A letter to you at 3 years old

A year has come and gone since my last update and again I wish that I’d written more throughout the year!  I talked about this in my last update, but it never fails to shock me how difficult it is to remember the past you! I’m looking back through old videos to try and remember how this year progressed. I can’t believe how much your language has come on! You speak almost entirely perfectly now and you can talk for ages in long sentences. When I look back to April last year this was so different but you were still managing to communicate everything you needed. I took you to the health visitor who was blown away by your vocabulary! In fact that’s been a recurring theme of the year. I’m very proud of your language abilities- part of me thinks it’s because I have always read to you lots and talked to you on a level where possible but then another part of me thinks it has nothing to do with me and you’re factory preset was to communicate! Even as a little baby you used to babble a lot and seem to truly be trying to join in with all the chatting. I think you were born to communicate with us!!!

Easter with Grandma and Grandad 

Looking back across the spring and summer I’m struck by what a happy, happy time this was for us both. You’re so care free and joyful! Here’s a video of you having a great fall while I sing Humpty Dumpty, here you are toddling around the butterfly house, or on an Easter egg hunt around the garden- such a lovely sunny day with Grandma and Grandad. The highlight of my whole year I think was visiting the rescue farm for your heart-iversary on the 31st of May. Such a happy day seeing you getting close to the animals;  chasing chickens and stroking sheep! I’m so happy we celebrate the day - It’s an overwhelming time to think back on your surgery and such a relief to feel the distance away from it growing year by year! 

The best photo I’ve ever taken! Happy heart-iversary 

In June, Nanny, you and I took a little holiday to the Lake District with your wonderful Ecuadorean Tia, Priscila. We rode on a steam train, and spent a long (er than we meant to) time on a boat on lake Windermere. We visited gardens and had lots of lovely food and games- of course what stands out to me is you bumping your head on the car door and cutting your poor little lip!!! Always the way- no matter how lovely things are, one always remembers the mistakes!!!!!

Now I’m watching you at a Punch and Judy show in July- shouting along and then running around excitedly! I’m thinking this is where your love of crocodiles dates back to! You love crocodiles. They appear in almost every game. You invented a particularly strange dynamic where I’m an angel and you’re a crocodile and you have to eat me. Who knew angels were at such risk from these predators? 

One of the tougher things about this year has been having to set a lot more boundaries. I feel like as you become less baby-like we’ve taken a stricter tone with you and it leaves me with no end of guilt. I think sometimes we treat you as being older than you are because you speak so well, so things can seem like you’re being purposefully naughty but when I take a step back I know this isn’t the case. I never knew that it would be so hard to put aside my own feelings- so say if you hurt me, like that time some weeks back when you through a bean bag really hard into my eyes, my instinct to be upset is so powerful, even though logically I know you had no idea the impact it would create and you weren’t doing it to be mean. It’s just really hard not to take things personally. I thought when you were a mother you’d have endless understanding and patience. I do try to fool you into thinking I do. 

Beginning of August brings up another wonderful memory for me, which was taking you to the theatre to see the National’s Peter Pan. We sat on the front row and you loved it. After the show one of the band members spotted us playing outside and came over to tell me how impressed they’d all been with you, how sweet you were and how much they all wanted to wave at you!!!!!! You’re very charming almost all the time BUT you’re also very territorial, and you like things just so. This can lead to you being very rude and aggressive when people you don’t know, or aren’t expecting, come into your personal space. I was mortified recently when my lovely friend Jacki came over and you were very angry with her for daring to be there- and even angrier when she collected a carpet I had given her, which suddenly became your most prized possession! I remember as a little girl myself Mum saying to me when I’d not behaved my best that she “just wanted people to see the sweet person she knows”- I completely understand that now. It’s really hard when you feel like you get to see all this wonderful stuff and others see only your crossest self! Then again, I need to remember you’re not a performing monkey! 

Speaking of performing monkey’s though, you do definitely have a performer streak in you. You love to sing and play musical instruments- you have a ukele, an accordion, a guitar and a keyboard with a built in microphone and you love playing them all and making up your own songs! You also sing a number of real songs very sweetly! We’ve been listening to a track whilst out on our drives recently and you almost always hum yourself to sleep with it. Such a sweet moment every day. Last year I talked about the Blippi toothbrushing song. This saw the beginning of your love of Blippi- he is mainly a YouTuber - which we avoid- but he has a couple of series on Amazon prime and you have watched them ad nauseam! You particularly love all his songs about vehicles like “tractors, oh tractors, they’re so much fun.Tractors, oh tractors, they got the job done” or “garbage trucks, garbage trucks, oh how I love garbage trucks”. And you do! We always try and pop out and watch the bin men take away the bins- they wave and smile at you and you wave back- they must love to see little boys looking up to them as hero’s- well they are really aren’t they!!!! 

