being a grownup is hard, but being a 4 3/4 year old is much, much harder.

today is penny's 4 3/4 "birthday", something she has been looking forward to for a long time.  this morning i woke her up for school and she sleepily said to me "i am 4 3/4 now!"  we walked to school with noah, and i made them both stop playing their exploding shooting game as we entered (if this is way in the future, look it up).  penny has been having a rough time with missing us during the day, so i sent her with a photo of me & milo that she can look at.
when i came to pick her up, she asked me if she and a friend could have a playdate.  sounded great to me - having an activity for an hour would be awesome!  i headed to the playground with the girls while the other mom went to pick up her other kid.  penny was so excited running on the track that she completely faceplanted at full speed.  i was way behind because i had milo in the bjorn, but i got to her pretty quickly, scooped her up and carried her the rest of the way.  she told me, in the most pathetic voice you can imagine "i guess i just wasn't looking where i was going".  it took a minute or two, but she recovered pretty well and went off to play and climb - totally fine.  about two minutes later, the fellow mom came over and gave me a heartfelt apology - her son had misbehaved in school, and she had to bring him home to show him some consequences.  as a result, no playdate.  penny ran over to tell me she was working on the monkey bars, and i broke the bad news to her.  i suggested, as an alternative, maybe i take her for ice cream for her 4 3/4 birthday?  seemed like a good plan to penny!  she went over to tell the other mom, then went to say goodbye to her friend.  as she was coming back to me, she got full on kicked in the face by a girl dangling from the monkey bars.  not the other girl's fault at all, but she looked devastated, and penny could not believe it.
"i just don't think i'm ever going to stop getting hurt", she told me, as i did my best to comfort her.  we walked slowly and carefully to the ice cream truck, and managed to make it to the stoop with an ice cream cone with no further incident.  i told her that she'd better not fall out of her bed tonight.