Breaking News: Katie is FOUR!

Katie’s excitement has been building up for a while, now. A lover of birthday parties, she began the countdown around January when the string of our friends’ fourth birthdays began. When I say a “lover of birthdays”, I don’t mean just a kid who enjoys going to parties and having her own…it is her favorite subject and her favorite game to play. Whether she’s playing with her Melissa and Doug birthday cake set, playing with her Little People birthday set, stealing Timmy’s baby/christening gift bags to “make me presents,” or singing “Happy Birthday” just because, it’s clear that Katie loves a good birthday party.

Her 4th birthday has been a common topic in our bedtime chats. I’ve regularly begged her not to get bigger and to stay 3 forever and she always seriously told me, “No mommy, I HAVE to be 4. I have to get big. I need to be big so I can have a baby in my belly…10 babies.” She already has her entire life planned out. She is going “to be a doctor so she can help all the sick kids who need help to get better.” She plans to marry her Daddy when she is a grown-up…or maybe her cousin Adam.
Everything is “so cool” now…and “awesome”. Barbies have taken over our home! I’ve tried to put that off for awhile now. For the last 6 months, everytime we have been in Target and I have taken her over to the toys to complete my bribe for her good behaviour, she has begged for Barbies. I’ve said no for a while because she has a great Fisher Price Twin-Time doll house with just about every piece of furniture made and I didn’t want her to stop playing with that already. But, I gave in last week. Her first Barbie was a veterinarian Barbie….and between her birthday party presents and using some of the gift certificates she got for her birthday she now has 4 Barbies, a Barbie mermaid falls/swing, and a Barbie house.

Katie continues to be a great big sister. She loves Timmy as much as the first time she saw him and has adjusted wonderfully. She still goes to gymnastics classes at the Little Gym and is taking her first dance class this summer. She is really excited to start soccer this fall. She loves school and has already cried herself to sleep twice because she’s so sad that she doesn’t get to see her teachers during summer break and she “misses them so much.”

Katie is still on an anti-vegetable kick although she did gag down some broccoli last night (in exchange for a popsicle) and didn’t realize when I snuck some shredded carrot into her beef and macaroni the other day. Her favorite food is “meat”, particularly mini hotdogs/corndogs, chicken nuggets, and lunchmeat. Her favorite tv shows are all things Nick Jr, but she also has some PBS favorites like Martha Speaks, Clifford, Curious George, Wordgirl, and Sid the Science Kid. Just a year ago, she would watch nothing except Playhouse Disney! She had a Max and Ruby birthday party this past Saturday. She loves to play Memory, Hide and Seek, and Duck, Duck, Goose. She has moved on from her long-time obsession with “blue” and has altogether changed her favorite color to pink.

We’re having an issue with clothes and after our Disney trip this past April, Katie refuses to wear any form of jeans or any shorts/pants that have a zipper. So nice that this happened AFTER I bought all her spring and summer clothes. She still LOVES rides (the bigger and scarier the better!) and after her first trip to Sahara Sams, a local indoor water park, about a month ago, it’s all she talks about.(It’s painful because we drive past it twice a week to go to speech class.) For her birthday today, just she and I are going to go to the rides and outdoor Water Park at Clementon Lake Park. She is pretty lucky because her height has always allowed her to go on the “thrill rides” she prefers. She is about 43/44 inches right now and about 48 lbs. Thank goodness we have a pool because she has been in it every day since the weather has warmed up and she swims like a fish (well, a fish that wears swimmies).

So, the countdown began and yesterday I kept telling her things like, Katie this is the last time you will be 3, the last time you will wake up as a 3 year old, the last time you will go to night-night as a 3 year old and she was thrilled. This morning she rushed into my bedroom like it was Christmas morning proud to exclaim, “Mom, I’m FOUR years old!!!!” I was afraid she might be a little disappointed because from some conversations we’ve had, I was afraid she thought she was going to wake up as a grown up. And although she’s not “grown”, I miss my baby! I can handle four, though. Now five…I don’t even want to think about that, yet. I need a year to prepare myself…