To my Daughter on her 5th Birthday

Dearest Aria,

Happy 5th Birthday! 

I think this year has been a real year of growing up for you, transitioning from pre-school to big school, becoming a big sister and you just generally seem to have really grown up. You have embraced all of the challenges this year has given you, making lots of lovely new friends at school and being such a lovely and caring big sister to Bodhi. Always on hand to help, running and fetching things – like clean clothes after poo explosions! Or toys for him if he’s crying. I’m so proud of you.  

We celebrated your birthday at the weekend with a Little Muddy Boots party and we all had the best time. Making storm clouds in cups, planting marigolds, catching bubbles, making fairies out of leaves and finishing off with making s’mores on the fire.

You now have a big girl bedroom, completely pink and decorated with unicorns. Just as you wanted it! You seem to have grown out of Paw Patrol and now love the likes of dolls, barbies, Lego (Ninjago) and you literally spend hours and hours colouring, drawing and doing craft. You can wield a sword as well as your brother and want to be a Princess Knight or Unicorn Keeper when you grow up.

At school you have learnt to read and are currently on yellow books, although only one sticker off blue. At your last catch up your teacher told me how good you were at maths and could quite comfortably go and sit in a year 1 maths class right now. You have loved learning to write and happily sit down and practise writing things in a little notebook.

You still have a determination and stubbornness about you that makes you a force to be reckoned with. You are amazing at turning the tears on when you need to, but it also gives you a drive to achieve things when you want to. Your favourite colours are pink and purple and you love unicorns and rainbows. Dresses are your favourite things to wear and you would wear them everyday if you could. You also have a bit of a penchant for sunglasses and handbags, no idea where you might get that from…

Milk unfortunately is still a problem for you. You can cope with it cooked in things and in items such as butter or spread but too much makes your tummy hurt. I had hoped you would grow out of your allergy by the time you were 5 as the dietitian said 80% of children do, but maybe it will happen this year.

You love all sorts of books and story time before bed is one of your favourite times of the day. You like pretty much all of Julia Donaldson’s and one of your all time favourites as is ‘Potion Commotion’, which you can nearly recite word for word. This year you moved up to the same swimming lessons as Logan, it was a bit of a shock at first to move up to such a big swimming pool, but you are slowly growing in confidence now and actually enjoy swimming now, which is great as you used to be quite afraid of the water.

You are always one of the first ones to wake up and you are always singing. You sing when you wake up, when you go to the toilet and love to just play and make up your own songs. If you hear me breastfeeding Bo in the morning, you like to sneak into bed with us for an early morning cuddle.

You love to cuddle and ask for lots of lovely cuddles throughout the day. You are so very affectionate and loving. Holidays are one of your most favourite things in the world (aren’t they for all of us!). You seem to have inherited your Daddy’s clumsy gene and I don’t think there’s a day we don’t go where you don’t have a bump note from school. You love with all your heart and giggle away. You are so kind and caring. You are like a blaze of happiness in our home and it’s an honour to be your Mummy. Shine bright little Miss and I can’t wait to see what you get up to this year.

Love Mummy xxxx