Dear Mackay,

Here you are already 4 years old.  I remember when you were born.  Both your dad and I were in school, and it was right before finals.  I had you on Thursday, missed two days of school, and had six finals the following week.  Luckily your Grandma Linda was there to hold and snuggle you those few days that I was studying like mad.  I won’t take back those hectic first few days for anything.  Because that’s when we first became best friends.  And here we are, four years later, still best friends.

You today is hard to describe in just a few short sentences.  You don’t stop talking.  Ever.  Your favorite thing to do is play pretend.  Anything pretend that puts you in charge.  And you’ve constantly got a baby or stuffed animal that you are taking care of.  You love your little brother, but he never does what you want him to.  And you are always organizing or alphabetizing something.  You’re always a girl on a mission.  You can already read and write.  You always want to be older than you are.  You are always telling me you are a mom like me, or that you’re six, or 18, or 48. . . but never three or four.  I like you just the age you are, though.

Right now in the world our President is Barack Obama.  The first black president of the United States.  There is a lot of unrest in the world.  We are still at war in Afghanistan and still have troops in Iraq.  The Egyptian people recently freed themselves of their current government.  They did it with peaceful protest and prevailed.  Libya has also begun a revolt against their own government.  It unfortunately, has not been peaceful.  We are assisting the rebels with their war.  A few weeks ago Japan experienced a horrific tsunami and earthquake.  Thousands were killed, and entire towns were destroyed.  A nuclear plant is leaking radiation.  Their people are suffering.

Your life right now.  We live in Dallas, TX where your dad works for Southwest Airlines.  He absolutely loves his job in the Network Planning department.  He gets to travel to fun places and have really neat experiences.  We are so blessed.  I am still striving to balance my life as a stay-at-home mom and photographer.  I absolutely love the balancing act and hope that you are proud of the efforts I am making to pursue a dream I love.  I hope that you, too, one day pursue your own dreams.  I’ll be there to help you along the way.

I love you with all of my heart and am excited for what our future together holds.  I can’t wait to see how you grow and what you become this next year.  I can promise many more manicures and pedicures, shopping sprees and hot fudge sundaes, and dance parties to the Black-eyed Peas.  And fights.  Lots of fights.  But someday I hope you realize that when you were four and I was 24, I really was smarter than you.

I love you forever,

Mom

*As a side note: I write birthday letters to my children every year.  I make sure to tell them about their personality, what their life was like, and what the world was like.  I save them for the day that they graduate high school/get married/or just really hate me in their teenage years.  To view Zack’s letter from last year go here.

(image from here)

Mackay goes to our local rec center for special classes every week.  She’s done classes like Races and Relays, Craft Time, Cooking and Baking, etc.  (Wonderful for grocery shopping with only one child!)  One of the teachers, whom she loves, is an elderly Hispanic woman.  This lady is fantastic with the children, and you can tell that she spends a lot of time at home preparing for her classes.  That said…

The other day Mackay came home with a homemade book of “The Ugly Duckling”.  Her teacher had made the book with coloring pages inside, and then typed of the words herself and glued them in.  Mackay was so excited to read it when she got home.  First page:

“The mother duck waiting for her little ones to hatch.”  Umm…  A few pages in:

“Mama look…he is so big!  Mother duck still loves him no matter how bigger he was.”  Hmm…  This went on throughout the book and ended with:

“Remember to not make fun to anyone that is different from you.  Be kind and respect everyone.”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.  Mackay didn’t see any problems.  My first reaction was to hug this old woman–too sweet.  But I wasn’t sure if I should read this book anymore.  Will my kids start talking in broken English?