five years and three months

Dear Leilani,

 

We get through a lot of paper in our house.  You are prolific in your writing and drawing and making things, all of which requires a great deal of paper and plenty of sticky tape.  You went through an experimental stage for a few days so instead of getting our lovely ‘love’ notes which generally look something like this:

Instead you wrote ‘To Mommy, I hate you, Love Leilani’.  Nice.  You did make sure to point out to me the bit at the bottom where you’d written that this wasn’t real, it was just a poem!  One of my favourite things you’ve ever drawn is this picture that you did for me:

It says ‘To Mommy, this is you mommy being sick, love Leilani’

I particularly like the detail of my doggy slippers and also the germs coming out of my mouth.  This is still a regular occurrence in our house thanks to your baby brother.  You like to come and talk to him through my tummy, telling him firmly to stop kicking and poking and making me sick.  Nice to see that he’s ignoring your bossing already.

 

Poppa had a delightful thank you letter from you when he gave you a new pen one day, unprompted and written by yourself:

That one says ‘To Poppa, Thank you ever so much for the pen. Love you Poppa.  Love Leilani.’

 

One day you tried to trick us by writing a letter that said ‘To Poppa, I think you smell, Love mum’ which you thought was hilarious, even when we pointed out that we could tell it was your handwriting.

 

Most recently you tried to earn some cash with your writing.  You wrote a letter to the fairies, as shown below:

That one says ‘To fairies, please can you give me a fifty pee, love Leilani’.  You put it under your pillow and of course I forgot all about it but the next morning the first thing you did when you woke up was to check under the pillow.  The letter was still there.  ‘Oh dear, it must be because Sunday is the fairies day off,’ I said, improvising quickly.  ‘Maybe if you leave it there again they’ll come tonight instead?’  So this morning you awoke to check under your pillow and this time, although they disappointingly hadn’t left you any money, the fairies had left you a letter with a magic kiss inside and an explanation that they only leave money for teeth!

 

You haven’t quite got the hang of money yet.  Because it was Chinese New Year, Poppa and I gave you your red packets with money in.  He went first and you opened it up and pulled out a £10 note.  ‘What’s this?’ you said, looking a bit disappointed.  ‘It’s money!’ we replied.  ‘Oh, but I wanted coins!’ you said.  Poppa quickly took it back, reclaimed his £10 and put in 2 pound coins instead which you were thrilled about, allowing me to quickly switch my red envelope over to coins instead too!  I’m pretty sure we won’t get away with this next year…

 

I love you, my little writer,

 

Mommy xx

five years and two months

Dear Leilani,

When I was pregnant with you I was very sick.  I had something called hyperemesis and I was signed off work for week after week, throwing up five or six times a day.  In the end I decided to resign from my job and so stayed at home, growing you, spending hours sitting in the bathroom reading book after book in an attempt to escape the endless nausea.

This baby in my tummy now began much more easily, and although I felt sick I found that if I ate something it got a bit better for a little while, and at least I wasn’t being sick.  But then a few weeks before Christmas Baby Ng decided to spice things up a little and so, at the point where I should’ve been getting all bloomy and beautiful I instead started being sick every morning.  Then over Christmas itself the mornings just weren’t enough and so as we travelled from house to house visiting family I found myself getting up several times a night to be sick.  And so I rang in the new year by watching the London fireworks on TV with Poppa but having to run half way through to the bathroom.  Hello 2012!

When you were in my tummy I used to repeat to myself that it was a good sign of a healthy pregnancy, and that all that sickness at least meant you weren’t so likely to fall out of me like the other babies, but it was hard some days to keep going, not knowing if it would stop before you were born or not or if I would just go crazy before then.  In the end it did stop, at 22 weeks on the day I went for my second scan, and so this time round I’m hoping that it will stop by then again, because throwing up every night is really not much fun and I just want to feel like me again.  A friend wrote in an email that it will all be worth it, because if the baby is as delightful as you then the world will be a better place, which is a nice way to think about it.  Hopefully I’ll feel better soon.

Anyway, in spite of all the sick December was a happy month.  You were an angel in the school nativity and make us very proud with your singing and actions.  I managed not to cry, but Poppa embarrassed himself by giving your head teacher a big hug at the end!  You were star of the week again, this time for “always doing the right thing” which doesn’t surprise me at all, and you’ve been doing really well with your reading and your maths too with lots of adding and taking away.  I love to hear about what you’ve been getting up to at school, and of course I look forward to your daily update of who has had time out and why!

