Happy 5th birthday to my beautiful daughter Evelyn.

5 seems so old. I can’t believe it has been 5 years already. I guess that I am probably going to be saying that every year from now on.

Evie is so imaginative, and she loves to play pretend, specifically that she is a different girl (or angel or fairy) who is coming to stay at our house. We play that basically every night. Her favorite thing is to hear stories; stories about your childhood, stories you make up, or stories read out of a book. She will never, ever get tired of hearing stories. She likes to play with her friends, or make new friends. She doesn’t like to have relaxing time, but then when you go down to get her she is so engrossed in her games that she is reluctant to stop. Mostly she dresses her animals in crazy outfits, or builds elaborate towns with whatever she can find (blocks, duplos, and tiny pieces from any board games she can find, especially the cherries from Hi Ho Cherry O).

Evie seems so much older than she is. She is such a good girl. If she has any faults, it’s simply being too smart for her own good, which tends to lead to backtalk and thinking she knows better than her parents (I dread, dread, dread the day when she becomes a teenager!) However, we really don’t have to worry about her. She can manage on her own as well as any just-turned-5-year-old and she never gets into any real trouble. The worst things she might do are so much more minor than most of the stories I hear from other parents of kids her age. If anything, she is a goody two-shoes, and a bit of a tattle-tale.

Partially because of this, partially because she talks nonstop, and partially because of her love of imagination and stories, I sometimes really see myself in her. However, there are a few downsides to that as well. Evie can have a fiery temper. Much like me (or even more so, my sister), she does not appreciate being told what to do, and it practically ensures she won’t do it, even if it’s something she really wanted to do anyway. On the other hand, also like my sister, she is very independent and is not likely to allow people to push her into doing she doesn’t want to do, or to walk all over her. I’m hoping this can help at least a little bit against peer pressure in the future.

Ollie plays a big part in Evie’s life as well. Sometimes they can play together for hours. She mothers him like no other, and is more likely to cry if he gets hurt than he is himself. They only thing they really fight about is when they both want the same toy, which happens pretty frequently. Actually, considering he is 2 and hasn’t outgrown the idea that everything he sees should be his, this actually happens relatively infrequently, all things considered. Ollie is so rolled up in Evie’s life, she spends so much time thinking about him, playing with him, and caring for him, that I can’t really imagine what she would be like without him (although that goes double for Ollie, since at least I do actually have some memories of Evie before he was born). I just wish they wouldn’t keep each other from falling asleep at night.

So happy birthday Evie, here’s to a hundred more. I’m sorry that I’m too hard on you, and I can’t wait to see what kind of person you become.