I apologize for this being a day late. Yesterday was the March 10th (that Portia has been talking about for weeks without knowing what it really meant)! The “birthday coming up March!” the “my birthday coming up ‘lowly!'” finally actually arrived!

A moment that I feel nicely describes this day in Portia’s eyes is when the whole family went into her room to wake her up by singing “Happy Birthday.” At the end of the song, she still looked thoroughly confused. So I enthusiastically informed her that it was her birthday! She responded with “Yeah! Coming up!” But we assured her that no longer was it coming up. It was HERE! It took her most of the day to get a real grasp on the idea. 🙂

We tried for multiple weeks to figure out what she might want for her birthday besides cake and ice-cream, but we never got any suggestions for gifts or activities. She is only two after all. So we just tried our best to do things she would enjoy. We did presents, ate some foods we know she loves (like cheese), had loving visitors, and went to the park to enjoy the springy weather. Then came the what she really wanted all along.

At the end of cake eating, Portia decided she wanted to just take some bites straight off the cake. We started taking pictures and laughing and loving it, so Fay wanted a turn. Fay said “I want a taste!” to which Portia replied “Nope. Mine birthday.” and continued munching away. So, in the end, she did grasp the birthday concept!

We had a lot of fun celebrating Portia’s day! But what is way more fun is just having Portia around!

Portia is currently our best eater. She will usually eat whatever you give her. But her true love in the food world is cheese. She would probably eat just cheese for every meal if we let her. She loves to have cheddar cheese in a sandwich of crackers. She says “crackers and cheese and samich” which is just about the cutest thing ever … the first 8 times she says it during snack time. 🙂 She did get just that with her lunch on her birthday, and was very pleased!

Something I love about Portia is that so far she acts quite left-handed. Lots of brilliant people are/were left-handed like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and my dad/his whole family; and I have always wanted a lefty! So, even though people like to fuss about how we live in a right-handed world, I am super excited that she currently favors her left hand!

Portia is a super fun playmate for the other kids right now because she gets excited about anything her older siblings love. She loves being a princess with Fay, and she also loves super heroes with Carter (She named her neck Steve Rogers a few weeks ago.)

Another thing we love about Portia is that she is endlessly enthusiastic. She responds with super excitement to anything you ask her. Whether the question be “Did you have a good sleep last night?” or “Do you want to go to your favorite museum?” or “Do you need some more cheese?” The answer is a giant “YEAH!!!!!!!!!!”

But she doesn’t love everything. And she dislikes with just as much passion as she likes. Some things she dislikes with passion include: going to nursery (she threw up on a nursery leader because she was so upset at being there), when you play with her toys the “wrong way,” when you tell her she can’t have that candy she wants, when she doesn’t get the bench at dinner, etc. She still has some of that screech left in her from before she could talk, and it comes out clearly when she isn’t pleased.

We love our little fireball! And we are so grateful to have had her in our lives for two years!