Madeleine the 5-Year-Old!

Today is Madeleine's big day: her 5th birthday!  I really can't believe that the baby of the family is now five years old.  Where does the time go??

Madeleine had announced, at least a week ago, that she wanted to have chocolate chip pancakes for her birthday breakfast.  She hasn't stopped mentioning this idea ever since, even going so far as to plan out her involvement in helping me bake them.  So last night I set out all of the ingredients so I would be ready to get cooking as soon as I got up in the morning.  But when faced with a table-full of wrapped presents, Madeleine quickly forgot her interest in helping me cook, and furthermore, was so distracted by opening her gifts that she failed to eat more than a bite of her pancake.  Oh well.  At least I got to enjoy some!:

Meanwhile, Madeleine got ready to dig into her pile of gifts:

Of course, she had to start off by opening Julia's gift to her.  Because:

JULIA: Madeleine.  Madeleine.  Will you open MY present first?  Madeleine.  Wait.  Madeleine.  Mom?  I want Madeleine to open my present first.  Madeleine, here's MY present!  Will you open it first?

Julia's gift to Madeleine was wrapped with the following written across the wrapping paper: "To Madeleine, Love Julia.  I hope you like this AWSOME present!"

Julia herself could barely contain herself as Madeleine opened the gifts.

JULIA: Mom?  Did you know that I don't JUST get excited for MY birthday?  I get JUST AS EXCITED for other peoples' birthdays as I do for my OWN!

Madeleine, of course, was delighted by Julia's AWSOME present, which was a Mulan Barbie doll.  And as proof that these kids are watching too much "Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse," this was Madeleine's first comment upon me getting Mulan out of her box:

MADELEINE: And she's FULLY ARTICULATED!

Among Madeleine's other gifts were arts and crafts, new earrings (thanks Nana!), a variety of dress-up Halloween masks, My Little Pony Trixie, some books, and a stuffed Reindeer Sven from "Frozen."  Madeleine is absolutely thrilled with her pile of loot.

After I had dropped Julia off at school, I sat with Madeleine at the dining room table, me drinking my coffee and Madeleine playing with her new gifts. 


MADELEINE: Mama?  I'm kind of in a BIRTHDAY mood today.

Wait.  She is?  I never would have expected that.  That's as unexpected as being in a swimming mood when you're in the pool.  At any rate, I'm glad that Madeleine is feeling the birthday spirit!!

Our plans for the day include a trip to the farm for apple picking (despite the wet mucky weather) and a dinner out at a restaurant of Madeleine's choosing.  She has already decided she wants plain pasta with butter on it for dinner, so it's a good thing we're going out, because I could NEVER make something like that at home and save us the bill, right??  Hey, it's her day, so she gets to call the shots!

Happy, happy birthday, my sweet, darling FIVE-YEAR-OLD!