Your fourth birthday and all your cousins were here

Second cousins, anyhow, and they had gifts—

Good ones. Expensive ones.

Not to mention your aunts and grandparents—

All wonderful

But when you opened the polka-dot pajamas

and Cinderella castle kit we picked out together,

you jumped and screamed and ran to me for a hug.

The kind of joy you can only have at three turning four.

I'd even forgotten about the castle because

we'd bought it months before, and your mother

wrapped it. But then I remembered the moment,

shopping at Big Lots for nothing in particular,

not so important that it deserved your

outburst. And so now an inexpensive gift

that probably will turn out poorly when we work on it

has provided two perfect memories of you at three

turning four.