The Night Before Four

As usual, bedtime has been a battle.  I don't know if it is the situation with lockdown or if you just don't need so much sleep but every night you are the last one awake, desperate to spend every moment  you can with me.  I wake up each morning with your face pressed up against mine as you have climbed up into the middle of our bed in the early hours.

I have just re-read the post I wrote on your last night as a two year old and I could easily copy and paste it all as you really haven't changed much.  For the third year in a row you have asked for a real dog for your birthday and for the third year in a row you are going to be disappointed in the morning. Your back up ideas were squirrel chocolate or a McDonalds happy meal so you can definitely have one of the three! You are so wonderfully loving and grateful though so I had confidence that whatever we chose for your special day would be appreciated.

You are the girliest girl in some respects, you love all things pink and fluffy and I could see over lockdown how much you missed playing with other little girls.  At the moment your favourite things are The Lion Guard and The Lion King, anything with dinosaurs or dragons and your baby dolls.  You collect small things, parts of toys, individual characters from sets and you keep them in little boxes and play with them that way.  You have the most random collections but they obviously make sense to you and you love to play.

At three you loved to draw and write and you are doing so well with both.  You really surprised me the first time you wrote your name out the blue without copying anything and since then you have written it everywhere.  You love to draw pictures of people and dragons and I think you are going to love this side of school when you start in September.  You are the opposite of your brothers here who all preferred numbers at your age.  

You are kind and loving, you make friendships easily and talk about your best friends all the time.  When we go out you gravitate towards other children and will strike up a bond with anyone.  Your three best friends are all going to big school with you and I hope you carry on so close.  You may be one of the youngest and smallest starting school in a couple of months but your personality won't be.  

You would rather be naked at all times and your hair trails behind you, usually looking like you have been dragged through a hedge backwards.  You will rarely tolerate a hairband and if so it won't be long before you pull it out.  You are so comfortable with who you are and what you like and I admire that in you.

You tell me everyday how much you love me and my baby girl, I love you too.  I can't wait for the adventures of four but before they start, I want to pause, just for a moment to soak up everything you are now; fierce, loyal, loving and kind.  I want to remember the way you stroke my face in the morning, the feeling of your arms around my neck as we are re-united after nursery, the way you climb straight into my lap the moment I sit down, the way you try and read along with me when I tell you a story, just murmuring sounds as you haven't yet mastered all the letters.  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

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Tomorrow You Are Four

Oh Finn, there is so much I can say about you as a three year old, you are just overflowing with personality.  There is nobody quite like you and I can't believe we have been lucky enough to have you in our lives for four whole years as of tomorrow.  

Nothing about you has been easy since those difficult few weeks in special care when you were born.  The challenges are always changing but we know we have you and you definitely keep me on my toes! You are happy, enthusiastic, full of life and a born performer.  This was the year you developed 'The Finn Show' where you sing, dance and do tricks for us, the year you realised you can sing and shout louder than anyone else in the house and we joke that you would be a great back up tannoy system for a large supermarket.

You love nursery and do three school days a week now which you scoot to with excitement.  You are so sociable, so interested in everything and desperate to explore.  You have finally decided glasses can be worn and you are pretty good at keeping them on most days now.  When you get cross they are the first thing to be thrown across the room though so we are sticking to the bendy plastic frames a little longer!

You insist on things being on your terms and you only eat your favourite foods, you walk off if you have finished and you are not giving in at bed times without the biggest fights.  We are trying to 'pick our battles' but you are very good at creating more. That said you can also entertain yourself well, be loving and kind, share well and be beautifully behaved when you want to.  Finn, you are destined to go far and I know you will change the world one way or another.

There are only a few months now until you start school and I can't work out how you got that big when those curly haired baby days seem so recent.  You and your sidekick are going to really miss each other although you have adapted better to being apart for nursery now.  You and Cora have a special relationship and sometimes you seem more like twins. She absolutely adores you and you are always up to more mischief when you are together.  You think of anything placed out of your reach as a challenge and if the pair of you go quiet I can usually find you somewhere near a tap!

