five and a half ... fashionably late ...

is 32 68 days late considered fashionable??  ...  or just plain forgetful? (especially considering that i started this ... and then didn't finish and then put it off ... and now i'm finally getting around to it.)

last year ... about 31 67 days ago ... i had decided upon starting a blog (aka the record of my children) that on their true birthDAY ... i would celebrate the number of things that i loved about them that corresponded to their new age. 
and on their half birthday ... i would celebrate the fun and amazing things about them that i just plain wanted to remember (without any restrictions on numbers and such).

and last year.  i remembered a day late.  or i posted a day late.  i have no idea.  but let's just say it was relatively on-time.

this year, though, in the midst of life's crazies.  i got a little behind and actually (possibly?) forgot about it for quite some days in there. 

but i'm only admitting that to you, my dear stella ... because honestly ... it's life.  it's what happens when you are living your life rather than just trying to write about it.  things get misplaced and ignored ... not because they are any less important.  but just because living life with you is what i have realized is the most important thing in the world.  not recording it.  but i still want you to know who you were ... today ... so i may be a bit late ... but it's still said with all the love in the world.

and here it is ...
the little things that i most absolutely love about you ... your quirks ... your passions ... your you.
-- you are a 15 year old in the body of a 5 year old ... which must be exhausting and hard and ridiculously frustrating.  so ease up a bit darling.  don't grow up so fast.  (unless of course that means that you will bypass the teenage years of angst.)

-- you struggle daily with how to be big enough ... but not too big.

-- you still love light pink. 

-- you finally got your fairy rock princess flower room, painted the most perfect shade of pink.  a mere two months before we found out you would be sharing that room with your younger sister. 

-- you are intuitive.  and so observant of who and what and where.  you always have been.  i just don't listen to it as much as i should.

-- you occasionally drive me bonkers with your ability to taunt your little sister.  i know that it's part of the growing process.  and i know that it's what little girls do to their younger sisters ... but seriously ... i'm gonna go crazy.  can we just speed right through this little phase and move onto something better?

-- you are a zealous learner.  you sat down in your new kindergarten class ready to learn.  and not everyone else was.  we trucked through, though.  those first few weeks were so frustrating.  you indicated boredom.  a word that i have never heard you use to describe something.  you are much too passionate for the word *bored*.

-- you and your daddy are so strongheaded.  and sometimes ... you bonk your heads together in a match of wills.  neither of you ever win.  but you are both learning to compromise just a bit.

-- you will always be a mama's girl.  but you've realized that daddy's give in on some things (like a small glass of coke at lunch or a bite of candy before breakfast) ... and you are thrilled at the possibility of daddy being more than willing to allow some of the no-way-joses from mom.

-- you asked us if we believe in ghosts the other day.  being the responsible mom i am ... i said i didn't know.  being the honest daddy that he is ... daddy said yes, he does.  unfortunately that means that you have been waking up every night convinced that there are ghosts. 

-- but you still can't say words that end in -sts.  so ghosts ... is ghosteses.  and nests ... is still nesteses.  i've given up on correcting it.

-- you are slowly but surely realizing that you don't always have to have the pink cup and the pink plate and the doll. 

-- and realizing that if you pretend like you really did want the other color/plate/doll ... more often than not your sister will take that one instead and then you can get the one that you really wanted.

-- you can read AND write.  you just don't believe in yourself enough yet.

-- you still write on walls and desks and skin and non-paperish items ... but you always write things like "i love mommy and daddy" or "love" or "you are the best mom ever" or "mom-wow" ... and i struggle with getting upset that i have to clean it and knowing that you wrote something that was unquestionably important to you. 

-- you love having the job of feeding jazzy.  primarily because you want her to love you as much as she loves me. 

-- jet lays with you each and every night as you drift off to sleep.  and he only ever leaves the room when you are finally dreaming.  which is how daddy and i know that you are out for the night.

-- you still love to have your feet rubbed each and every night before bed.  and sometimes in the middle of the night.  and sometimes three times throughout the night.  and it drives me crazy.  but then again ... it ALWAYS takes me back to those first months of us nuzzling together and getting to know each other ... and mostly ... it always opens my eyes to just how ... big ... you have become.

-- you LOVE to wear dresses and skirts.  i've convinced you that it's totally fashionable to wear them with jeans and pants underneath ... but you still prefer tights.  (i'm still not sure how you got so girly.  i surely never was.)

-- you are becoming more and more excited everyday about having a baby in the house.  again.  you love babies.  you always have. 

-- i remarked to you today that you are a social butterfly.  you are always thinking you saw a friend from school ... or someone you know ... clear across town in a flash as we are driving down the street. 

-- you love to watch han.nah montana and i.carly and wiz.ards of wav.erly place.  and i'm just not ready for any of that.  nor are you.  so we have had so many discussions about how what those people are doing in the show ... is not who they are in real life.  that people don't really act like that.  and how those kids are so. much. older. than you ... you have plenty of time to get there.  but i still let you watch it every once in awhile.

-- you are developing this big-girl sense of humor ... and i don't laugh just because you are cute anymore.  i truly laugh because you are funny.  especially your rendition of an old woman that doesn't want to date boppa because she doesn't like kayaking.  that first emerged amid the firelight from our bonfire while camping up north.  it gets me everytime.

-- speaking of boppa.  as a girl that was a daddy's girl ... i cannot express to you how much i love the fact that you love your boppa.  i'm glad that you two have such a special friendship. 

-- tonight.  as i put you in your bed after a thoroughly exhausting day of mama's crazy pregnancy hormones coupled with your trying to be too big attitude ... in which you had too many time outs.  you quietly apologized for all of your not-so-cute behaviors.  and you asked me if i still loved you as big as the universe.  i answered.  of course i do darling.  a mommy's love NEVER ceases.  never.  and then you wanted to know what -ceases- meant. 

and for the record ... that apology and question ... as you were drifting off to sleep?  was the perfect ending to my crazy day. 
proof to myself about why i am a mommy.