Tuesday was Cate’s fourth birthday. The child development specialists say that 4 is like a window on what your kids might be like when they are 14. Apparently there are similar cognitive, social, and emotional developmental patterns. When Eden was 4 she threw herself down on the couch and said, “You just don’t understand my life!” Cate on the other hand has been feeling really frustrated and saying, “I feel angry!” Yesterday she came into my room and announced, “I love black! I only wanna wear black from now on” Then she went in and put on a black turtleneck and a black velvet skirt. It was 83 degrees out side. Watch out teen years!

(BTW, at the conference I was at I told this story to an aquaintance. She said, in all seriousness, “We need to break that curse right now over her!” It was all I could do not to laugh. When did we decide to be afraid all the time and lose our senses of humor. Come on people….a 4 year old demanding to wear all black. That’s funny!)

This year Cate wanted a spaceship cake, so I made her this silly UFO from a recipe in a magazine. My mom always made shape cakes for us and it’s a traditional I enjoy passing on to my kids—even if it means a lopsided mess and an extreme abundance of candy, since you have to buy a whole box of each kind to make the cake look just like the picture. Catie adored this cake and we tool lots of pictures of her standing behind it. In the pictures she’s wearing her pink satin cape with white marabou fur trim, and she’s holding her chiffon-swathed Swan Lake Barbie with the pink light up wings–all this with the UFO in the foreground. I love it!

Tuesday morning Cate came and climbed in bed with me. School has just let out and without the regular rhythm of three-morning-a-week preschool she’s constantly confused about what day of the week it is. So when she climbed into bed with me she said, “What day is it Mommy?” I said, “It’s your birthday Catie!” “Yay-HOOO!”she squealed.” (I love it that she says Yay-hoo instead of Wah-hoo. It’s so cute. She also does this thing where she goes “Oh yeah! Oh yeah!” Then she pumps her arms around in front of her in a circle.) Anyway, as a special treat she got to watch cartoons. But before we turned on the TV, we did centering prayer together. After taking a big breath in and a big breath out, we asked Jesus to show us what he was thinking about Catie today. Cate closed her eyes and smiled real big, reaching her little pink-jama’ed arms out in front of her. “Jesus is giving me a big hug Mommy!”

I love it!

Happy Birthday sweet Catherine Shalom!