T o my beautiful baby girl,
I’m writing this as you are lying fast asleep next to me, your huge dark eyelashes resting on your perfect pretty face. You really are everything that makes my heart dance and sing and I feel so lucky that the universe decided to choose me to be your mummy.
It’s been a while since I sat down and wrote you a letter, six whole months to be exact and I just don’t know where the time has gone. It literally feels like last week when I was sitting in the living room with you and Ollie writing the last letter. Ollie was playing on the floor and you were watching Willy Wonka on the telly. Now he’s crawling and our mornings are a lot more chaotic.
So much has happened since then and yet it feels like only yesterday. For this months letter I thought I’d do something a little different and list out the little things that I want to remember about you at this age. You’re almost three now and it seems like such a big age. I want to remember absolutely everything about you now before you head off to school next year. Because it will come around so quickly and before I know it you’ll be twelve playing in your bedroom and I’ll be longing for our little morning cuddles on the sofa.
You’re so excited about school and can’t walk past the school gates without stopping to look for the children. It makes me so happy to see you so excited, but on the inside I’m also dreading and hope that it doesn’t come round too quickly. I can’t wait to be there to help you grow and learn lots of new things, but it also feels so weird that there will be such a large portion of your life I won’t be a part of and I am so scared of the day when you say you don’t need me anymore.
So for now whilst you’re still at such a delicious, funny, fun loving, caring, sassy, brilliant age I thought I’d make a list of all the things you do that make me smile the most so that I can remember them forever…
- I love the way you are SO excited when Daddy comes home from work or when I collect you from nursery. A wave of pure joy sweeps over your face and you are so happy to see us. When I pick you up, you run over to me shouting ‘Mummy’ and throw your arms around me like i’m the best thing you’ve ever seen. I feel so honoured that you’re that happy to see me. You have such a special sparkle in your eyes that your whole face lights up when you smile and I feel 1 million feet tall when I pick you up.
- I love how you are so cuddly and the way you love us with your whole heart. I know there will come a time when you don’t want to have cuddles off us anymore, but I don’t want to think about that just yet because we spend so much of our days cuddling. Its our favourite thing to do, from first thing in the morning when you wake up and ask for a Daddy cuddle, to just before breakfast when I come downstairs and say ‘mummy cuddle’, to 4pm when we have our chill time and a milky, to our big cuddle when I pick you up out of the bath, and the cuddles before bed time. I simply love cuddling you and so until you get too big to want us, we’ve decided we are just going to let you keep on sneaking into our bed in the middle of the night because we never want to have the memory that we told you to go away. We both know that one day all we’ll want is to hear your little feet scurrying out of your bedroom and into ours but you’ll be too big, so until then we are going to cherish every cuddle you give us.
- I love the way you love school and stand at the school gates watching the children play in the playground. Then you look for all the scooters lined up as we walk past. I think thats the main reason you want to learn to ride your scooter because thats how you think all the children get to school. You never have a bag off your shoulder full of things ‘for school’ and we are forever playing ‘teachers’, you’ve even taken to playing with my old geometry set to measure things.
- The way you LOVE the park! It’s your favourite place to go more than anything and I think its because your chance to play with other children there.
- Finding little things you’ve done as I tidy up after bed time. Like all the swag in your bag from Gran Grans house and the little drawings you stash away in the foot stool. If we are ever looking for anything around the house, your bags are always the first place we look. You’ve even started lining up all your things on the cabinets by the TV and shut us out of the living room while you ‘teach your children’. You are so funny and I have a big smile on my face as I write this.
- Your smell and the way your little mop of hair gets sweaty when you sleep. I don’t know what happens to it but when you come wandering downstairs with your squinty eyes after waking up too early you always look like a little lion.
- The way you always like to sleep with your legs on top of the covers – even when its cold. You’ve always been the same, even when you are in Mummy and Daddys bed and this summer you took it one step further by refusing to wear PJ bottoms to bed.
- Your laugh and the way you giggle from the back of your throat, through your back teeth when something really makes you laugh. It’s so infectious.
- Your little northern accent that actually sounds Russian and the way you pronounce some words like Bert from Mary Poppins! I’m really not sure how you are so southern.
- Your perfect, sweet, sweet nature and the fact that you always say sorry if you’ve done something wrong, never run off, always say thank you and cover your mouth when you cough. You really are so lovely, you hate to feel like you’ve done something wrong and always ask if you can go and play if we are in a public place. I feel so lucky to have you (but you do have little tantrums too).
- The way you are my best friend. We have the most perfect little chats you and I, about what you’ve been up to at nursery or what ‘Malla’ has been up to and ‘Chloe’. You are so animated when you talk, waving your hands and finger then when you say something you’re unsure about you lower the sound of your voice, talk out of the side of your mouth and let out a big laugh. You really are remarkable.
- The way you love your Gran Gran, Colin, Nanny and all of your cousins. They really are the best thing in your life and I’m so glad you have so many loving relatives around you.
- The way you think we are hilarious. Sometimes all I have to do is pull a funny face and it cracks you up. You have such a perfect little giggle. If you’ve shouted at me and got in a bit of a temper sometimes I can snap you out of it by making you laugh and I love that.
- The way you LOVE to play and have a wicked imagination. You love dancing and gymnastics and always make songs up to sing. You’re absolute favourite thing is dressing up too and you’ve started to put your own make up on. There have been a few times now that you’ve gone quiet and I’ve walked downstairs to see your face covered in purple lipstick. It makes me chuckle knowing you are so chuffed to be able to try the big girl things but you also know to be a little sheepish too.
- The way you are the best big sister and always look after Ollie, telling him not to put things in his mouth and saying ‘its ok Mummy’ when he’s sitting on you even though I know he must be squishing you.
- The way you always wan’t me to sit with you when you are tired. I feel so honoured and I love the way you snuggle under my arm at bed time or touch my face as you always have when you are trying to dose off to sleep.
This list could probably go on forever and you will be an old lady by the time I’ve finished it so I will spare you having to any more. We love you from your tiny toes to your button nose, from your cheeky chuckles to your fiery temper. You are one in a million baby girl and I hope you always know just how very special you are xx
