from the corner of my couch: Happy Birthday Emmie!

Dear Emmie,

Today you are FIVE YEARS OLD and I can't believe it. I still remember exactly how I felt the first time I saw you. I fell in love with you in that moment. You were so tiny, although the doctor kept saying how big you were but to us you were little, and you had beautiful lips and perfect skin and you were so snuggly and sweet. I look at your now and I look back at your baby pictures and I can't believe how much you've grown in just 5 years. You have really lost a lot of your baby look over the last year or so and you've definitely gotten taller and thinned out. I get sad sometimes when I realize you've lost your "baby" look but I am awed at the beautiful little girl you've become. I feel like time has just flown by.
Emmie, I have loved watching your personality develop this year. You are always hesitant about new adventures but generally warm up to the situation quickly and then work hard to do it well. Things don't always come naturally to you but you are willing to practice, be it dance or swimming or reading or writing, and you will practice until you have accomplished your task to your satisfaction. When you finally achieve success I LOVE seeing the look of joy and pride on your face. It warms my heart for you to have success in the task you have set out to do. I think I'll always remember the look on your face when you successfully wrote an "m" by yourself...and now you don't even think twice about it! I love watching you work up the courage to do something you view as scary. It took you most of the summer to jump off the block into the deep end but you finally did it, after many, many discussions about it and then standing on the block and then climbing back down for weeks. My heart would sink a little each time you climbed back down, not because I was disappointed, but because I knew you were disappointed in yourself but then one day you jumped and you were grinning so big when your head popped up. Once you started jumping you didn't stop. Within a few days you were trying to see how far down you could go when you jumped. You became such a good swimmer this year, mostly because you wanted to swim with the big kids! You have always wanted to be one of the big kids!
This year you've gotten one step closer to being a "big kid". You know go five half days to school. I dreaded the whole five days a week thing all summer. I was so sad that we were losing our mornings together. You have transitioned so well to going to school five days a week, although you are quite tired by the end of the week. I have not transitioned as well. I miss getting to take you to the zoo and museum and all the things we used to do together. I miss getting to see you playing with your sisters and I hate that while Ruthie is at such a fun age you only get to play with her a few hours a day, as she takes a long nap right after lunch. You have loved going to school though. You love getting to play with your friends, you are so social, and you love to learn. I've been so impressed with everything you've learned. You're like a little sponge!
Emmie you are such a good big sister. You absolutely adore Ruthie and she adores you and I'm pretty sure she calls you "mama". She gets so excited when we get home from picking you up and she gets to play with you. You are so patient with her and even when she was a little baby you would sit and talk, sing, and read to her.You and Ellie bicker a fair amount but overall you play together really well and you're the first one to step up and defend Ellie to an "outsider". You love to read to your sisters and some of my favorite moments are walking into a room and finding you and Ellie curled up in a chair with a book. One thing I have noticed about your personality this year is your thoughtfulness toward other people and your need for things to be "fair". We were at the grocery store one day and you and Ellie were eating cookies. You and Ellie both had a bite left and the cashier was teasing you, asking for a bite. You thought for a minute, put your head down, and then slowly broke off part of the cookie and held it out to her. My heart melted. I knew that you really wanted that bite of cookie but you were willing to sacrifice some of it so that she could have some too. If you get a special treat for helping me during quiet time you always ask me if Ellie can have some too when she wakes up.
Other aspects of your personality include a need for order (oh the hysterics if Daddy tries to tell you that you don't get to read a book at bedtime...even if it's 10pm and you're still asleep you still think you need a book), planning, rule following (especially a need for OTHER people to follow the rules) and a need to be the boss in all situations. We have no clue where these traits come from..haha. You've become a bit of a tattler this year...we're working on teaching you to deal with the small problems in life without tattling....it's a slow learning curve. Of course your favorite person to tattle on is Ellie. You love to give (and get) hugs. You become so attached to your teachers. You had a little bit of a hard time going from the 3yr old class to the 4yr old class. You still stop and hug your teachers from last year every day and you wanted to invite them to your birthday party this year which I thought spoke a lot about the wonderful teachers they are. You love to mother other children, especially those who are younger than you. I chuckle because all the kids in Ellie's class know you and many of them come give you hugs in the morning.
Sometimes I feel like I'm dealing with a teenage girl. You are emotional and feel EVERYTHING and share those feelings with everyone, loudly. Sometimes this makes our days really, really hard. Sometimes it means I want to cry along with you, like the day you came home from school and cried in the car like your heart was broken because someone had pushed you and kept doing it even when you asked them to stop. You just didn't understand why another child would be mean to you.
Emmie I love you so much. I love every aspect of your personality and I know that you have this personality for a reason and while that reason may not be obvious now I know that one day it's going to serve you well, especially as you learn to channel your feelings. I can't wait to see what 5 has in store for you!
Love,
Mommy