Five

One last birthday to share. CA turned 5 on August 1.

She finishes out our collection of summer birthdays. Baby H was supposed to share an August birthday with her, but things didn't go as expected in that department, did they?

Most of the big girls had special things prepared for her well in advance. EG bought a big bouncy ball for CA and cleverly wrapped it as a...lollipop.

CA has a lot of friends. Mrs. M is one of her best friends.  Miss Birthday Girl was happy, happy to unwrap the Dalmatians toy Mrs. M brought.

Nothing like a watch to make you feel like a big girl! My mom made sure she got one similar to those the big girls had received on their birthdays.

The expression on her face in the above photo is priceless. She loves Playmobil! She'll pretend for hours at a time with it. We gave her this set and a fun matching game.

Each of our children has taught us something new. God has used each one to point us to Himself in different ways and make us more like Jesus. I've talked here before about CA's insomnia years. Lack of sleep is a seemingly small thing in the grand scheme, but oh, my, did the Lord use the two years of severe sleep deprivation to change my heart in so many ways.

Another happy observation, and perhaps an encouragement to those who have a little one who's in a difficult stage, is how dramatically CA has changed in the time since her insomnia problems.

Her sleep habits normalized around her 2nd birthday. Until then, she was incredibly restless and seemed almost uncomfortable most of the time. Once she became mobile, CA was The Destroyer, wandering the house, seeking something to pull out and dump. Then she'd move on.

She was a sweet baby, but I realized over time that we didn't connect much (bonding) in those first two years, and her developmental milestones were slightly delayed.

I did not see most of this for what it was until she passed two years old and began to sleep. When she got sleep, she began to change. With surprising speed, over the course of a few months, I'd say, she had caught up on many developmental milestones and we began to enjoy a connectedness that hadn't been there before. Very gradually, she acquired a bit more of an attention span and the ability to self-satisfy.

And like big sister MK, we started to see in CA a lightning-fast intellect. She learns with ease and is our one child who possesses a sense of direction. While riding in the car, she's the only one who will notice if I take a different path than normal to a destination. How true it is that each child is unique...

Glad for every day God has given us with CA, praying she'll have long life of loving Jesus.