Happiest of birthdays, to my little dude! I can’t believe that 12 months has gone so quickly. You are a very cheeky monkey! You are independent, head strong, athletic, very good at puzzles, growing in confidence and full of love. You might not be my baby anymore, but I love the way that you like to climb into my arms for a cuddle when everyone else is asleep. 

  

What a year it has been with the arrival of your baby brother, opening up our new business in Bondi, travelling back and forth to Canberra, learning to ski for the first time, the vast improvement in your vocab, learning to ride your scooter, a growing love for dinosaurs and developing a passion for music.

You started swimming lessons last year, but it was all a bit too much for you {separation anxiety wise, so we decided to wait until you turned three}. You definitely have developed more water confidence in the past few weeks and are looking forward to swim school starting in two weeks time. You are also very excited to be enrolled to start preschool next year {two days a week}.

    

It took a while for you to feel confident without your brother {when he started preschool}. You especially didn’t like going to creche and refused to get out of the pram and play with the other kids for a whole 3 months. You would always ask ‘you always come back?’ when I would drop you off and it became our routine for me to say ‘I will always come back for you’. Once you understood that I will always come back for you, you turned into a completely different kid and became the alpha male of the creche room.

You approach everything you do AT FULL SPEED. Which means that we have ended up in emergency twice whilst you were two. The second time, you required the doctors to put some glue on your head {because there was no way that you were going to remain still enough for them to stitch it}. It’s never boring when you’re on the move, and I think that I have my stomach in my throat more often then not…but I guess that’s what it is like to life with a constant risk taker.

   

Watching you ski was fun – although you DO NOT LIKE the cold. It will be good to see you hit the fields next year when you are old enough to join your brother at ski school.

You were a joy to potty train and picked up the skill pretty quickly shortly after your second birthday and were even dry throughout the night before you turned three.

You love butter, jam and bread. And if we ask you what you would like to eat, your response is always ‘eggs and bacon’. You still are a massive fan of babycinos – and I have enjoyed our babycino time after we drop your older brother off at preschool {whilst your younger brother napped}. I feel that your younger brother will be wanting his own babycino any day now – but I hope that we still get to have our one-on-one time at some point throughout the day.

   

You love sharing a room with your older brother, but you still make an appearance in our bed every now and again {and I’m not going to lie, I still love those midnight/early hours of the morning cuddles}.

You love construction and dinosaurs and all ball sports. You are very good at puzzles – and can complete 52 piece puzzles on your own. You love to ride your scooter to the park. I love watching the special relationship between you and your brothers grow. You might drive each other crazy sometimes, but your love for one another is fierce.

I love you, Matey and I can’t wait to see how you will grow and change in the coming year xox