Happy Birthday, Beatrice!

Beatrice is three!

This year's birthday was a little overshadowed by having a dance recital on the same day - plus Beatrice isn't having her birthday party until next Sunday - but we had a nice, low-key day, opening presents and eating cake.

I had the idea to sneak into Beatrice's room in the middle of the night and fill it with balloons so that when she woke up on the morning of her birthday she would have a wonderful surprise.  Somewhat disappointingly, I significantly underestimated how many balloons it takes to fill even a small bedroom - my 24 helium balloons hardly made a dent, but Beatrice was pretty excited and happy just the same.

In some ways this has been a hard year for Beatrice.  Since her last birthday party she has welcomed a new brother, started preschool, become toilet trained, and given up her pacifier (and the last adjustment was by far the hardest).  In the last few weeks Beatrice has been experiencing a lot of anxiety about this new stage of her life - one moment she's insisting "I can't talk, I'm a baby" and demanding to drink out of a bottle and sleep in a crib; the next, she's asserting "I'm a grown up, I drink coffee."  She knows she's growing up and while she's gaining a lot of new adventures, like roller coasters and dance recitals, she's also leaving a lot behind.  Her skills and abilities, too, are stuck somewhere between babyhood and childhood - she may blow me away one minute by her ability to recognize letters and words and then the next minute she's sobbing in frustration because she can't zip up her own jacket.  But more than any particular new skill or experience, the most amazing thing about this past year has been watching her become more and more of her own person, with her own weird ideas and quirks and obsessions and passions and fears.

Beatrice, I’ve always loved you, since you were a little flashing light on a sonogram, but the best part about watching you grow up is discovering how much I like you. Every day you say at least one thing that is outrageously inventive, hysterically funny, surprisingly wise, or genuinely kind. We have a pretty great party planned for next week, but until then, I wanted to say Happy Birthday, Beatrice! You are an awesome person and a real pleasure to know.