Father Christmas cut things a little fine with his acquisition of your requested ‘cuddly toy’ this year, but he managed it in the end and so a large brown bear called Philbin has joined our family.  I heard you teaching him how to play jokes on us the other day, so he’s doing a good job as a temporary sibling at the moment.  We had a lovely time visiting family over Christmas, but it was nice to come home again and just relax in our last days of holiday.

So, it’s going to be an exciting year this year.  I wonder whether you’ll get a sister or a brother?  I’m pretty sure we won’t let you choose the name either way, even though your suggestion of us each choosing one name and then joining them all together was an interesting compromise…

I asked you once if you miss me when you’re at school.  You said no, because you hold me in your heart when I’m not there.  Me too sweetheart, me too.

love
Mommy x

five years and one month

Dear Leilani,

So, last week Poppa and I showed you this photo and asked you who it was.
‘Me when I was a baby?’ you said.
Nope, guess again baby girl.  There’s no need now for any cuddly bears to be stuffed up my jumper because now there’s a real live baby in there, cooking itself up into a brother or sister for you!  I have to say, knowing your obsession with multiple births I was very relieved there weren’t twins.  Or worse.  Just one tiny blob of a baby who, all being well, will burst into our lives next May.

You’re very excited at the prospect of someone other than me to boss around, and you’ve been telling us (and everyone else you know) all about the baby and how helpful you’ll be and all the different things you’re going to teach it.  My favourite thing about telling you was the way you snuggled up close to me and gave me a big, big hug, telling me how you’d look after me and make sure I was okay.  It’s sweet to see your shy smile whenever you come and touch the bump, which is probably more cake than baby right now to be honest, and I only hope you can maintain the excitement for months on end because May seems like a very long way away right now.

It’s nice that you’re old enough to understand why I’m tired, or that sometimes things can go wrong with babies, or that if the baby does make it safely it won’t actually be able to play hide and seek for quite some time.  Still, we already know you like little babies, and you’ve told us how you already know all about how to hold them and you’ll help us figure out what the baby needs and you’ve even offered to be the one to get up in the night when it cries.  I may hold you to that.  I’m not vomiting five times a day like I did with you, although I do feel pretty grotty.  But at least now we’ve told you, you know why I don’t want to run around or do the monkey bars with you.

So, apart from all the sibling excitement life has gone on pretty much as normal.  You’re writing us lots of lovely notes, all phonetically spelled out and usually understandable apart from the long words where you forget where you’ve got up to and the word just stops in the middle.  You’re also very excited about your school Christmas play, for which you’ve been learning lots of surprise songs.  We don’t know yet if you’ll be an angel or a sheep.  I’m hopeful it’ll be an angel as I don’t much fancy my chances at making a recognisable sheep costume.  Well, whatever part you end up playing it’s pretty certain that I will cry copiously the whole way through, especially since seeing the John Lewis Christmas advert the other day reduced me to a blubbering wreck and I can’t even tell friends about it without filling up all over again.

Those first few weeks of being pregnant I spent in denial for the most part, too frightened of what I knew could go wrong to believe it was true.  Now it’s all starting to seem very real, and it’s terrifying in a different way.  Being an only child, I have no idea how families work when there’s more than one kid.  Will I really love you both?  I can’t imagine loving anyone else the way I love you, my baby girl.  How will it be, with four people in the house?  Will I have to make 5 days worth of packed lunches every weekend and make you sleep in your uniform so that we’re not an hour late to school every day?  Where will we put another bike when it learns to ride?  Will we figure out a way to get this one to eat vegetables?  Will we manage to be fair and make sure you don’t feel left out or that the baby doesn’t get ignored?  Will my arms be big enough to fit you both?

I guess it’s a learning experience for all of us…I know you’re going to be a great big sister though.  Just about the best any baby could want.

I love you.
Mommy xxx

five years old

Dear Leilani,

My birthday baby.  You’re so far from being a baby now it’s frightening.  Poppa spent last night talking to me about how you were now half way to ten, and a quarter of the way to twenty.  I put my ear plugs in to block him out.  But today you turned five and there was nothing I could do about it.  I asked you at breakfast if you felt any different but you said no.  You were just SO EXCITED that it was your birthday and you could finally, after months and months of waiting, go to Build-a-bear-workshop and make your rabbit that you’ve had your heart set on since, ooh, your last birthday!  That SO EXCITED has been repeated most days over the last week or so, all in relation to your party, your birthday and your trip to build-a-bear.  That rabbit is now tucked up in bed with you, lumbered with the name Rory Lorelai Rabbit (thanks to Poppa’s Gilmore Girls obsession).