So much summer fun with these two besties 

Back to the yearly run through- in August we hatched butterflies which you loved and you met some little puppies which was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen. You were so gentle and tender even though you were worried about being licked! 

In September we went on another holiday to Cornwall and stayed in  a caravan,  which you loved. We met up with almost all the bishops and through flowers into the sea from Dad and a Carol’s rock. I’m watching a video of you from this time, dancing like a lunatic to Mambo number 5, which for some reason you call “the party song” all these quirky things I’m desperate to remember. As I type this you are singing Darth Vader’s theme and grinning at yourself in the mirror whilst wielding a ruler as your lightsabre!!!! Oh I wish I could hold onto all of this imagination and craziness.

you!

On Treen Cliffs ready to visit the rock 

Nanny and Teddy exploring the children’s garden at Kew 

 We really did have the best summer filled with outings and music and garden sunshine. I finally felt relaxed and happy as a mother.

Haloween joy 

 Autumn also had its magic: you adored Halloween, which I found so sweet considering all you did was do a little bit of colouring in a Halloween colouring book, wore a shark outfit and answered the door to trick or treaters-  You loved every minute. 

Bonfire night with Liz and Sonny another autumn highlight and then we were at Christmas again! Such a fun filled season; we did every Christmassy thing you could imagine which was lovely but exhausting- we hardly spent a moment indoors - which was in stark contrast to January when we embarked on a new adventure that kept us indoors- potty training. When you were very little another mother recommended waiting til you were nearly 3 to potty train and I decided to listen to her- it couldn’t have been simpler! I got you all excited about Pants and your enthusiasm and readiness was at a peak so we just went for it. I can count on one hand the amount of accidents you’ve had. So proud! I never thought I’d be so delighted by waste material, but that’s motherhood for you. 

The winter months have brought mental health challenges and I’ve had to try and comfort myself by remembering even though it’s tough it’s so much better than it had been previous years. It might be a set back but it’s nowhere near square one! 

The new year also brought lots of play dates with new friends and trips out to explore the countryside, even in the frost and the rain, even with my leaky wellies and consequent frozen toes! 

A delighted Teddy and his new friend Zephy 

Now here we are in March. I’ve studiously avoided the hot topic of the moment until now. Corona virus is shifting and changing everything. The lovely birthday plans we had went out the window. I felt grief stricken at this. So resistant to the necessary changes because I just couldn’t bear to let you down. Of course the logical part of me knows that I’m not but I just really wanted to treat you to a special birthday day out and a pirate party with all your loved ones! We will still do all of that- it’s just when is the big question. We did give you a special birthday- we mad an amazing den in the lounge, full of presents, we went to dunstable downs and made the most of what would turn out to be our last trip out for a while. You found an old fallen try with a little pool of water which we called a rock pool and you played in their for ages. We came home and had an arty party one huge scroll of paper and We saw your aunties, your nanny and uncle joe and lisa and had cake. A lovely day was had but the reality of Corona Virus was sinking in more and more as the week went on and I can’t help but feel sad about the shadow it cast on your birthday. There are so many tough and confusing things at play right now- some big some very small  We are currently facing the biggest challenge of our life time (so far) and I’m filled with fear about the future and what it holds for any of us. You’re aware of it only in the way that you know you can’t go to Zoomania, or Costa, or Tesco- your top 3 places to visit - but you’re definitely protected from the fear! I have made a promise to you that you will look back on it as a happy time; the way my grandmother made my little Dad think the blitz was a big adventure. Hearing your sweet laughter downstairs right now let’s me see that I’m doing it right! 

Hopefully by next update the world will be a different place- you’ll have started your wonderful nursery delayed but as planned, I’ll be driving and we’ll all still be healthy and happy and functioning. I hope, I hope, I hope! 

I absolutely love you little man. You are more yourself every day. You’re funny and clever and wise and better than I ever imagined you’d be. You’re quirky and weird and hilarious! I still wish you ate more of a variety but that’s really my only complaint! Thank you for another wonderful year

Then (April 2019)

Now (March 2020)