Kylie is FIVE!!

Kylie Bear turns 5 today.

She's a lucky little girl,

she started out life

surrounded by lots of love

Meeting big brother and sister for the first time,

she was calm and quiet and happy.

She entered the world,

as all babies do,

still firmly attached to her momma.

Doug likes to joke

that the umbilical cord wasn't really cut

until she was about 6 months old.

In the delivery room,

after about an hour of being held by me,

her dad,

and her yaya,

they finally took her to get cleaned up,

weighed and measured,

and she started to cry a bit.

If I started to talk,

she'd stop crying.

If I stopped, 

she'd start crying again.

For the first 6 months,

it was rarely OK with her if anyone else held her.

Though she'd sometimes make exceptions

for special people

I decided early on that she's a good judge of character,

when it became apparent that,

though she'd cry at most people,

she was perfectly happy to be held by Yaya,

great-Grandma Elda,

and her aunties Christina and Jennifer.

It almost weirded me out 

how well she was focusing her eyes in the delivery room,

it was clear she was really looking at me,

and it soon became apparent that she was the staring contest queen.

 She is observant and attentive,

she studies people,

and notices a lot of things kids her age miss.

Her sensitivity goes both ways--

she's tender-hearted,

and so she is attentive to the needs and feelings

of others.

We discovered this early on,

that she loves to share and to love.

She was hanging out in the Snugli

(where she spent about 90% of her time),

silently sucking her little purple pacifier,

when Daddy stopped to talk to her.

He popped the pacifier out for a second,

and she seemed confused.

So he popped it back in.

She stared up at him,

silently suckling.

So he popped it out again, and put it in his mouth.

She looked at him.

Her eyes got big.

Then they welled up.

Then her famous, pouty bottom lip popped out,

and she let out the saddest,

most pathetic little cry ever.

Daddy felt bad, so he picked her up to comfort her.

Once she was sure he didn't mean to hurt her,

she took the pacifier out of her mouth,

 and put it in his.

Just sort of saying, 

"I get the joke now, Daddy.

I'll share."

That little moment with our 4-month-old

is such an accurate snapshot

of the person we now know her to be.

She's affectionate, kind, and generous,

clever and quick,

and just loves to love and be loved

by the people in her life.

 For all her attachment early on,

she is in many ways such an independent girl.

She is agile and coordinated,

smart and curious, 

and loves having the freedom to explore the world

on her own terms,

and as long as she knows we're not too far away,

and that we'll be waiting for her,

she's confident in venturing out.

She's always been so expressive,

so playful and silly.

Her creative nature is apparent

whenever she sits down with a pile of blocks,

or some scissors and paper,

her wonderful comprehension of the world around

apparent in the things she says,

and the questions she asks.

And her generosity and kindness is always apparent,

in the ways she plays and shares and helps

with virtually everyone around here.

She can be easily hurt,

but she forgives

and bucks up

just as easily.

She's not a dweller.

She's a smiler,

a sharer,

a hugger,

a builder,

an artist,

a sister,

a friend,

and a doll.

We love our beautiful blue-eyed girl 

a whole awful lot.