The build-a-bear dream also involved a pair of rollerskates.  For the rabbit.  We’re not entirely sure what you’d imagined would happen with these rollerskates, but sad to say after putting them on Rory Lorelai it did all end in tears.  We’ve taken them back off and suggested perhaps Rory Lorelai needs to practice before wearing them.  To be honest I’m just glad they’re on the rabbit and not you.  By the way, that Rapunzel dolly that Uncle Den bought you?  Poppa’s spent the day doing her hair.  When we got home from your friend’s house tonight he’d braided it and put a clip in.  So we know what he might like for Christmas.

To celebrate today, after building the rabbit, we had lunch in your choice of restaurant which meant, of course, McDonalds.  Followed by a Krispy Kreme doughnut for pudding.  Good choice!  We did your birthday party last weekend and had lots of fun, just in our house with your friends.  This year you requested the Belle cake from Tesco and we had a princess and pirate theme with tattoos and games.  It all went well, although I felt like I could sleep for a week afterwards and we’ve been eating party leftovers ever since.

Since then we’ve had a quiet half term, with lots of crafting and colouring and lie-ins.  It’s been nice just having time together to wear our pyjamas and do nothing.  School held some parent meetings near the end of term, so I got to go and have a little chat with Miss Hughes about how you’re doing.  She said you’re a really good girl at school, doing everything she asks, being helpful and working hard.  I hope you continue to love school the way you do at the moment.  It’s so nice to see the pleasure you get from doing homework and learning new things.

So, as Poppa says, now you’re half way to ten.  It’s been five years since that evening when I finally, finally held you in my arms and had no idea yet who you would turn out to be.  I thought you were a boy when I saw you, with your fat red face.  It seemed so unreal, that I had made you in my tummy and then there you were, a real person in my arms.  You didn’t have a name, because none of the names we’d chosen were right for you.  You were already your own person, and we took some time figuring out exactly who that is.  I know now that you really feel the highs and lows of life, rising up on the wings of anticipation, like with your rabbit today, and then thudding back down to reality when she doesn’t rollerskate herself around the house.  You like to learn things, you like to ask why, you love to be in charge.  You sing heartily, if not always in tune, you like to tease, you can’t help but tattletale, especially if it’s Poppa doing something he’s not supposed to be doing.  You have a big heart – you let Maia open some of your birthday presents when she was here because she was sad that it wasn’t her birthday.  You can sulk for England, on occasion, you can climb like a monkey and you can talk and talk and talk…and you will always, always be my baby girl, no matter how old you grow, and I will always love you.

Happy birthday sweetheart.

Mommy xx

four years and eleven months

Dear Leilani,

My little school girl.  So you’re all settled into school now, in Bonsai class with your lovely teacher, Miss Hughes, who you’ve already declared your love to.  Starting school was a doddle in the end.  They broke you all in gently, with 2 weeks of going part time before doing a full week of full days.  I was very brave and I didn’t cry at all that first afternoon when I left you.  I expect the three different types of cake that Julie and I went to eat in the cafe afterwards helped considerably, but really it all felt very exciting.  You were absolutely fine, of course, and as soon as we got into the classroom you’d find your name, put it in the packed lunch/school dinner box, then scoot quickly over to the carpet and sit with your legs crossed and ‘hooked up’ (some weird hands and arms thing they’ve taught you all to do to avoid fidgeting!)

The time I felt closest to crying at the school was on your first full week.  Miss Hughes had you all lined up in the playground and the parents were meant to be letting you all go in alone.  You were absolutely fine until one little boy just behind you who was having a wobble talked his mummy into coming in with him.  You looked at me with your big, beautiful brown eyes and asked if I’d come with you too and I said ‘no, you’ll be fine,’ and as you turned away to follow Miss Hughes I could see you wiping your eyes with your sleeve.  I felt sick inside that whole day, wondering if you’d gone in crying, and I was thinking bad thoughts about the mummy who’d caved in and caused all the trouble!  Of course, when I came to pick you up that afternoon you came running out, full of smiles and had had a lovely day!

We were very proud of you in that first full week as on Friday you came home with a certificate and a sticker which said you’d been given the ‘Star Award’ making you star of the week in your class for ‘being kind and helpful’!  You’d had to stand up in assembly that day when they gave it to you and everyone clapped which you said made you feel a bit shy.  It was a strange feeling, wanting to tell everyone because we were so proud, but also not wanting to tell everyone because we don’t want to be ‘those’ kinds of parents!  Anyway, well done baby girl.  I hope you’re not too disappointed when you don’t get the award every week!

