Happy Birthday, Sophie Bug!!!!

Six. SIX!!! I really can't believe how much fun I'm having, clearly, since these last six years have zipped right by me. But they have been six truly incredible years since they've meant time spent with the most awesome six year old I know.

You are such a cool kid. To say you're hilarious would be understatement of the most severe sort. To say you're brilliant and gorgeous, also huge understatements. To say I might be a little prejudiced on the matter, well, that's just crazy.

This year has been pretty exciting, because we've watched you grow into such a little person of your own. A person that daddy believes might drive her first couple of husbands nuts, but trust me on this one thing, sweetie: it's always better to be interesting and remembered than boring and forgotten. And you are one of the least boring people I know.

Today, for instance, we went to COSI, where we bought tickets to watch a movie on a giant screen. While waiting for it to begin, you decided to sit down by daddy's feet and sit your little bag of popcorn on one side of you, and your cup of lemonade on the other. A second after I noticed this and started to tell you to pick it up, Suzi knocked it over. A few pieces fell out, and Suzi started to grab them. "No, Suzi," I tell her, "Drop that! The floor is filthy and you know you're not allowed to eat popcorn anyways." (Popcorn is a big choking hazard for kids under four, so she had a soft pretzel.) Suzi dropped it without fussing, but then a couple of minutes later, you look up to me with those big green eyes shining with tears.

"What in the world is the matter?," I ask, adding, "Honey, it's no big deal, barely any fell out."  I thought you might be thinking you were in trouble.

"It's just that Suzi was trying to help me and you yelled at her," you say so accusingly.

"No," I tell you, "Trust me, Suzi was going to eat that popcorn."

You angrily defended your sister's honor for a few more minutes, but then dropped it until after we're driving home, and I hear you weeping quietly in the backseat.

"What in the world are you crying over now?," I ask.

Through your tears you say, "I was just thinking about how sad it was that when Suzi was trying to help me earlier, you yelled at her and she didn't deserve that and you were so mean."

Ouch!!! First of all, I hope, and fully expect, that by the time you are old enough to read this, you will know Suzi enough to know that I was right, and she really was going to try to eat that popcorn. Secondly, however, I hope even more that you still believe in and defend your baby sister so staunchly.

You are a sweet, wonderful, mouthy, hyper, beautiful, sassy little angel that I love so much it's honestly painful. Never does a day go by that I don't thank my lucky stars to have been blessed with you. I could write so much more, like about how, also today, you sat at a computer here at COSI that predicts how you'll look when you're old, and the pixelated image disturbed you so much that you wrapped yourself around me and quietly told me that you never want to grow old, and how that horrific thought caused my heart to pause for a couple of beats.

Or maybe I could write about how you worried tonight that something terrible might happen and daddy and I might die while you're still a kid, and so I assured you that you would probably be very old when we died, all the while praying that I'm telling you the truth.

But instead, and especially since I'm trying to type this on daddy's iPad while perched on the side of a hotel bed, watching you all sleep across the room while daddy snores beside me, I'll just say that lovely waters run deep and true.

You are the sunshine and love of my soul, and I hope that your birthday, and your life, are filled with all of the happiness and wonder that a superstar like you deserves. I love you, my sweet little Sophie-Bug!!!