Today is Abigail’s fourth birthday. She started the day by saying, “I’m going to be four soon.”
“No, you’re not,” I said.
“Yes, I am. It’s almost my birthday.”
“It’s not ALMOST your birthday.”
A smile that big is a great way to start the day.
I’ve put together a look back at Abigail’s first four trips around the sun, in pictures and in her own words.
On birth: “Ah, ah, ah. Another baby popped out of my belly.”
On managing the young ones: “Sometimes she’s crying so I take her to the gypsies.”
On when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie: “That’s the morning.”
On things to say at 4 am, just as Dad is convinced you’ve fallen back to sleep: “Daddy, do you like ladybugs?”
On hide-and-seek strategy: “Don’t look in the bed, okay?”
On why she’s hacking at Strawberry Shortcake with a comb: “I’m cooking some strawberries.”
On what she wants from Santa: “I don’t want Santa to bring anything. Just shoes.”
On socks: “This one put on my foot and this one leave on my hand. It’s fine.”
On demographics, Daddy’s: “Daddy is a big girl and a little boy.”
On what she knows about the farm: “I know about the pig.”
On alarming things to say while holding a cup at the dinner table: “Something needs water on it.”
On her somewhat abstract yet gleeful suggestion for what she might moisten: “Beeeeeaard?”
On being told that big girls listen to their daddies: “And little girls don’t!”
On whether the animal she’s thinking of swims: “A lion.”
On what to say in front of your dad with your arms up: “‘Th-d-d-th-d’ means ‘pick me up’ in Spanish.”
On why she needs a big-girl fork to eat her cereal: “For forking.”
On the blast radius: “Stand back, Daddy, so I don’t get poop all over you.”
On what she needed to hurry back into the house to tell Mama: “You’re important.”
On what she ran back inside to tell Daddy: “I’m going to school and you wait here. I’ll come check on the babies. I’ll see if the babies are at the hospital yet when I come home. When I get back I’ll drive them to the hospital. Okay?”
On convertibles: “That car is broken.”
On automotive travel: “The car makes me sad. The car makes me a diamond. Blue diamond. It makes me a blue diamond. It makes Momma a pink diamond. It’s from the park.”
On my driving: “I’m going to have to talk to Mom about this. You weren’t watching the rails, Dad.”
On how to play chess: “Brown on brown and vanilla on vanilla. It’s easy.”
On questions, intriguing: “Do you know what cupcakes look like when they’re all gone?”
On answers, surprising: “Like chocolate graham crackers.”
On being disappointed by your heroes: “Peter Cottontail went poop on the furniture.”
On how to play Dragon: “You sit there and I’ll try to eat you.”
On what we should do now that we’re both pretend dragons: “You have some lemur and I’ll have some lemur.”
On big questions: “What’s the big idea?”
On answers, given within inches of your face: “Are you the big idea?”
On the prerequisites for reading about chipmunks: “Put your chipmunk eyes on, Momma.”
On why she sings every other line of Old MacDonald about a dog: “There were so many dogs there at the farm.”
On demonstrating proper magic wanding to Daddy: “No, no, no. You were going like this, swishing it around, and I need it like this.”
On appearances, now that Daddy has covered his face with shaving cream: “Now you look like a queen and I look like a hard boiled egg!”
On “Goodnight Moon” having an expanded cast of characters: “Let’s see what happened to the coyote.”
On the end of Abigail’s telling of the story of Whiskers the cat: “The coyote ate him anyway.”
On why Maggie is bad: “I said “bad dog” because she’s old.”
On scientific discovery: “For some reason the cold air starts coming out when I open the fridge.”
On aviation mechanics: “Do airplanes go pee pee?”
On contradicting Dad’s answer, with irrefutable, visual evidence: “I saw an airplane going pee pee.”
On why she is bringing that blanket into the kitchen: “I has a idea.”
On what her idea is, and why it involves a blanket next to a chair: “If I put the blanket here, maybe I can tip it over.”
On what you might overhear her say while she plays with her dolls: “Awww. I know it hurts to have a dinosaur bite.”
On things to say while wearing Momma’s shoes: “We need to go get coffee.”
On things to say while wearing Momma’s shoes: “We need to go to the store.”
On things to say while wearing Momma’s shoes: “Okay, you know what, we need to go to the restaurant.”
On what she did at school today: “I put my finger on everything!”
On the glass of water she’s holding: “Dad, is this from tomorrow?”
On units of measurement: “Miles and miles of years ago: tar pits!”
On what Mama needs: “You don’t need help, Mama. You’re perfect
On why she needs to go outside: “To save Princess Belle and Santa Claus from the spider.”
On consoling her doll: “Heidi, please don’t be emotional.”
On labor and delivery optimism: “Maybe I’ll catch baby brother!”
On Gabe’s so-called birthday: “Why didn’t we have cake?”
On what her brother’s name is, five days after he was born: “I don’t know.”
On what to shout to the stranger across the street: “My name’s Abigail and I have a dress on!”
On realizing she didn’t have a dress on: “I’ll wear a dress next time! Fancy, fancy!”
On how the snail smells: “Like meat.”
On tissue paper marketing: “I’m enjoying this picture of a girl wiping someone’s nose off.”
On expressions that she uses in almost any frustrating situation: “It’s no use!”
On me standing quietly, wearing my “where’s-the-please” face in response to her demand for milk on her cereal: “You got it. It’s right there. Go.”
Happy Birthday, Abigail!
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