We also went along to the PTA quiz and came second for which you got a medal, though you now have your eye on the trophy for next year.  I’ve now landed myself on the PTA, of course, and Poppa has fallen in love with your headteacher, Mrs Howarth, who is very sweet and already knows your name.  It’s a lovely school.  I feel happy going there, and I love seeing so many friendly faces in the playground each morning.

It was actually the night before you started school that I had my little cry.  I went in to see you after you’d fallen asleep, watching you lying stretched out so long in the bed in that room where I had spent so many hours feeding you, changing your nappy and desperately hoping you’d fall asleep and wouldn’t wake as I crawled out of the room on my hands and knees, trying to avoid the creaky floorboard.  Now I find that I can sit beside your bed crying and it doesn’t wake you!  I was happy for you baby, just a little bit sad for me and for the letting go I was about to do.  But you’ve shown us how very ready you were to start school with how well you’ve taken to it.  You love all those rules and regulations, and even when you couldn’t remember what you’d done each day you’ve given me a very full breakdown of exactly who has been on the time out spot each day and what misdemeanour put them there!

Of course, school has meant lots of changes.  For a start I had to get the iron out of the attic, where it’s been for the last five years, as your uniform isn’t quite as crease-free as the labels would have you believe.  And it’s a bit of an adjustment getting up on time every morning, making sure your lunch is ready the night before, remembering to do some reading of your reading book every day and getting the library book in your bag on the right day and your money in your purse when there’s a dress down day, of which there have been 2 so far already!  It’s strange back at home sometimes, without you there, but so far I seem to be able to fill my time with no problem at all, although Poppa keeps phoning me up to check up on what I’m doing!

There was one morning when you declared you weren’t going to go to school any more.  You decided you’d had enough and that it was boring.  You complained that they hadn’t taught you to read yet, although you’re coming home with reading books and doing really well sounding out the words.  I think perhaps I set your expectations too high and you’re of the opinion that one day they’ll sit you all down to teach you to read and after that you’ll be able to pick up any book by yourself!  You’ll get there sweetheart.

And so now school life seems normal, and we’re on the countdown to your birthday.  I’m not allowing myself to think about how many candles I’ll be putting on the cake this year…

I’m so proud of you, my big little girl.

love
Mommy xx

four years and ten months

Dear Leilani,

The summer has flown by, and all too soon it’s time for school.  We don’t seem to have done half the things I thought we would this holiday, but we’ve had fun buying your new uniform, meeting up with friends, visiting family and graduating from nursery.

Poppa took you to dad’s playgroup one Saturday morning.  It was a painting day, and you were busy painting away whilst Poppa talked to some of the other dads.  One commented on how well you use the brush, and so Poppa asked you what you were painting.  ‘It’s mountains, with echoes of sunshine’ you replied…apparently everyone just stared at you, mouths open.  I think Poppa felt very proud.  Goodness only knows where you got that from!

I forgot to record the other month about how one day I heard you getting up out of bed and instead of coming in to wake me up, or going downstairs, I heard you going up the stairs to the attic room.  Poppa sneaked up to see what you were doing up there and found you in front of a photo of my old dog, Barney.  It turned out you were upstairs praying to God to bring Barney back to life, so that you’d have a dog of your own!  I look forward to your teacher being the one to deal with some of your religious and philosophical conundrums in the future…

We were talking about careers over dinner one night and you mentioned that you might like to build mini golf courses.  Leilani the mini golf architect!  You’ve been on a monkey bar mission this month, practising the monkey bars in Palmer Park, failing on the ones in Dinton Pastures (after trying, and trying, and trying again until your arms were shaking you were so determined to try and do it by yourself) so when you did the ones in the park by Nanna and Granddad’s, all the way across, you were thrilled.  It’s quite hard to stand back sometimes and allow you to do all the climbing and swinging that you love to do.  I love how you just go for it, and your determination to do it right, and by yourself, makes me proud.

We had a party last week to celebrate the start of school with your Thursday friends.  Your Thursday friends are the friends we’ve been meeting up with every Thursday since you were about four months old.  We met them through the local health centre’s free ‘Parenting Classes’.  Thank goodness for those classes.  I don’t think they taught me anything particularly useful about parenting, but they gave me a reason to get dressed and go out before lunchtime once a week, and more importantly they introduced me to some really good friends.

