The Night before Two

It has come around so quickly, your second birthday,  I feel like I was still saying 'only just one' just a few weeks ago and now suddenly you are turning two and I can't believe how big you are! You are my last baby and you are leaving the baby days behind rapidly. I was reading the letter I wrote to you one year ago today and it seems like so long ago you were that tiny!

Cora, you look so angelic with your blue eyes and blonde hair but it hides the fierce little girl you actually are.  You are so incredibly smart and so determined.  You know exactly what you want and you know how to get it.  You are so full of personality making us all laugh every day and you are so full of sass making us despair at the same time.  We are already dreading the teenage years.

This was the year you learned to talk, to walk with confidence and run.  You are desperate to scoot like your brothers and I think you will love your birthday present tomorrow! You are caring and your favourite toy is a 'baby' doll. I watched you at playgroup as you sat baby in the jumperoo and made its hands push the buttons.  You love playing Hide and Seek too although your hiding spots need some work and you look adorable covering your eyes shouting ' seven, eight, nine, ready not, come!'

One was the year we ditched the daytime nappies and bought the tiniest pants we could find for you.   It was the year you discovered your love for Blaze and the Monster Machines and the year you and your littlest big brother became partners in crime, intent on ruining my house and driving me crazy!

You are happiest with company but you are only really happy if you have your Mummy and she isn't for sharing.  If your brothers give me cuddles, you come up desperate for one, squeezing your arm in between them and me.  You are definitely a Mummy's girl.

Tomorrow marks two years of breastfeeding and we are still going strong! You don't feed so much in the day anymore and you are sleeping through the night, but you still feed every night before bed and every morning before anything else) and often a couple more times in the day too.

Tomorrow we will be celebrating all day with a little party in the garden for your friends at lunchtime and a bbq in the evening with your family.  I hope you have the best day surrounded by people that love you.

These photos were taken by the awesome Wishes and Wellies when she came to visit us this week.

I am loving getting to know you better as you find your voice, watching you grow and seeing the person you are becoming.  Two is going to be such a fun year! But before we start on that next adventure, I want to pause for a moment to remember how wonderful you are right now.  How you waited up for me tonight so you could fall asleep in my arms. How wild your hair looks as you sleep, spread across your pillow, the way you cuddle Chase close.  I want to remember how you wake up unsure of what is more urgent, coming and checking on me, and going to see Finn.  I want to remember how needed I still feel by you in every sense.  The way you angrily say 'self' if I try and help you with something you don't need help with, the way you shout Now with such urgency and your bartering 'Milk first' every time I ask you to do something.  You will never be this small again, the clocks will move forward and so will you but I never want to forget this wonderful stage in your life.

Baby girl, you are more loved than you will ever know

xx