive forgiveness and salvation this year! And man alive, do you love to learn more about faith and God and His Word!  You take it all very seriously.  Recently you went so far as to write a list of things you want to do.  It went like this, "I do da rite fing, I do da godly fing, I do da jesusly fing and I do the spirit fing." You rolled it up to make it look like a scroll and you carried it around all day with such passion - in and out of multiple errands and up and down the stairs at home.  One fine day while playing at the fountains you rushed to me all wide-eyed and cried, "Mommy, dose kids don't believe in God!" As I shushed you before you made a crusading scene, you cried out again, "But dey will get frown (thrown) into the lake of fire!"
• You are not shy about prayer.  You pray boldly from the bottom of your heart. One night you prayed with me and said, "Dear God, I love you no matter what.  More den a fousand hearts."  Another time, you shocked me and an entire waiting room by laying in the floor while you waited on my treatment to finish; you folded your hands, clamped your eyes shut, and prayed aloud for one and all to her, "Dear Lord. (pause) I love you. (pause) Thank you for making me such a good swimmer.  (pause) Amen." I don't even have to tell you how many hearts were stolen by you that day (I know because of all that coos I heard from around the room) while I sort of stifled a smirk and made a mental not to talk to you about showing off and about telling you about "prayer closets" - ha!. :} Another night, surprisingly, you didn't want to pray.  Instead, you asked Daddy to pray for you ... to pray that you would be able to think of some things to pray about. Ha! 
• You are also sensitive to the long-standing situation with Mimmie and Papa.  When they come to mind you say that you miss them, yes.  But you are such a big girl about it! You speak so clearly and maturely about the reasons we don't see them and you understand those reasons.  Even better, you apply them!  When I tried to cheer you up after a bad day at school, I gave you a list of ideas for dealing with the boys who wouldn't let you play in their castle and I praised you for not sticking around to fight with them about it - for being a peacemaker.  And you got excited and said, "Just like you and Daddy are doing with Mimmie and Papa because you don't want to fight with them!" 
• Speaking of your Daddy, you two are tight as they come.  You don't even know how lucky you are to have so much time with him. Because of Daddy's job at the time, Noah's moments with him were not so steady and frequent when he was your age, so it is remarkable to note the differences in him then and you now.  You love your Daddy to pieces and trust him in all things.  You lay claim to him as soon as he gets home if you can get to him before Noah.  I usually have to get in line behind you both to get a word in with him myself!

 

• And those wings of yours? Best $3 I ever spent.  They serve you well and often and have since you were only 2.  I think I am not gonna let those bad boys go even when/if you do ever outgrow them.  They are too precious to me now after how precious they have been to you ... and on you. ♥

So delighted with you and your many ways, Annabelle!
Happy 5th birthday again!
All my Love, ALL of it,
Mommy

PS - Your daddy got in the spirit and listed up some things about you that make him smile these days, too!  What fun! 

Things I Treasure about Anna at 5 .... by Daddy

• I enjoy your pink cheeks, soft voice, messy hair, and funky breath when you first wake up in the morning.
• You always want a breakfast bar in the morning even if you have it before I cook pancakes, eggs, or any other real food.
• When I make pancakes and ask you if you want syrup or cool whip you always ask for both.
• I like sharing my cup of milk with you when we dunk our cookies.
• When we are painting or coloring you always assign me parts to work on.
• I appreciate that you always want to help me in the kitchen when I'm cooking or baking, especially when we make cookies together.
• I love that you enjoy playing outside, digging in the dirt, catching fireflies, and mixing muddy soups and potions with a tub of water.
• When just you and I play outside together you like to make up your own games where the rules change often and you are the only one that scores points.
• You get excited when Noah and Mommy have to go somewhere together because you and I get to have a "date" even if we are just home coloring on the floor.
• I like to see your creativity come out when we create woodworking projects in my shed.
• I laugh when I start to put Legos away because I know you will want to sit right in front of me and start building something.
• You only want five kisses when I tuck you in, never less, never more.
• Before you get in bed you sometimes like to pile your stuffed animals up in the middle of your bed and then lay on top of them before I cover you up.
• I enjoy teaching you how to read and seeing the excitement when you master a book and are ready to record it.  You usually always have some commentary after every page you read, especially if I'm videoing the reading.
• I'm glad you enjoy camping and sleeping outside.  You remind me often that it has been a while since we went camping.
• When you make up praise songs you like to stand on a step stool like a stage and you always want Noah to drum softer.
• I grin at bed time every night when I'm leaving your room and you say, "good night, I love you, be good, be nice, see you tomorrow".