When the classes had finished, we continued meeting up and used to go to The Biscuit Tin cafe (in Reading Museum) on Thursday afternoons where tea & a cake was just £2 and the staff would let us linger long after closing time, only throwing us out when they finally had to lock the doors.  As you all got bigger though you began to move, so we’d spend our Thursday afternoons first watching you all crawl up and down the stairs, then toddling over to the wheelchair slope by the museum, then making a run for the museum lift to try and go upstairs to see the stuffed animals…We moved venues to the cafe in Debenhams, but that merely provided new challenges like the wheelchair lift.  It didn’t take you all very long to figure out how to escape our chair barricades and push the button to call the lift…So then we began to visit the park instead.  Many a happy hour we’ve spent all together in Forbury Gardens (the Lion Park) and Cintra, or round at someone’s house if they were feeling brave enough to cope with the mess, or in recent months at the Mad House.

You’ve grown up together, and I love to see you all playing almost five years on.  I know you’ll all be making new friends now, with everyone except you and your friend N going to different schools, but we’re hoping to still manage to meet up on Thursday if we can, for tea together, so it wasn’t a goodbye really.

At the party there was a bit of an incident though with your friend A.  He said that your nose was big (it’s a bit complicated to explain, but he thought you’d lied about something and so said your nose would grow like Pinocchio’s, which is what his mum and dad tell him will happen if he lies…you know what pumpkin, dealing with other people’s parenting techniques can be a challenge sometimes!).  Anyway, you were crying quite a lot and when Poppa and I talked to you later at home about why you’d cried when you weren’t physically hurt you said that ‘it had hurt my heart’.  Oh my sweet girl.  Would that I could stop anyone from ever hurting your heart…

Daytime naps disappeared a long time ago, but the other day we were both a bit under the weather.  I went upstairs to lie down in bed for a bit, and you later came and climbed in, curled up next to me and fell asleep.  I lay awake looking at you, watching you sleep.  I remembered all the times you’d slept in my arms as a baby, and how we’d sometimes nap together when you were a toddler and I was too worn out to clean, or do washing, or any of the other jobs I ought to do.  It felt like a precious moment, with you my great big, gangly baby girl in my arms.

And so school comes closer, and amongst all my excitement for you I’m also nervous and sad about the change that’s therefore coming into my life.  I think of all the new things you’ll be learning without me and I’m happy for you, but I’m sad for me, because it has been very special for me to share these last five years with you.  You know, Leilani, we’re very lucky that Poppa worked so that I could stay at home with you, so that we could go to playgroups, and singing, and Tiny Talk, and eat biscuits and cakes and go to the park; so that we could colour together, cook yummy things, weed the garden, play games, cut out pictures and glue them back together, visit friends and watch the Muppets and Disney movies and Cbeebies, play the piano, make tents, play babies in tummies, or just snuggle together…I’m so glad I’ve had all this time to be with you and watch you grow.  I’m so very proud of you my stubborn, bossy, beautiful, funny, creative little girl.

I love you,

Mommy xx

four years and nine months

Dear Leilani,

Well, what a month July was!  We went to Paris for a couple of weeks – that was lovely.  I think maybe I should always spend my birthday in Paris eating Steak Frites.  Staying in an apartment was like pretending to really live there for a little bit.  I got very used to my morning pain au chocolat – still warm from the bakery.  We tried frogs legs (chewy and I couldn’t get the image of Kermit out of my head which was not helpful) and we tried snails (so smothered in garlic they could’ve been anything.  You liked them.)  We took Poppa to Parc Asterix to celebrate his birthday where you got a sword which you now use to pretend to be Liono from the Thundercats.  Thundercats is your current geekery thanks to Poppa.

Having spent quite a considerable amount of our parenting time trying to discipline you fairly, with lots of thinking about your behaviour and of course the naughty spot has seen a lot of action over the years (with both you & Poppa & Prian Prunzel your imaginary brother and various toys spending a significant amount of time there!)  Anyway, you were playing with Babes (the bear) one day in Paris and he was being naughty, biting someone I think.  You took him to one side, covered his nose and mouth and said ‘That’ll teach you a lesson!’  So, Supernanny…how did *that* happen?!

I didn’t want to come home from Paris.  Not just because we’d had such a nice holiday, but also because I knew I’d have an emotional couple of weeks with some more goodbyes.  The last playgroup at Waterloo Meadows was sad.  I did story time for the last time, and read ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’.  I will miss all those little faces listening to my stories, all the joining in on animal noises and counting books, the rush of twenty or so toddlers to all give me their cups of juice at the end of the story at exactly the same time…and I’ll also miss chatting with Dom and the other mummies of course.  A week later was the last Tiny Talk, which was very sad indeed.  Before we left Poppa told me to try to ‘hold it together’ and I think I did a pretty good job – Tracy reading us the poem she wrote did make me cry but I didn’t completely lose it!  As we drove home afterwards you sighed and said ‘well, I guess that was the last Tiny Talk then…I suppose I must know all the signs by now!’

