Of Turning Four - Moped

At lunchtime yesterday I rang the bell in Bro´s place and when I arrived upstairs I found my Niece hiding behind her Dad. Who said, "you spoke all morning of your Aunt and now that she´s here you hide from her?!"
When we went inside she was ok with me – usually it takes her 10 minutes at least.

On the kitchenfloor she unpacked her pressies – well, her Mum was in the kitchen and I certainly wanted to say hello :-)
Best pressie really was the cheapy-camera – though she didn´t get you cannot see the pics immediately but have to bring the film to the shop!

Friends can see the whole pics here.

Later the neighbor turned up and then her Oma came and her pressies were merely clothes. Niece proudly unfolded each piece and showed the clothes around, to every one of us, very cute.

The colorful ribbons she handed out as pressies to us - it´s her Birthday, she said, but others should get pressies, too.
Cute kid, amazing she can care that way and imagine how others feel.
When I said, "oh, look at the dogs and cats on the wrapping, how cute", she carefully folded it and "presented" me with it.

Then Bro brought in some ballons and the games began!

Little Niece invented the games, first with one ballon, then each of us had one and she ran from one to another and we exchanged the ballon – she giggled and jumped and ran and, oh my, then this happened:

That´s exhaustion, right?
To her defense: She´d helped until late preparing cakes and woke up very early, screaming “today is my Birthday!”, too. And certainly no naps inbetween.

The two of us then made her “Birthday-chair” – funny was she could write her name correctly, but with letter-stickers she mixed it up and didn´t want to believe me until I called her “AMI” – then she tried to get the “A” off in a hurry before anyone else sees it. Try not to laugh openly at that!

When finally her Opa arrived we were enough guests for finally, finally starting with the cakes, well, nearly.
At first more pressies to unwrap and then off to Opa´s house (thankfully direct neighbor) – he´d forgotten the flowers! Not for Mummy, but for the Birthday-girl:

A “princess-bouquet”! Was she proud!

Her fav cake, beautiful, no?

And then the surprise-cake came, mind you – it must´ve been hot, it´s a true wonder she didn´t set her hair on fire!

We were all so alarmed, we didn´t even tell her she has to make a wish!

A tad later my cell rang and I heard her in the background – Moped is running, yay!
Since I forgot my helmet Bro wanted to go get his wife´s and Niece was in tears - she wanted to come with me.

Since it was her Birthday, Bro finally gave in and said: "There´ll be people you don´t know - you will be a good girl and greet every one of them - no hiding behind me, otherwise we leave immediatly!"

She grabbed our hands real hard as we came nearer and you could see she fought her fear hard.
She recognized Ingo, who wished her a happy Birthday first, as then did my customers - she managed through it all!

Before starting the Moped luckily we saw her Uncle with family arrive and since they have a Baby, Niece wanted to go.
Ingo´s Nephew once wanted to hear her - and started crying upon how loud she is ;-)



So, there I was, helmet in hand for a little tour, the three of us, Moped, Ingo and me.
Ingo, to R: "I advise no two adults on her, she won´t take it.". Ummm. Hello? What am I, a child?!
It was a short tour only, she went out, too, and it felt like too fast. The older I get the more afraid of falling I get.

R, who´ll buy her, said to me today I seem to be sadder than Ingo, that we let go of her. But, alas. My eyes can´t take the wind, Ingo´s back won´t get better from starting via kick-starter, so it was the right decision.
R will keep her the way she is, he promised to take a nice pic when she´s all shiny again and he´ll come to work with her, too, so I can "visit".
Call me stupid, but I am sad. We had such fun times with her, such exciting times, too.
And the sound is just awesome.

I left for Niece - but Niece was happily playing with the boys.

We went outside and suddenly the boys were of no interest anymore, I had to hop onto the trampoline with her.

By golly, my stomach!!!!

The boys ran over to the swings. There are three, two side by side and one single on a tree.
Three swings, three kids, all good, huh?
Nope.
Niece started crying, then screaming, for minutes (I kid you not!). One of the boys left the swing. Still whenever someone asked what´s wrong she cried-screamed even louder.
She wanted to be on the twin-swing - with me.
Why didn´t she say that?
Such hard frustration due to being tired and not wanting to?
I really wonder why she´s so attached to me, I´m a boring person after all...

Then soccer it was supposed to be - according to the boys.
Niece didn´t get the hang of it and the boys didn´t get that.
The older one then shouted, "women!" and Niece laughed her head off.

So:
Niece is a woman at age 4 and I´m no adult at age 42... it´s a strange world over here ;-)

We threw the ball from one to another, Bro joined in, Niece told us were to stand, varying the distances - an organizer we have here, huh?

Amazing.

She solves puzzles ages 5+ easily, too.

And with her glasses... oh, my. She looks so much less than a small kid, it´s kinda sad.

When the glasses hurt her ears I said, go see a good optometrist, and yips, over she went to her Daddy :-)

I repeat myself, but... four years old already!

If you care about the salad-thingy, please read the comment to this post - thanks Grace, I am a happy salad now (still a tad afraid of Big´s words not coming true...)