Baby is 4

I don't suppose I can legitimately call her "Baby Sashi" anymore, can I?  I mean, four?!  Four is Big Kid Stuff.  It's when she becomes a ballerina.  And doesn't take naps.  {According to Baby.}  But really?  Really she'll always be my baby.  Just like I'm my momma's baby.  {And yes, she does still introduce me as such.}  Even though Sashi complains and argues that she's not a baby now - she's Four!!! {insert exasperated toddler voice} - one day she'll find it endearing.  Especially when she has a baby that will always be her baby.  Then she will understand for sure.  In the meantime, here are four amazing things we love about our baby girl.

1.  She is quite seriously the best worker we have.  Yesterday, before her big family party, I gave Sashi a wet washcloth, four dirty kitchen chairs, and free reign of the kitchen sink.  Without any monetary or other external motivation {all things required for the Big Kids to get to work}, she made those chairs sparkle.  I only wish I'd gotten a picture of her in action.  She takes her work quite seriously.

2.  She is quite a mathemetician.  I just love the way she calls, "Easy! Easy! Easy!" when Daddy gives her a math problem at breakfast.  Then he gives her a tough one, but she holds her chubby little fingers up with the chipped nail polish of myriad rainbow colors and proceeds to add and subtract numbers to the correct answer.  She is almost always correct.  And always very proud.

3.  She loves to sing and dance {but refuses to be videotaped performing, much to my chagrin}.  I love how she runs up to me and asks me to watch her 'ballerina dance' - that always consists of the same choppy little leg lifts and askewed twirls amidst that beautiful little grin.

4.  She is really growing up.  I marvel at the Sashi of yesteryear who would scream and cry and carry on.  When the door opened at Target.  Or who screamed and cried and carried on.  Because it wasn't Mommy holding her.  She's still a momma's girl - don't let me kid you.  And we still have some behaviors here and there (like Thursday, when I said, "No" to waffles for breakfast).  But anytime I'm in the kitchen, she asks if she can help.  She independently feeds the dog.  Shoot - she actually plays with the dog.  She will dust and scrub the toilet and sort clothes {OK - she needs a lot of help with those things.}  But she's my girl who wants to grow up "to be a mommy." 

{notice her shoes}

 I love her.  We all do.  For a million reasons more than these four.  She really is something else.  She's perky and spirited and smart and helpful, beautiful and inquisitive and hard-working, sweet and funny, a wonderful little sister and true cicada saver.  She's Sasha.  And she's four.

Love you Baby.
~Mom