You have the biggest smile and the biggest heart, you are so excited to see people, you opened presents after your party with a huge grin and squeals of joy and you haven't stopped talking about having your friends there.  

Tomorrow I will take a moment to remember how far you have come, how you have beaten the odds, proved everyone wrong and what an amazing little person you have become.  

Happy Birthday baby boy, Happy Birthday Finn.  You are loved more than I ever knew you could be

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Before you turn Four

At three you can still be considered a toddler, but Archie, when you wake up you will be four and I will have to admit that that phase of your life has passed.  The countdown to school has began and you are ready for it in so many ways.  Really, you stopped being a toddler quite a while ago but behind the excitement of each new stage, I am reluctant to let go of the last one.

Three was the year we cut off your beautiful hair and I cried real tears in the middle of the hairdressers.  I have found peace with your new style and it suits you.  You are never mistaken for a girl anymore, it doesn't get in your face as you run and hair washes are so much easier.  It was the right choice (I will begrudgingly admit) but I did love your long blonde locks.

Every year you change so much and I can see quite how much you have grown since I wrote to you one year ago.  You are still exactly the same though, unapologetically you, determined, loyal, loving and wild.  I wrote as you turned two about how you were happier with your brother around and that is still true - you fit in perfectly in our big family, a playful little brother and a loving big one.  You and Dylan are the best of friends (although you fight like only brothers can), you and Finn are becoming real playmates now and you are so caring with Cora.  I look at the photos from the day before you turned one and I still recognise those expressions, that you.

You are happiest naked and have refused to wear any form of pyjamas or clothes around the house for a while now.  You have no problem snuggling under a blanket with me though, warming your icy feet on my skin and cuddling in close.  You still love to cuddle and I have to admit you give the best cuddles.  You can cheer me up in seconds with you arms around my neck and I dread the day you stop wanting to be so close. 

Your imagination has really developed this year, you talk absolute nonsense sometimes and you and Dylan are often in your own world together.  I love listening at your door after I put you to bed as you stay up and chat and watching you playing with your Lego, singing made up songs as you do.  This imagination did lead to the 'Mystery bandit' in our house who was responsible for all kinds of mischief and was never seen at the same time as you.  He has thankfully gone now although things are still blamed on him (by all members of the family).

As a three year old you became a big brother (again) and took it all in your stride as you always do.  You are wonderful with Cora and she is a lucky little girl to have you as a big brother.

At three you were bright, sociable, loving, energetic and bold.  You have learned to concentrate on things a little better, sit still a little longer, climb a little higher and communicate a little clearer.  I can't wait to see what adventures four has in stock for you.

Before you turn four, as I kiss you goodnight for the last time as my three year old, I just want you to know how truly loved you are

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Nun Night Three Year Old

Four years ago to this day I was playing Bingo.  I was having what I now know are contractions every few minutes, but at the time I was convinced that they were just Braxton Hicks.  Four years ago I was on the verge of becoming a mama and I had no idea what I was in for.  I couldn't foresee this little boy that stands before me now, so very nearly four, so ready for something big, yet so young still in so many ways.

This last year has been busy, we have had so many adventures, you have welcomed another little brother into your life and you have done it beautifully, despite the fact nothing really went to plan. Every day we have played, explored, socialised, learned and loved.  This has been the year that you learned to read, to add, to subtract, to ask such intricate questions, to climb, to run with a football, to open a ringpull, to dress yourself, to play memory and to work a tablet.  

You are about to turn four which means school is on the horizon and in so many ways you are oh so ready.  You cannot wait to dress in your smart blue uniform and head off into your purple classroom.  You want to make new friends, play with their toys and discover more about yourself and the world.  You are starting to ask questions that I struggle to answer, and I hope school will encourage your curiosity even further.  We have been discussing electricity a lot recently, you are so fascinated by it all and how things are made is another great topic.  My to do list for the week includes things like googling the inside of a telegraph pole, finding out the temperature that fossil fuels are burned at and coming up with the best answer for how rocks got onto the earth.  You challenge me every day, and I love being on this journey of learning with you.

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