Four at Last

Ellie is now four years old. Her birthday (today) was quite an affair. We progressed from happy surprise as she woke up this morning ("You mean I'm four right now?") to telling everyone what to do because she was the birthday girl ("Sophie you can't wear that today because it's my birthday") and on to shrieking meltdown whenever anything happened that wasn't to her liking ("She cutted in front of me, I was walking there!") and using the threat of no cake to try and manipulate ("That's it, Sophie isn't getting any of my cake.")
By this evening she was a complete mess. All of my attempts to get her to take a nap had failed. Her birthday dress was filthy, her hair was falling out of her crooked birthday pony tails, and she was oscillating between a melt down state and a whiny repetition of "When do I get to eat the cake? When are we opening my presents?"

We had a nice dinner in spite of it all (just the 6 of us) and ate some of the cake (with sprinkles and blueberries, according to Ellie's specifications) and opened presents and everyone was happy for a few minutes. When Anna saw the cake she said "Yeah! Coo-kie!"

the cake:


the three littles:


Ellie with her new shirt, necklace, and doll:


We took a short walk after dinner and when we got home Ellie was so exhausted that she collapsed onto the floor in her anguish, yelling "I'm not going to bed! I'm not tired! You go to bed! I'm not going to bed!"

Five minutes after this tirade I found her asleep on the floor. Maybe she'll be a bit calmer tomorrow. (sigh) Four is supposed to be easier than three, isn't it?