Dear Beautiful Lily

Mummy and Daddy have decided that we want to remember everything about you as you grow into a beautiful little lady. You are already 3 years and 9 months and this is our first letter but we hope to write a letter every few months to remember all the ways you make us proud and happy.

Over the last few months you have had a growth spurt and you have grown really tall, you are almost as tall as James now, so much so that people think you are twins! You have lost a lot of your baby fat and are all arms and legs now. Your hair is absolutely beautifully straight, even first thing on a morning, you are growing it to look like Rapunzel from Tangled. We did try growing out your fringe but it kept getting in your eyes, and you take every clip that Mummy puts in your hair out, so we trimmed your fringe again and you are much happier.

You are a bundle of energy, you love running and jumping and playing with James and Amy. You love cuddles more than anything, and if you spot Mummy or Daddy sat down you will slide onto our knee.

When Mummy picks you up from the nursery you run over to me and give me a huge cuddle which is beautiful. You have suddenly found some balance over the last few months, and now you can run and jump happily, and when you stumble you catch yourself.

You have an beautiful personality, you are such a caring person and you do your very best to look after everyone, especially your little sister Amy. You tell us if you think Amy is doing something that might hurt her, you pass her her drink when she is thirsty, and get her toys when you think she is sad. You love helping too and help around the house too by tidying, getting cutlery ready, putting rubbish in the dustbin and clearing your plate after dinner.

Recently you like to kiss mummy’s baby growing in her tummy, and you give baby a hug and a kiss at least once a day. You love wearing Lipbalm, I have you some recently for your dry lips. You put too much on recently and used half a packet of wipes to take it off, leaving a long trail from the living room into the kitchen. You did brilliantly at tidying the trail away when we asked you to.

You love your big brother James, and you like pretend play with him. He’s a bit bigger than you and often trys to control the games, but you are good at standing your ground and things are fairly equal now. You like winding each other up, and you say “I’m going to go tell mummy off on you” when James is annoying you.

James likes to wind you up too, but this sometimes makes you sad. You love playing pretend with Amy too and she loves being with you, and she chatters back (thou we cant understand what she is trying to say yet) Amy sometimes doesn’t understand your game and try’s to snatch toys but you are really good with her, and either distract her with something else or you play with something different.

You have a very strong since of fairness, and one of the things that gets you really upset is if you think something is unfair, or if you have done something naughty that you didn’t know was naughty. Sometimes you try to play mummy and do naughty things to James and Amy when they are naughty, we know this is mostly because you are trying to help.

You love being a girl and dressing in dresses and tights, your favourite toys at the moment are the tea party toys and you make us lots of drinks and cakes. You also love wrestling with Daddy, James and Amy, playing with boys toys, and dressing up as a transformer. You can dress yourself really well, but you still enjoy us helping. You enjoy choosing your own outfits, but prefer things that arn’t too fiddly. You are really independent and like to use the toliet on your own, even in the night now! You also like brushing your own teeth, and putting the toothpaste on by yourself, you get a bit sad if James tries to help and put it on for you. You aren’t a good sleeper and like to come into our room for comfort when you wake, you love Daddy giving you a cuddle while he takes you back to your bed and you settle really well after a cuddle. You really like it when Daddy and Mummy don’t wake properly and you get to sleep in our bed for a while and have a cuddle.

You are doing really well at nursery and are learning your alphabet and numbers well. You say “A is for apple” “L is for Lily” and you try to read things and imagine what they might say. You can write your name really well and are good at copying other letters too. You practise James’ “sight words” when he does and you can read “A, I mum, dad, is & and” by yourself, which is really really clever, you also like to try and read James reading books. Your drawing & colouring are amazing and we love seeing the stick people you draw.

You really like painting and cutting/sticking too and put a lot of effort into everything you do. You love stickers and we use stickers as rewards at home. Today you got a sticker for saying hello to some adults like Mummy and Daddy did on our walk to collect pine cones, it really made them smile. (We said you could have a sticker for saying hello/goodbye appropriately after James forgot a few times with his friends at school and you listened)

You love watching Frozen and Tangled, and you enjoy watching Scooby Do and Cbeebies with James, but otherwise, you would rather play with toys instead of watch TV. You do like playing on the computer and would happily play for hours if we let you. You also like the Wii and Xbox games but are struggling a bit with the controllers for them, and we often find James playing your level instead of you (with your approval!) Your favourite stuffed toys are zebra and panda, which you take to bed every night without fail, you like to keep these close when you are feeling poorly and you have even taken them to nursery too when you were feeling unsettled. One thing you are struggling understanding is talking about Mummy’s Grandma, you know she died and you keep asking me about how she died (she was poorly with pneumonia). I think you are a little scared that Mummy or Daddy might die as you have talked about that too, but we have reassured you we will be around to love you for a long long time.

You are sweet, affectionate and loving and you love to make people laugh and smile, by pulling funny faces and saying funny things. Our biggest battle is food, as you don’t really like eating much thou you are good at trying foods (except sweets, cake and biscuits, which you would eat all the time) You like sausages, fruit, yoghurt and carrots and you love cereal and your favourite cereal is ‘chocolate monkeys’, which are chocolate rice crispies (there is a picture of a monkey on the box!), though with cereal you aren’t really fussy and would happily eat any! The other thing you dislike is your hair brushing. We have decided now that you can brush your own hair first which is better, although we don’t always have the time and when we don’t you like to hold someone’s hand while I brush!

I can’t believe you are growing so fast, but we want you to know you make us proud every single day

We will love you always and forever

Love Mummy and Daddy