And then, as if all that wasn’t enough, we continued with our schools waiting list trauma, moving up the list, then moving back down again, then being offered our second choice school and then, finally, we got a place at our first choice school!  The secretary emailed me to tell me a place had come up, and when I read the email I was practically shouting for joy.  You were standing next to me and got really excited too saying ‘What is it?  What happened?  Did we win a competition?!’  It was a really, really nice feeling to finally be able to say to you which school you were going to and feel happy inside as I told you.

You see, I hadn’t bought you any uniform, obviously, since I’d been holding out the hope for the waiting list to change…I hadn’t been able to show you what school you’d be in in September…you hadn’t had any visits to school like all your friends…you didn’t even know your teacher’s name.  I know these are all little things really, but I had felt more and more worried about it all, increasingly jealous of friends and their happy school experiences, and more and more cheated at not being able to be excited about school with you.  So it’s such a relief to finally have a place, in a lovely little school, and I can’t wait to take you shopping this month to get you your uniform.  We went to look at the outside of the school the other day, much to your excitement, although since then you did tell me that you’re feeling a little bit nervous about going to school.  Me too baby, me too.  But you are confident and clever and funny and kind, so I have a feeling you’re going to be just fine.

Well, as long as you forget about your current idea of learning how to wee standing up.  Your friend Nate came for a sleepover and you were both in the bathroom together getting ready for bed which led to the discussion about standing up wees…I feel for your teacher this year, whoever it may be!

I love you.

Mommy xx

four years and eight months

Dear Leilani,

And so the goodbye phase begins.  June saw us going to ‘Church playgroup’ (your name for it) for the last time.  I didn’t tell you it was the last one when we went, more for my sake than for yours.  For the last few terms I’ve been running ‘song time’ at this playgroup.  And I’ve loved every second.  I love to see you and your friends jumping like bunnies, getting muddled up in heads, shoulders, knees and toes, and there’s something magical about seeing a baby showing you how they can do ‘twinkle twinkle’ for the first time.

I know that you are definitely ready for school, and that you’ll have a fabulous time, but I feel sad inside for the changes that are coming into my life.  All of these playgroups and classes and meet ups with friends have played an incredibly important part in my life.  From the days when I wasn’t sure I’d ever manage to get dressed, never mind get out of the house, these fixed events each week gave our lives a structure and, more importantly, they gave me friends.  Mums (and dads) may kid themselves that they do these things to make their kids sociable, good at sharing, confident and outgoing.  Nonsense.  We do it because we need to groan at someone about the lack of sleep, or the trials of potty training, or laugh with someone at the funny things little ones say, or just sit quietly with a cup of tea that someone else has made us and listen to a grown up conversation for five minutes.  They’ve kept me sane, baby girl, and so I felt terribly sad to say goodbye to ‘church playgroup’ and I know that next month’s endings will be even worse…

And through this change you continue to grow up, of course.  You’ve been getting taller, much to your delight, and you had your very first all night sleepover at your friend Eve’s house.  You’ve been for part-sleepovers before, where we come and pick you up after having dinner out or going to the cinema and so you wake up back in your own bed, but this time you stayed all night and had breakfast there.  And all so that Poppa and I could go and see ‘Take That’!  I think we all had fun that night.  You came home full of excitement about the fact that a fairy had written to you and Eve in the night and left the letter under a pillow for you, whilst studying your arms closely for any evidence of fairy kisses (because where there’s a freckle, that’s where a fairy kissed you) and when you saw me that morning you gave me the biggest hug, clinging tight to me.  It was lovely.

I’ve thought a lot about friendship this month.  About the way your different friendships work and all the new friends you’ll meet at school.  I went to so many different schools growing up that I always had a plethora of friends, an address book full of people to write to.  I think they became something for me to collect, like stamps or teapots.  Only friends are better than stamps and teapots.  And when you find the really important friends, they become like family.

It’s funny to watch the squabbles you have with your chums right now, the competitions over who is the best friend, who won’t play with who, who said what and why and now they’re crying about it…I know as you get older these moments might get more serious and we won’t be able to laugh them off, but at the same time I know that you’ll become more discerning and aware of how friendships work and who your real friends are.  I love that right now you’ll skip over to children in the park and say ‘can I play?’ without any hesitation, and within minutes you’ve struck up a firm friendship.  I love that when I asked you to look out for your friend who sometimes feels a bit left out of games that you carefully made sure to ask him if he’d like to play with you.  I hope you’ll always be so open and loving, with new friends and old.

I love you.

