You are five.

Five years old today. You still have blue eyes like your dad and hair that was the color I had before Ms. Clairol and Loreal started helping me with my greys. You have freckles on your nose and a mole on your forehead that I find adorable.

You wake up groggy. You rub your eyes and wobble a bit, but you usually follow it up with a smile. You and Eleanor are still in love with night dresses and fight over who gets to wear you dad's T-shirt at night.

For some reason, you don't prefer milk. Oh, you'll drink it if we put it in front of you, but you would rather a glass of water any day. The cheese sticks and yoghurt that tempt your sisters hold no appeal to you, but an ice cream sandwich is welcome any day. I believe that to be universal.

You love to tell a story. You're getting better at it every day.

You're the little mother. For good and for not so good. You lead, you plan, you boss, you help, you direct, and you say "now!" a lot. The mirror I get to look into every day is not always pretty. But you read to your sisters- the most wonderful made up stories. You encourage your sisters and tell them what a great job their doing, you hang their pictures on the fridge and you always want to rub their backs and kiss any owies. God help anyone who pushes or shoves your sisters on the playground.

You make your bed every morning. "Nice and flat" just like Granne taught you. I think your Granne is so proud of this because she still hasn't trained me to make mine every morning. You are her success story.

You are smart. So smart. And I worry that the group activities that we do are not challenging you enough. I love the way you are always willing to assist your sisters, but I worry. Hopefully I'll find a lot of things for you to do this summer with just Mommy-Gracie, Daddy-Gracie time. Your dad and I are trying to find a few things for us to do with you and your sisters one on one, but we have yet to overcome our biggest obstacle- getting out of pajamas. We're working on that.

You can reach my waist. You wrapped your arms around my waist last week and I wanted to cry. When did you get so big? When did you grow so much? HOW DID I MISS THIS?? You hugged me with your wonderful strong arms and told me you loved me and all I could think was, " Jordan hugs my kness, Eleanor grabs my leg, Holy crap....."

I love you. I love your beautiful smile and your bad knock-knock jokes and your made up songs. You are five today. Five. Happy Birthday, Grace Anne.

Today is mother's day

My mom taught me

• to love reading and books.
• resourcefulness. Imagination and creativity are powerful and not to be wasted.
• to change your mascara every year. That's why we give it to each other at Christmas.
• how strong a woman could be.
• that being alone doesn't have to mean lonely.
• to always show up for weddings and funerals. This was the tip of the iceberg of "just show up" because people remember who came to a wedding and a funeral. (And to always have a black dress or appropriate clothes for a funeral because in a time of grief you're not going to want to shop.)
• to be independent
• that oatmeal cookies are for breakfast if you change the name to "breakfast cookies."
• how to sew. She taught me about quilts and then encouraged me to run with it.
• to give quietly. That helping someone else financially or otherwise has its own rewards.
• that apologies are important.
• that family is priceless.

I've had a lovely day. There were breakfast muffins (batter baked with crisco, rolled in butter and dipped in cinnamon sugar are not cupcakes if eaten before ten in the morning) church, then the hardware store, hammock swinging and lots of gorgeous Mother's Day art. And tonight? Tonight I'm going to be SO surprised when I get Mother's Day cookies for dessert!

Dearest Jordan,

I cut your hair for the first time this morning. Not a lot, but enough to even out the long strands from the top of your head to the ones you've rubbed short on the sides and back. You've got a cute little bob that reminds me of your sister Grace and Katie.

No more baby straggly hair. No more floaty wisps. My head knows the haircut looks good but my heart doesn't like it one bit.

New Hampshire

I went to New Hampshire last weekend.

Because I could.

And because I was invited to go on a road trip with Kerry. But mostly because I could. It's been a long time since I went adventuring for adventure's sake. For the last several years this has comprised mostly of day trips to or mini outings to learn the terrain or inventory of an area. Sounds boring enough, but I liked going to a new place and finding something extraordinary even if it was at the local International supermarket.

When Kerry started talking about a weekend up north, I remembered my road trips in college. Forget about the destination for a minute, even the journey was a marked improvement. Where I was usually in the backseat, I got shotgun. Checking a map every five minutes? Now we have mapquest. Limited budget of college years became a cooler full of snacks, a six pack of diet coke (we'll talk about Mommy's addiction later) and a few twenties designated for crappy, greasy delightful road food. And foraging for decent music every thirty minutes was replaced by an ipod full of swing music, gravelly voice seducers and an audio book about the CIA that had my attention for over six hours of the ride home.

Or maybe that was Kerry's evil plan so I would shut up. Didn't work, but I was distracted for a good portion. I consider myself well read and have an okay understanding of history but even I had to ask a few questions along the way. I mean, who uses Halcyon in every day conversation? And just for reference sake: hal c yon

n.

1. A kingfisher, especially one of the genus Halcyon.

2. A fabled bird, identified with the kingfisher, that was supposed to have had the power to calm the wind and the waves while it nested on the sea during the winter solstice.

adj.

1. Calm and peaceful; tranquil.

2. Prosperous; golden: halcyon years.

We left Virginia on Friday and drove up north, carefully avoiding Interstate 95 and all the traffic that always seems to accompany that road. I'm sure it won't have improved by the time you're old enough to read this and drive that highway. It was a gorgeous drive and I got to see some areas of the country that I either haven't seen before or have forgotten. We had french fries, milkshakes and a slew of other food that I would have tried to avoid feeding the three of you. And it was gooooood.

Kerry's home town was a delightful and I kept looking around her parent's house and finding wee surprises. I unknowingly usurped Kerry's usual bedroom and found ABC blocks nestled underneath the bedside table. Her mom used a small quilt rack to hold the towels (or maybe we've been reinventing a towel rack all these years?) and had a tiny pastry box holding four incredible chocolates tied up with a pretty ribbon. I wanted to move in. Or at the very least steal the bed and put it in the back of the truck. But that would probably mar our chances of going back, so I'll wait until next time.

More later. You guys are getting frantic on the playground and are a bit distracting. I wonder if popsicles would help?