At the SE AK state fair, 2011, Meadow was obsessed with the bouncy house. So much so that she eventually stopped bouncing and just went in to enjoy the ambience.

Watch her closely before the race, you can see her using her “telescope” to try and find me at the finish line.

Once I got over the shock of seeing Meadow’s angel-soft skin with a bunch of makeup on it…

I saw how much fun she was having with all her fellow ballerinas…

And how she didn’t get shy on stage…

And was instead having the time of her life.

Meadow’s been taking WeeSki lessons every Saturday for the last few weeks. She’s getting pretty comfy on the sticks, and does a pretty good job turning and stopping on her own. Here’s a pic I snapped of us on the chairlift for her first time ever:

Meadow loves her ballet class and was especially OVERJOYED to receive a surprise package in the mail the other day from none other than the Ballet Fairy. Here she is wearing the fancy outfit some secret fairy sent her:

Meadow wears this dress nearly every day. So she was overjoyed to get to wear it for Halloween. Depending on when you ask her, she’s either a fairy princess, standard princess, or Sleeping Beauty.

We put her down suit on under the dress for trick or treating in the 50mph winds and sideways rain (neither of which she seemed to notice).

Shortly after her fourth birthday, Meadow got to thinking about the impermanence of life. We were laying in bed after reading books when she said:

“Daddy, I don’t want you to die”

I was a bit taken aback, and didn’t know what to say to this. So I just hugged her, kissed her, and said:

“Oh my baby girl”

I could tell she was thinking things through. A short while later she said:

“Daddy, I don’t want to die”

And this struck me even harder, because I just can’t bear the thought. I had to take a beat to swallow, but then decided honesty is the best policy.

“We all die honey”

She took this in stride, and matter-of-factly said:

“I want to stay alive. I don’t want my friends to die”

At which point I realized that I couldn’t leave her with the dismal imagery of losing her self, her family, her friends and simply fading to black. All my agnostic years came to a head in this very moment and I told her:

“There’s more to this life than we know”

And with this I could see her eyes wander off into the land of imagination. Eventually her breathing became rhythmic, and she drifted off to sleep.