Mommy xx

four years and six/seven months

Dear Leilani,

Bad mother that I am I somehow missed last month’s letter. Life gets in the way of historical records sometimes. Well, here’s an extended update to make up for it…

Last month brought us school traumas. We’ve tried not to talk about school with you too much, other than mentioning it in a vague ‘it’s not until September, you get to wear a uniform’ kind of way. (You still think you’re going to University anyway). I thought I’d been okay in my head about you going to whichever school you were assigned, but when the day came around and we got the email about your assigned place I ended up in tears on the kitchen floor because we had got our third choice school. It had been such a long time coming. Four months of people asking if we’d heard yet, discussing the good (and the bad) of all the schools and waiting, waiting, waiting. The school we’d chosen first for you was the one I had liked best. It’s small and friendly, the teacher who showed me round knew all the kids’ names, and I immediately felt happy there. And so to suddenly find you hadn’t got a place I felt terrible, really terrible, and that I had failed you. The school we’ve been given isn’t awful. I bet you’d love it there, and it’s only two minutes from our house. But it wasn’t the one I wanted.

Anyway, for the moment we’re on a waiting list, and we’ve already gone from fifth place to third so I’m hoping really hard that you’ll get a place there in the end. And if not, well, it’s not the end of the world. All the trouble that goes into school places nowadays – it’s ridiculous! I know that really you’ll be just fine wherever you go, and that we will help you all that we can.

April also saw the Royal wedding. We were supposed to be in Japan by then so hadn’t planned a party. In a last minute fit of excitement we all got changed into our posh clothes and sat on the sofa together to watch Will & Kate say ‘I do’ before heading out to crash Julie’s street party and thereby getting our photo in the local paper! So, as you can tell, we didn’t go to Japan. It was a sad decision to make, but we just didn’t want to risk your health and thought it was safer to wait until the situation there is more stable. We were, luckily, able to change our flights to go somewhere else and so we went back to Boston and stayed in a cottage on Cape Cod. You proved yourself, once again, an excellent traveller, watching movies on the plane, happily going to sleep when told it was sleeping time, dragging my old pink suitcase around the airport and dealing with jet lag much better than I ever do.

Once in America we slowly settled in and relaxed, trying not to think about all the things that we’d been hoping to do and just enjoying where we were. It wasn’t an entirely uneventful holiday. We had a close run-in with a deer tick whilst geo-caching one day. We thought it was just a little spider climbing on your cheek, but then as I tried to brush it off it didn’t seem to want to let go. I started to panic (I’m not good in bug related emergencies it seems) but luckily Poppa managed to flick it off before it had actually burrowed into your skin. Ugh. I spent a scary hour later on the internet reading up about ticks and diseases, smearing you in antiseptic cream and emailing American friends for tick advice! We searched each other all over to ensure no ticks had come home with us, but I spent a few days convinced I could feel them crawling all over me.

Anyway, having avoided any deer tick damage you then managed to scar yourself with a milkshake…you were sitting in the car finishing off your bottle of chocolate milk. We didn’t notice that you were sucking on the bottle, with your mouth inside the rim, and it wasn’t until we were almost home that we saw you’d given yourself a love bite! Right above your top lip. You were Mr Moustache for a few days – we tried not to laugh at you too much and we limited the number of photos we took!

Cape Cod is full of mini golf courses. Crazy, crowded with pirates, windmill-filled courses which, obviously, we had to go and play. You decided you liked mini golf very much. So much so that one day you made us play in howling wind and rain. I’m never doing that again…Poppa’s favourite course had an arcade next to it where we managed to win many, many tickets and you exchanged them for a whoopee cushion. You think this is very funny. You also bought yourself a fake snake in the dollar store which you gleefully left lying around the cottage to scare us. I can’t imagine where you get this behaviour from…

We’ve been working our way through some Roald Dahl books at bedtime. Pretty quickly since you usually manage to get more than one chapter from us. So far we’ve read George’s Marvellous Medicine, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG and The Twits. I wasn’t sure how much you were always taking in from the stories, but then one day talking to Angela about it you started telling her what happens in all the books, recalling little details and funny things. You like all the disgusterous things in them and have decided that the green thing inside a cheeseburger is a slice of snozzcumber.

You make me laugh how you love to eat all the forbidden bits of meat – the fat, the skin…anything that’s bad for you, you’ll gobble up with relish. If we say something is our favourite then it makes you determined to eat it from us. You certainly enjoyed all the lobsters we ate, although you did wish we could keep one for a pet.

