Five year old...

nieces are tiny bits of glee.

My lovely, bright, precious niece, Sydnee Lynn is five today.  As she told me, "It's a WHOLE HAND years old!"  I think of Syd as the 'Junior Mint' of my nieces/nephew.  Sweet with a little minty bite.  I have absolutely crazy love for this girl.

She's always been very independent.  When she was a baby, she wanted to be put down to sleep.  No holding her tiny swaddled cuteness after rocking her.  She would stretch and squirm until you put her down.  Now, she is always lovey (unless she's busy lining up her stuffed animals) and hugs and smooches at random moments.  She declares her love for you whenever and wherever the mood strikes her.

She's demanding and stubborn and kind and brilliant.  She will hear a word, love that word, and use it or forms of it religiously until she fancies another word.  Last year at a family Xmas party the word was 'seriously'.  There was a monster upstairs, seriously.  She was serious, she saw it with her own two eyes.  No one should go upstairs, seriously.  Maybe Joel could seriously scare it away.  Lately it is 'actual' or 'actually'.  I went on a bear hunt at her preschool, but I needn't worry, since she assured me there were "No actual bears."

She will ask you to do something or give her something and then say, "Pleeease, I'll be your very best friend."  How do you fight THAT?  Most of the time what she wants is chocolate.  She has taken the first step and admitted her addiction, "I'm a chocoholic, seriously."  When she was being potty trained, her rewards were part of a Hershey's bar or M & Ms.  Or as she called them, "Mershey's" and "NimNims".  The girl would live on cereal and chocolate, if you'd let her.  (And sometimes at Aunt Lisa's, she gets to.)

One of my favorite Sydnee quirks is her 'piles'.  We went on vacation to Alabama, and Syd brought three or four small backpacks of stuffed animals, small rubber zoo animals and various other itty bitty things she loves.  Most of the things were not allowed to come out of the backpacks.  The few things she did take out were piled on a side table, and NO ONE was to touch them.  Her big sister, Maddy, would take an item out of the pile and Sydnee would immediately notice it.  "Maddy, do NOT mess with my PILES!!!"  Sydnee believes her things belong inside other things.  When they are out, they are often lined up.  It's not unusual to walk into her house and see a line of small horses on the dining room floor.  If you do happen to see them, don't touch them, she will KNOW and be very, very sad.

Sydnee is sunshine and joy.  She is fizzy and feisty.  She is beautifully frustrating and precociously compassionate.  She is big sparkly eyes and a pouty lip.  She is an overwhelming rush of affection.  She is a wild child, hands on her hips, worm-loving, 'but I just NEED to tell you something' ball of ridiculous.  She is never a dull moment.  As her 'Crampa' says, she's a dandy.

In a few weeks, Sydnee will no longer be the baby of her family.  She's getting a new little brother.  I'm just hoping she doesn't put him in one of her piles.  I'm serious.  She just might actually do that.  And we might have to leave him there, otherwise, we'd catch all kinds of hell from a spunky five year old.

Sydnee & Aunt Lisa