Happy Birthday, Raya

Dear, Raya--

Yesterday, 10/11/12, you turned three years old. Today when I picked you up from nap, not having seen you all day except for two brief minutes in the morning, you asked me to play "Habit" by Amanda West, which is the folksy song we all watched performed live in Pescadero two weeks ago (right-hand corner of blog for those who may not have heard it yet). When the music started playing, you asked me to hug you and dance with you, and after we'd danced to the song twice and we had hit the repeat button a third time, you started singing along with me. Then, when I told you it was time to go pick up Sava from school, you disembarked from my arms, waved at the iPad cheerfully, where the music was still playing, and you shouted, Bye, bad habit! 

Seriously, girl, you crack us up. It would be fair to say that both your dad and I look at you at least half a dozen times each day, and we know we are thinking the same thing, though we rarely verbalize it: How in the world did our genes combine to make this? 

Your verve, your energy, your unstoppable drive and insatiable curiosity give meaning for me, finally, to the phrase "larger than life." I used to think this was a metaphor, but now I believe it describes certain people literally. You are one of those people, and we are your lucky parents.

For most of your waking hours, you seem hardly ever at a loss about what to do or say. As long as someone is there to listen to you, talk to you, and, ideally, play babies with you, you are happy, enthusiastic, and carefree. You are not an angel--and your loud voice often tires the rest of us--but there is never a morning when your cheerful shout from the top of the stairs after dad has picked you up and helped watched you dress--Hiiiii, Mommy!!! Hiiiii, Sava!!!--does not warm our collective heart. Though we know each morning is the start of a long day of endless verbiage, we can't imagine facing life without you.

The mind boggles at all that you have become and accomplished this past year. People remark on how you no longer look like a little girl, and we know you have not sounded like one for at least a year. The elaborate syntax of your sentences and your original figures of speech often leave the rest of us gaping. You carry yourself like a six-year old, and I believe you think you are about twenty. You spend much of each day either playing babies or scheming about having babies when you grow up. A week or so ago, you told me in all seriousness, I want a baby and a daddy for my birthday. In the course of a brief discussion prompted by my remark that you already had a father, it was explained to me that "daddy" referred to the baby's daddy. You were asking for the whole package. You were going for the big prize.

Though I have no ambition or presentiment about who and what you will become, I have a feeling you will rarely settle for anything less than the big(ger) prizes in life. All of your contagious energy--verbal, emotional, social--is sure to lead you places where the rest of us have never been. We hope you won't mind having your family along for the ride.

lame photographed copy of school picture, which arrived today

Happy birthday, love.