Birthday Play

Today is Malia’s birthday. She has turned three and in about five minutes she’ll head off to preschool. It all seems a bit sudden to me, but that is what happens to kids born at the very end of August. And honestly, I think she’s ready for the whole school thing. But I’m not sure that I’m ready. However, kids grow up no matter how much we want them to stay young just a little longer.

Here are a few tidbits about Malia:

~I’ll ask her how she wants her hair before I comb it in the morning and if she wants “Elsa hair” it means one braid and “Anna hair” means two. “Juuuuust one” means a ponytail.

~She loves shoes. Her latest pair is pink and has sparkles and bows. They are just about as girly as you can get.

~In spite of her love for shoes, she prefers to be barefoot. Every week when we pick her up from nursery, she has to put her shoes and socks back on before we can leave.

~She has become fascinated with paper and writing utensils. Not only is she starting to color in the lines, but when she doodles it is beginning to look a lot like letters and numbers. I really think she is ready for preschool.

~She loves books. :-)

~She loves to sing…except in nursery as I’m currently doing nursery music and having mommy in nursery means she acts like a spaz the entire time I’m there. Her teachers tell me she was great and sang all the time with the previous nursery music leader. Sigh…

~She loves to be outside.

~Some of her favorite foods are blueberries, strawberries and spaghetti.

~Her favorite color seems to be yellow with purple coming in second.
~She can go from crying to laughing in under a second. I just have to find the right thing to say to move her past the tears.
~She is stubborn. So, so stubborn. Tries my patience.

We are having Malia’s birthday celebration tomorrow since both Daniel and Nathan will be gone tonight, but today we invited her cousin Kate to play with us at the splash park and have lunch at McDonald’s. Malia has been super excited about this since we made the plans about two weeks ago. She was so jazzied up this morning that she had to spread out her beach towel and eat breakfast on it.

It was still kind of chilly at the appointed hour so we started at the playground.

While she was playing, she paused long enough to take a call from Papa (my dad).

When it warmed up a tad, Malia and Kate dressed to be wet and played in the water.

(pondering the meaning of all water)

(turning on the water)

(jumping in a puddle)

(making wet footprints)

(just hanging around)

(happy Kate)

It was still kind of brisk so after a while they got cold and called it quits. 

(two cold girls)

(Malia gets crazy)

(Kate joins in)

(laughing at themselves)

After lunch at McDonald’s and another hour playing at the playland, we headed home. She must have worn herself out because Malia actually told me she wanted a rest today when she normally resists taking a nap. I guess playing hard all morning with her favorite cousin was a great way to spend her birthday.