Four.

This really felt like a milestone birthday for her.

She's old enough for her own octopus card, and is really very excited about getting one and using it to ride the bus.

She's ready for bubble gum. Every time she accomplished something in this past year, she'd comment, I'm one step to gum!

And, when she's ready, she'll have her very first sleepover at Nining's.

Can you believe it?

Progress since I've written this post---

Ella is going to have her first sleepover at Nining's on Saturday.

Ella has in fact had her first taste of bubble gum. Yesterday. Joey and I explained the bubble gum rules, the biggest of course being no swallowing. She knows this and even shared this with me before I could tell her. We added a few other ones like: gum is for outside, no running with gum and spit it out into a paper and into the rubbish. You know.

Well...this whole gum thing is going take some practise. She listened so well and knew that you can't swallow gum. But she did. Twice. Luckily, we cut a piece in half. But, the first time it happened she just burst into tears. We quickly washed it down with some water and when I asked her why she swallowed it, she replied, I don't know. So after a little break, we tried again. And she swallowed it, again. I suppose when you've only been swallowing the food you chew, the instinct to swallow is quite strong.

She'll get it. Eventually.