"Im never going to be your baby again, Im a big girl, Im FOUR!"

Shocked, amazed, heartbroken, blessed. My baby girl, the beautiful little thing that first made me a mommy is now FOUR. I can't believe it.

She woke up and ran downstairs. Standing beside my bed I hear:

Mady: Mommy, is today Thursday?
Me: Yes sweety it is.
Mady: Is it March?
Me: Yup
Mady: The twenty-first?!
Me: Uh,huh
Mady: THEN IT'S MY BIRTHDAYYYYY!!!!

We jumped up and had breakfast. I picked out a super cute outfit for her to wear to school and we perfectly placed her Happy Birthday hairbow in her hair. She was off to K3 with a bucket up cupcakes to share with her friends and it was snowing.. yes, snowing.

I went to work and was driving a meeting from 8-4p all day. I had been devoting so much time in preparing for this meeting that it was a relief for it to finally be over at 5p when I left to go pickup Annabelle. I got home and ran into AK in our bedroom, "Where's Mady?". He said, "She's in her room and she's being a brat". Ooooook!

I went upstairs and as I was talking to her and wishing her a Happy Birthday, mom called to sing to Mady and ask where we should go to dinner. Mady wouldn't talk to her, instead, she didn't say anything and was being rude on the phone. I instructed Mady several times to tell Nenaw 'Thank you' and she wouldn't speak. Finally I took the phone from mom and told her we would have to call her back. I tried talking to Mady but she indeed, was being a brat. I said 'Fine!' I took all her new princess wall decal stickers off her wall and her toys as she went balastic; screaming, thrashing around, begging for me to stop, bawling crying. I am tired of the nasty attitude and not listening. In the midst of the meltdown I checked the time on my phone, 6:09pm, "Happy Birthday!" and slammed her door behind me.

Once the monumental meltdown was over we all got in the car and began heading for Don Pepe for dinner. We passed Keith leaving the subdivision and waved him down. He joined us for dinner and everyone had a great time. It was a lot of fun and the perfect simple ending to a birthday :)

Friday was my day off. That was supossed to mean I could party plan / clean house / organize for the weekend.. I dunno, relax. Instead I ended up taking Belle to Kelly and heading into work for 4 hours. Then home to drop things off and pickup Mady before going to her 4yo Check-up.

Big Doctor's Visit
First thing we did was weight and height.
34lb and 41in tall! Growing so big!
BP 86/60

Secondly the nurse walked Mady to the eye chart and asked that she tell her what all the pictures were. She did great! .....until she made Mady step back about 20ft and asked the same questions. Mady couldn't ready any of them. She couldn't read until she got nearly to the top line. She was frazzled and upset and finally said, in the sweetest voice, "I can see the boat really good". The boat is the tip-top picture and it just broke my heart that she knew she wasn't able to answer the questions. Looks like she is a little less than 20/40 based off this rinky-dink evaluation. Ive made an appt with a Pediatric Opthamologist for the 15th of April and hopefully they will do a more specific test to give better answers.

We went in to the room to see the doctor, waited briefly and everything looks great. Finally. It was time for the shots. Mady and I had discussed she would have to get shots at her appointment and she understood what that meant. They would hurt, but only for a second and it would be all over. She needed to be brave and I would be there with her the entire time. She was scheduled to receive four shots but I choose to only do two this visit and then two more next time. Four is just too much for their immune system at this age, I didn't want her arms sore for her birthday and I didn't want her running a fever or feeling yucky for her parties. We decided on two and kept it moving.

The nurse came in to do the shots. She did better than I could have imagined! I snapped this video and Mady loves replaying it to watch how brave she was :) I swear the kid doesn't feel pain.

Saturday was party day and everything went fantastic. I actually ran on time, no, I wasn't running BEHIND schedule and it felt like on time.. slowly, im getting it. The weather for Mady's birthday was snowy, Friday was frigid cold, but Saturday ended up being absolutely beautiful! I couldn't believe it. It was upper 50s all afternoon which allowed us to just keep the back door open and let people and kids walk in and out, play, scatter and spread out because goodness knows we can't host that many people in our house at one time! It was a tight squeeze during present and cake time. All the kids played very well together and had a blast. Mady was a little overwhelmed at different times but she did good nonetheless. She used her manners when opening presents and said thank you. After the party was over, Lindsey and Jeremy, and Jake and Bekah all stayed to hang out for a bit, it was nice being able to cut loose and enjoy extra bears. Mady racked up on toys and I cleaned my house 2396026 times but all in all the weekend was worth every bit of it. Seeing Madelynne's happy face for her birthday party was priceless.