On filling her special drawer.

Hailey absolutely could not wait to make valentines for her friends this year. The prospect of going to school and coming home with 11 cards all for her...while also leaving one for each of her friends...was pretty much a Dream Made Reality Courtesy of Preschool.

You see, Hailey keeps every single piece of paper she ever acquires. She has birthday cards, random receipts she's drawn pictures on, and anything that falls between. And. She can tell you where every one of those pieces of paper came from. Every. Single. One.

She has a drawer in her dresser dedicated specifically to her collection, called her "Special Drawer." And if you are wondering, yes, we are equally creative with other things we name in our house, for instance her blankie is named "Blankie," moose named "Moose," and so on. Anyway, the Special Drawer needs the type of finagling only the tiny fingers of a four-year-old can maneuver just to get it opened and closed at this point, due to it's extreme fullness.

It's so full, in fact, that her whole dresser is at risk of spontaneous explosion. The floor could begin to shake at any minute. Papers could fly about, searching, no doubt, for a new place with more space. Receipts beg to be tossed in the trash each time they see the light of day, but she refuses. She crams them back in.

I once tried suggesting that we comb through it and keep only the things that were really special, though not sure how to make the distinction. Her response was (and with GREAT excitement), "Or, Mommy,...ORRRR...we could just find another Special Drawer to make more room!" Clearly this is a losing battle for me.

So today, we added to that drawer with many tiny cards of princesses and dinosaurs, and I know that her heart is ever so happy as she drifts off to sleep.
But way beyond all of that in the special category of life, was the fact that she insisted she hand write each card for her friends herself. Every card, including the ones for her teachers and a few other friends, was written by her, and her alone. I spelled things out, and she wrote them, some even phonetically. We sat at the kitchen table for about an hour. Not once did she complain, get fidgety, frustrated, or bored. I was just in awe of her focus. Her will. And her ability to actually do it legibly, writing most of the letters on her own, with no example. I had no idea she could do this. I'm not sure she knew it either. But there my little girl was, being a big girl.

I don't know if she realized it, or if it was equally exhilarating, but I felt like it was the first time she walked all over again. Like she was liberating herself with literacy. She's just on the cusp of understanding how to read, eager to work through a Dr. Seuss book time and time again, and I am just so inspired by her determination.

And here she is after her party, proudly carrying her card holder full of goodies to the car. But really, who needs a card holder when you have a Special Drawer, right? She's just amazing.