Celebrate Good Times.

Last week, Marley turned four. This means that every so often, she makes her bed in the morning, all crumpled and rumpled, and I hold back from re-making it by actually pulling the sheet up from where it's wedged at the end of the mattress and smoothing out the blanket.

She is, as promised, no longer afraid of Heather's golden retriever Stella. Or, at least, she no longer sounds like one of the Three Stooges while running away from her. And she keeps talking about how much bigger she is, pointing to places she can now reach. At gymnastics last week, she asked me to put her clothes on a higher (pink) cubby.

(That was a doozy of a morning, by the way. First, I spilled coffee on my pants getting out of the car. Then, I kept directing Marley to "Keep walking. Keep walking," while I shuffled behind her with Rudy in the infant car seat hanging from one elbow and the straps of my purse and diaper bag not quite over my other shoulder. When we walked into the lobby of the gymnastics studio, Bean stopped, Rudy's car seat swung forward and conked her on the head, and all the other moms watched Marley wail while I was all exasperated: "That's why I told you to keep walking!" and trying to disencumber myself. I would not be a good Sherpa. Also, within fifteen minutes of that incident, I closed the bathroom door just as another mother said, "I think that's going to lo-" Click. And then Marley ran out of the gym because she had to go potty, so I had to interrupt class to get the key from the teacher. At first I said, "I'm sorry, but we closed the door," and then I remembered to act like a grown-up and corrected myself. "Actually, I shut the door and now it's locked." After class, I met Heather at an elder law attorney's office, and we attempted to conduct a meeting while Rudy squawked, and Marley practiced her forward rolls and practically hurled rainbow-colored goldfish crackers through the air.)

That night, we had Bean's party at Pump It Up, a nearby inflatable paradise for kids that Marley refers to as The Jumpy Place. Marley was non-stop once the door to the first room, featuring a bouncy house, a double slide, and an obstacle course, opened and was sweaty within a half-hour. In the second room, she landed on her glasses and I fixed them and then re-fastened her ponytail while, I swear, she fell asleep for half a minute and then rallied to race and bounce and slide some more.

My sisters' kids had a good time, too. Here's Owen at his cutest racing down a slide. Riley was so excited she just about peed herself. And Emma took her usual time warming up to frantic activity, but thankfully, her dad Jeff arrived in time to bounce around with her since Danielle's about five months pregnant. With a boy. Which is great, because soon Owen will have a boy cousin to dress up in princess clothes with! (Yesterday, when Heather told Emma she would be watching her and that she should bring her new Snow White movie over, Owen whined, "I wanna watch Sleeping Ludy!")

And then there was pizza, cake, and ice cream. And oh, the princess, fairy, supplies-for-the-pink-vanity (from Stella!) presents. Marley's Get-After-It expression (below) shows just how well the chocolate cake went over.

When Todd and I were on our first date almost ten years ago, we each named three of our pet peeves. These were my three: animals dressed in clothes, the misuse of "your" and "you're," and classroom contributions that are prefaced with "I was just gonna' say..." (SAY IT! YOU'RE SAYING IT RIGHT NOW!) Todd, apparently misunderstanding the category, actually said poverty and litter. Sometimes he is so earnest that it is painful. But good for him. And his third was: people who say things like, "Oh, I'm terrible at math," or "I just love chocolate."

Guess what? Things change. Because now I believe that, in the right outfit, with the right pained expression, an animal in clothing is pretty funny. And Marley really, truly LOVES chocolate.