Happy Birthday to you!

Little Maggie-pie,

I can't believe that you are two years old! The last two years have gone by so fast.

You are such a sweet and happy little girl! You have an almost constant smile on your face, and you generously give hugs and kisses to your Daddy and I. Today we were talking about how baby Jack is in my belly. You gave my belly a pat, tried to look down my shirt to see the baby, and then you leaned down and kissed my belly. I think your little brother is going to be very lucky to have such a sweet older sister. You show the same consideration for your baby doll and your stuffed animal "friends." You are often changing their diapers, giving them food and drink (real and imagined), placing them for naps (even sharing your special blanky for nap time), rocking them in your arms, and giving them hugs and kisses. There are a few bikes stored behind a fence that we pass each time we walk from our car to our apartment. You always want to go see the bikes. Today, while we were looking at the bikes, you said, "oh, cute bikes!" (these are adult size, rusty, missing seats and tires). Then, you patted the tires, and when I tried to encourage you to move on, you had to give the bikes a parting hug (I cringed because you were wearing your new birthday outfit and we had just come from church and also, but it was "sweet" as you so often say).

You are also a super energetic little girl. When we went car shopping until 1:00 a.m. one morning, you literally ran in circles around the dealership until we left. One of the workers told us that they had taken bets about when you would eventually crash. Around 11:30 p.m. he told us they had all lost the bet. The next morning when I tried to wake you up for church, you batted my hands away, closed your eyes and made fake snoring sounds. I tried to pick you up, and you batted at my hands again, and continued with the snoring sounds. You love to run, jump, and spin in circles.

You LOVE to sing and dance. When we drive around in the car, you sing any lyrics that you can pick up, and it is impressive how quickly you pick them up. I think your favorite song is "here comes the dinosaurs." We sing and march around the house to this song usually multiple times a day, but you also know the lyrics to many of the songs that your Daddy and I like to listen to.

You are a really good little talker--almost making complete sentences, and you are pretty patient when I can't understand what you are saying. Instead of getting frustrated, you repeat yourself over and over or try to act out whatever you are trying to get me to understand. The other day when your Daddy couldn't figure out what you were saying even after repeated effort on your part, instead of getting frustrated, you just started laughing at him. You are still learning to use pronouns; if you want me to hold you you say "hold you?!" or "sit by your?!" It is so cute, that I haven't tried too hard to correct you. I know that you will figure it out in good time. You can say all your numbers in order to 10, although you skip 5. You also know that the teens come next, and will jump randomly from one teen to another when trying to count until you start back over at 1. You are still working on your colors, and will almost always say that something is blue when asked its color. You also use blue as an adjective to describe a particular thing (e.g. "blue one binky"you might say to try to get me to understand that you want your favorite binky which is actually red and clear).


I am so grateful for the chance that I have to be your mother. You are so sweet, energetic, loving, smart, kind, cute, cuddly, beautiful, fun, and funny. Even though you are teaching me patience (I think that is sort of what motherhood is for), you bring so much light and joy to my life every day. I want to freeze you in the moment so that you will never grow any older, so that you will always be my squishy cheeks, little sweetie. Yet, still, every day I am so excited to watch you learn, grow, try new things, and make new steps.

I love you!
Mommy

Your cake is supposed to be a beach (your favorite place for the best I can tell). The bears are lounging on beach towels and floating in inner-tubes.