blessed by an almost 4 year old

originally posted on facebook on november 25, 2008. i am reposting it here so you can get to know my daughter.

my daughter will be 4 in a couple of weeks. since i did this for my son, i thought i had better do it for my daughter also. i wrote about the many ways i am blessed and thankful for my son. i write these blogs, and cut and paste them into a "letter" to my kids for when they are older. i have done this since my daughter was about 4 months. i love going back and reading what my kids did when they were 6 months old, a year old, 18 months old and how they have changed just over the last few months. sometimes i do not write for more than a month, but i still love the idea of letting the kids in on what they were like when they were smaller.

my daughter - well.... she is a breath of fresh air. again, let me preface this with she is NOT perfect, in fact she is clumsy, forgetful, silly, but also thoughtful, sweet, and can ALWAYS bring a smile to my face.

she was born 3 weeks early. when she came home from the hospital, she had jaundice. for the first two weeks of her life, she had to go to the lab and have her heel pricked until her billirubin went down. she had to sleep in a lamp bed for the first 4 days home. it was hard because she was in our house, but we could not hold her except for an hour a day. sometimes, if the sun was shining really bright, we would get her out of her lamp bed, put her on my bed naked so she could soak up God's sunlight. in some strange way i think this helped my son with the adjustment of having his new sister in the house. she was there, but he was eased into the idea of her. he would come in and check in on her in lamp bed, touch her hair, and say hi. it was so sweet. i prayed he would be a protector for her and it started even then.

my daughter was a happy baby. she loved to be swaddled tightly - i mean TIGHTLY. my husband said she looked like a little korean burrito. she was so different from my son in so many ways. you could tell by the time she was about 6 months old. she was pretty much the "happy go lucky" kind of girl. she loved to laugh at her brother. she loved to have books read to her. she loved spend time with her daddy.

she loved to eat - she LOVED to eat. when it would take my son several attempt to try new foods, my daughter would eat anything and everything. she is still like that today. she will try anything new, unless someone around her has said it is yucky. one of her favorite foods is kimbobs (mom's personal favorite). it is a korean food. it has vegetables & beef rolled in the middle of rice wrapped in seaweed. they are about and inch in a half in diameter and she can pop a whole one in her mouth. the only food she would not eat was mashed potatoes. however, one day she said she wanted to try them and now she loves them.

she is very athletic. she is muscular like her daddy. i think she is going to have his build - the wide shoulders and natural athletic build. she is in gymnastics right now and she loves it. she can do a very well arched bridge. she loves to run. she has learned to walk now, but when she was little younger she did not walk anywhere. it was always running. also along with the running came the falling. when she was two, you would have thought we beat her. she had bruises up and down her legs from running all out and bumping into something or falling over something. most of the time, she just popped up for a quick kiss from mommy and was on her way running to something else. she will not be outdone by her brother. although her brother can do a few more things than she can because of his age, anything he will try she is determined to try too. at one point, she could beat her brother in a foot race. when she was outside today, i noticed she has learned to swing all by herself. no more asking daddy to push her (which he would always stop what he was doing to push her in the swing - i bet he is going to miss her asking). her brother was outside with her today showing her how to step back, pull your feet up, and pump your legs. he jumped out of his swing while he was swinging high, and wouldn't you know it, she was right behind him. he jumps off the slide at the halfway point, and so does she.

she loves her daddy! daddy takes her on ice cream dates and she has come to really love these times. she looks forward to them. so does he. he wants to teach her how a boy is supposed to treat her. she tells me all about it when they get home. i hope she will always treasure this time.

she loves her brother. she will play star wars with him and be princess lea or yoda. she will build legos with him. she will "cook" up a whole gourmet meal for him (you know i did not teach her this - so maybe there is hope for her future husband yet!). it was not uncommon when she was a little younger to find her curled up in her brother's bed. of course she would curl up and go to sleep anywhere. we found her on the floor by her bed, at her door, in the big chair in our front room, by our bed, in our laundry pile, at the foot of our bed or we would roll over and find her in our bed.

she loves her mother. i know it will not always be like this but we have this connection. i know every mother does to her daughter. i love just laying in bed beside her and talking to her. she gets so excited about all the small things in life. she loves mandisa, probably because i do too. when we hear her song "only the world" on the radio, she will find me in the house and turn up the music to dancing level. she loves to crawl in bed with me and put her cold feet on my legs. most people cringe at this - daddy is one of those people. i love it though. i love it when her cold little toes wriggle against my leg to find warmth. i will miss when those toes stop that.

she is very forgiving. she is very sweet. she has her own vocabulary - you can check prior blogs to get an example of this. she is very thoughtful. she is very forgetful (this may seem like a negative but it is also a positive. when you say forgive and forget. she will do it. she does not hold grudges). she cannot go long without smiling. she loves animals. she loves babies (real or toys) i love how she tucks her hair behind her ears. i love how she grabs my cheeks and squeezes them together right before she gives me a kiss. i love how she is very independent. she wanted to do things on her own way before her brother did. i love how she has BROWN hair - oh wait that's just my hair color envy creeping in. i love how she says she has a sister in her sunday school class, but has no idea what her name is. i love how she calls her eczema on her arm her "exit". i love how she laughs and giggles so hard. i love how she hops or runs everywhere. i love how she grabs for my hand when we are walking side by side. i love how she will try to imitate her brother doing tae kwon do. i love her heart that she shares with the ones she loves. i love how she is a girly girl - she loves playing with dolls, purses, cell phones & polly pockets. however, i love how she is NOT a girly girl - she is a tough cookie, after she gets her band-aid she is good, and she does not mind wearing her brother's hand me down boy pajamas. she will play in the sand and get dirty longer than all the boys.

i was a little nervous having a girl. who is going to teach her to feminine? who is going to teach her to be a good wife and mother? it is interesting because she has taught me how to appreciate the girly girl things more. i am so in awe of how God meets all our needs and wants in so many ways, even when we do not think it is possible.