Fab Four

My heart is not quite as heavy today. (Perhaps because it is the size of a peanut?)

The V-meister celebrated the big oh-four with three grandmothers (my mom, the P-dog's mom, and my own grandmother) yesterday. And though my mother and I have yet to resolve our differences, we put on our happy faces for the sake of the V-meister.

If there is anything we women of the Rama clan can do, it's pretend that all is right with the world when company is over.

You know how they say that forcing yourself to smile sometimes makes you feel it?

Well, that's kind of what happened.

(Also, I had a brewski.)

I was happy because the V-meister was happy.

(I pounded it.)

But I was cursing like a sailor just before bringing out the cake. Because somehow, while attempting to lift the blasted thing out of its bakery box and onto the platter, my finger slipped and I smeared the words "birthday" and "4":



The V-meister was thrilled with her gifts.


(I had to run upstairs and say a quick rosary to counteract the seven years of bad luck opening the umbrella indoors will bring.)

V is taking being four very seriously, indeed:

• Just this afternoon, after being asked to clear her new magnetic dress-up dolls off the kitchen table to make room for lunch, she totally faked falling off her stool in a valiant effort to avoid the task. (Because, really, who wouldn't rather fall off a kitchen stool than pick up a few toys?)
  
  
• She will no longer wear any item of clothing with the number "3T" in the tag.
  
  
• She's not taking the J-dog's buttinsky tactics sitting down. The sibling wars have escalated to include scratching and wielding birthday presents as weapons (see photo above).

Oh, fabulous four!

Let the games begin.