You’ve been playing a spelling game a lot the last couple of months too, usually over dinner, that we learned about from Auntie Beck. It’s very simple, I say ‘what does this spell – B – A – T?’ and you shout ‘Bat!’ and then you do one for me to spell. Suddenly phonics seemed to make sense to you, and you’ve been spelling things out ever since. I’m excited for when you start to read properly, though at the same time I’m starting to wish I could slow down time because you’re growing up so quickly, and once you start school I know you’ll change and learn even faster.

It seemed like you grew up a lot whilst we were in America. You could reach your own glass from out of the dishwasher there, and open the big fridge, helping yourself to grape juice. It made me feel a bit strange inside, seeing you pottering around so independently. When you sit on my lap for a story you can tuck your head under my chin still and curl into my chest, but your long four and a half year old legs hang, heavy and gangly over my knee. I wonder how it can be possible that you ever fit inside of me…

I love you, my big little girl.

Mommy xx

four years and five months

Dear Leilani,

After some postponing (by me) and a missed appointment up (by the doctors) you finally went for your pre-school booster jabs, one in each arm.  When we first raised the subject you were very dramatic and wept copiously over your dinner, unable to explain why you were scared, just that you were.  Very.  On a different day, when you weren’t crying, I mentioned how one of your friends had been to the shop after his jabs and been allowed to choose any sweet he wanted…you asked if we could go to the charity shop instead and choose anything you wanted from there and I agreed.  So, very very bravely you sat in the nurse’s room, had a little chat with her about nursing outfits (you should’ve worn yours…) and then watched as she injected one arm.  She then came around to do the other arm and that’s when you weren’t too sure and said that the first one had hurt actually.  So the second one made you cry, but only a tiny bit.  And then we went to the charity shop where you bought a cuddly doggy who you’ve named Sweep.  He has slept with you every night since then.

You were very pleased about coming along on the WI walk one weekend this month.  It was a gorgeously sunny day, but you decided to wear your Father Christmas hat.  Of course.  Poppa has introduced you to the joy of Thundercats this month which you’ve really taken to.  I see you in the park holding up sticks shouting ‘Thunder!  Thunder!  Thundercats…HO!’  And you’ve been obsessed with playing Guess Who, even though you fall to pieces when you don’t win.  I actually caught you cheating one day as we’d set up the game and I popped to the kitchen to get a tissue only to look back in on you and see you leaning over to check out which card I had!

Poppa said one day that we could never have imagined you.  I know what he means.  You are so completely your own person, such an individual with your own quirks and sense of humour that you surprise us all the time.  You’re still not very good at telling jokes, though you find yourself hilarious so it doesn’t really matter.  You like to play I spy, and you’ve moved on the from the ‘I spy something that is red’ version to the proper version with letters.  I like it when I say that I spy something beginning with ‘s’ and you randomly guess words like ‘snake’ and when I ask where, exactly, there’s a snake in our house you just roll your eyes at me!

You manage to rope Poppa into playing ‘Mums and Dads and Babies’ sometimes, although in the version he plays he usually ends up reading in bed which, apparently, is ”being the dad”.  I had a chat with you one particularly long, tiring day about how I didn’t want to play ‘Mums and Dads and Babies’ because my whole life is ‘Mums and Dads and Babies’ – it’s what I do every day.  You thought about it for a moment and then said ‘well, this time Mommy, you could be the sister…’  You have an answer for everything!

There has been sadness too this month.  We have been watching the devastation in Japan with heavy hearts.  It’s a country that is very dear to Poppa and I, and seeing the footage of the unbelievable destruction left us both feeling raw and sad and unable to take it all in somehow.   It felt more personal to us also because we were supposed to be flying to Tokyo next month.  After wanting to go back for years and putting it off until you got a bit bigger we were finally going to introduce you to beautiful Japan, going to meet Totoro and climb on the cat bus and eat amazing noodles and visit friends and gaze in awe at beautiful gardens and temples and take photos and meet people and eat even more noodles and buy crazy cute things…It’s still vaguely possible that we might be able to go, but I think we’re only saying that because we’re not ready yet to give up on the idea of going back.

Watching the news, and then a few days later seeing the films on Comic Relief night about the poverty and preventable diseases and the hardships of people in Africa – it all felt like a very sad time.  And sad just isn’t the right word for it somehow.  It’s so easy to take for granted how blessed we are – safe and warm and well fed.  It’s hard to know how to help you grow up to be grateful for what you have, how to treasure the small things, how to find ways to be joyful even in the midst of such sorrow.  There aren’t any parenting books for that.

Anyway, I promise I won’t be so contemplative next month.  And I will let you win Guess Who sometimes.  Maybe.

I love you, my little girl.

Mommy xx