happy birthday, dear lindsay!

it's hard to believe yesterday marked *FOUR* years since niece lindsay was born! time just fliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiies past, doesn't it, especially at this age??! ...come to think of it, i s'pose it has to fly...to keep up with such energetic little munchkins! :)

(for those of you scoring at home: riley & lindsay, my brother's daughters, with the irrepressible heads of shirley temple curls, are 5 1/2 and (just) 4, respectively. little blondie madeline and new nephew matthew are 3 1/4 and 2 weeks, (today!); their mama is my sis.)

i am currently elbow-deep in pink-and-sparkly accoutrements, assembling a chipboard concoction befitting such a beautiful princess on such a momentous occasion...which will be celebrated with a family party on sunday.

here is a pic of the birthday girl and her daddy, taken a couple of weeks ago at his birthday party. i cannot believe my miraculous luck in getting this shot, which absolutely captures them both! (i have said, since the day she was born, how much ms. linz looks like bill...and no one else in my family can see it! are they blind??! look at those eyes! look at those smiles!! sheesh!)



this little beauty is the quietest of the three nieces, the one most likely to be a couple of steps behind the other two as they race off to...wherever they are bound...at warp speed. but she's also the one with the patience to build the complete lego tower or assemble the entire jigsaw puzzle; the one who will sit the longest with the dollhouse, constructing a quiet but elaborate narrative for the fisher-price people to enact. and she thinks about things in ways that constantly make me stop and say, "wow". (when she was about 3 she pointed out, unprompted, as we left the powder room together, how the candle sitting by the sink got brighter when we switched off the lights!)

occasionally, she has so many excited thoughts to express that her words become tangled up in themselves, and come out as a stammer. at such times, grown-ups--and i confess i've done this--quite wrongly try to "help" her finish her sentence by guessing--generally with pitiful incorrectness--what she is trying to say. on such occasions lindsay will take a deep breath, look the adult in question directly in the eye, and with dignity worthy of a supreme court justice, say--calmly, but with absolute firmness: "no. i will tell you." the resulting statement is *never* what we thought she was trying to say. ...and it is always worth waiting for...

happy birthday, lindsay marie!

my wish for you is that you will always possess this quiet confidence which insists to the world that your voice is as unique, important and wonderful as you are!