Dear Bianca
Today you turn two. What an amazing year! A year ago, you weren’t quite walking yet, but now you’re running around and climbing on everything. We bought you a little footstool to make it easier to wash your hands and now you carry it around all over place so you can reach things you’re not supposed to get into. It cracks me up every time.
And you’re talking! Maybe not as much as some kids, but it still amazes me every time you come out with a new word, which is at least every day. And you’re starting to use sentences. This morning Daddy made you a babycino and when you finished you handed back your cup for “more dook.” Daddy asked you if you wanted just a regular drink and you said, “no, this dook.” I don’t know where ‘dook’ came from for drink but I think it’s adorable, especially since it’s about the only word you get wrong. I love that you can now tell us when you want something, most of the time anyway. You’re so serious about it and that “um, ah, ah…” as you cast about for the right word, like you’re speaking a foreign language, it’s just beautiful. It wasn’t so long ago that you got by with 15 different uses for the word No; now look at you.
It’s pretty good being your Mummy, especially these days now I’m feeling better. You make it fun in so many ways, like the way you back up to me from miles away and sit in my lap to watch TV. And how you hate being told “no” and will scowl and tell me to “go ‘way” if I do. The way you grab my hand and say “Mummy play,” and how you think everything the light touches is yours, even at other people’s houses.
To sum up, you’re just divine.
When you turned one people asked me how I felt, and I said it was like a door closing. I think they expected me to be sad, but really I felt relief that I could say the baby year was done and the hard part was over. Of course, now I realise that the hard bits don’t end, they just change once you’ve got used to them. And it wasn’t so much that a door closed as a chapter ended. Another one’s done now, and I wonder what chapter three contains. More talking, obviously, and more opinions as well. But what else? What will we look back on in a year’s time and be amazed at?
I have this picture in my mind, of you at three. You’re a little taller, your hair’s longer, and you’re standing there in pink leggings (the sort I once vowed I’d never dress you in), one leg crossed over the other, head on the side. Your mouth’s open because you’re telling me something, and you’re still full of energy and still cheeky. Your dimples are showing. I hope you never lose those dimples. I hope you never lose your cheekiness, and your energy, and your joy, and I can’t wait to read on in your story.