Matching Tracksuits

“You say it’s your birthday?” It was tempting to sing the Beatles’ birthday to Papa yesterday when he turned forty-something (he was a precocious child). We settled for the old stand-by, in more ways than one.

The first old stand-by: the Girl is the center of attention, even when it’s Papa’s day.

Even when sisters come to make brother-Papa the center of the day, the Girl manages to charm everyone.

“You, and you, and you — watch this!”

The second old stand-by: the Girl makes most of the decisions, like who gets to wear the birthday hats and who gets a pass.

Cake is another stand-by, with Happy Birthday New Year candles.

When Papa turned forty-something (the first time, that is), Nana and I tried to put forty-something candles on the cake. It was a Herculean task to get them all lit before the first ones started going out.

“H-A-P-P-Y N-E-W Y-E-A-R” (what are they doing selling New Year’s candles in April?) was much easier to light.

And blow out, I’d imagine.

The ultimate, ever-new stand-by: Papa showing Nana that, even on “his” day, she’s still the center of his world. (Like the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam, though, the Girl puts a little wobble in that orbit. Just a little one.)

Today, you turn three. You hold up your fingers, struggling to hold down the thumb and pinkie, and tell me — show me — that you’re three.

In the morning, we celebrate your threeness with activities arranged into trinities: three hugs, three kisses, three tickles. As we head to the kitchen, you decide you want three jumps, so I stand at the base of our small staircase and catch you three times as you leap, in complete trust, three times into my arms. We go back to your room and you want three pushes: I sit on your rug and you gradually, with steady pressure, push me over, landing on me with giggles.

For three years now, we’ve been three. While it’s hard to accept that it was three years ago that you rushed into the world after only an hour of your mother’s labor, it’s equally difficult to accept that it’s only been three years. It seems like so much longer. This is undoubtedly due, in large measure, to the simple fact that you’ve developed more — cognitively and physically — in these three years than you’ll ever develop in your life. You’ve learned to talk, walk, run, dance, tickle, fix chocolate milk, sort things by color, chose your own clothes, put on your jacket, and a million other things that you will take for granted in the future but are in fact life changing advances. you have, in short, become more independent.

In the beginning, there was dependence. You could do nothing for yourself except burp and mess in your shockingly small diaper.

Each year, you’ve grown more independent, and more stubborn.

You’ve gone from having things done for you to insisting on doing everything for yourself. Insisting to the point of utter frustration at times.

And now, we celebrate your completion of three years. You’re starting your fourth year with us.

We bring you a small cake — Babcia’s work — and clap as you blow out the candle. Your first year, we did it for you.

Your first birthday’s presents were of a simple kind: they made noise, or flashed, or rattled. We unwrapped the presents for you and showed you how they work.

Now, you unwrap your own presents and excitedly examine them.

We still help you, though. It will be that way for a very long time. Hopefully, a very, very long time. You’ll understand that desire when you have children of your own.

Later today, L will celebrate her second birthday party. Her birthday is not until Tuesday, but one doesn’t have parties on Tuesdays. We’ve been practicing: thank you, happy birthday to you (which comes out “happy to you”), dziekuje, sto lat, blowing out candles, and so on.

Last night, K baked a cake, as I did some touch-up work on our new door.

The cake, when finished, was quite a masterpiece:

Today, we tried blowing up some balloons, but L was a bit wary:

Right now, she’s asleep. “When you wake up,” I told her, “It’ll be time for ‘Happy to you!'”

I’m surprised she even managed to go to sleep.

Three hundred sixty-five days pass in a flash. Graduated development means that L seems to be walking almost as soon as she begins turning over. She’s gone from barely noticing attention to enjoying being the center of it — a perfect description of Sunday, L’s birthday.

K baked a cake and cooked some lunch (I helped with the latter); we bought some decorations; and we invited some friends over (mainly our friends — L is a bit short on friends right now).

L having finished her first year means that I have to stop dumping all our photos of her into the “LMS First Year” Flickr photo set. It means that, while we’ll continue measuring in months for some time, we can now begin talking about L’s age in years.

For L it simply meant a time of presents and cake. She enjoyed the former but didn’t get much of a taste of the latter.

For us, it was the first of many reminders of how fast time passes. It brought to mind Malvina Reynold’s “Turn Around”

Where are you going, my little one, little one
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two, turn around and you’re four
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my door

Turn around, turn around
Turn around and you’re a young girl going out of my door

Where are you going, my little one, little one
Little dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone?
Turn around and you’re tiny, turn around and you’re grown
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your own

Turn around, turn around
Turn around and you’re a young wife with babes of your own

Turn around, turn around
Turn around and you’re the young girl going out of the door

Where are you going, my little one, little one
Where are you going, my baby, my own?

Nanci Griffith has a good version: