Oh man, man oh, man! You my friend are 3 going on 13, going on 30. You, my little Z man, are way older than your years. People keep asking me if you’re doing to primary school next year and I have to remind them that you just turned 3!
You’ve got the gift of the gab. Language just came naturally to you. You are the baby that I was expecting – with me and my siblings all conquering language early. You’ve always got something to say.
You’ve also got confidence. Confidence in spades! You’re the social baby – always running up to the people at primary school pick up to let them know what you’ve been up to that day.
When we go to primary school to do canteen duty, you’re out and about busy talking to the students and the teachers and the parents. You like to try and hand out the iceblocks to the big kids. One day, we thought you had gone missing. And when a team of us when looking, we found you in the girls toilet – stall door open, sitting there – you looked up at us and said ‘What? I’m doing a poo!’
It’s also been hard to tear you away from preschool each morning, when we drop off your older brother. You turn and say to me ‘please let me stay with my friends, Mama! They make me so happy.’ I hope that you are as happy to be there and stay next year when you actually start.
You love swimming lessons. There was a period of adjustment when you went from being in the baby class and swimming with Daddy. To the big boy class where a parent didn’t have to get into the pool. You cried for 2 weeks and it broke my heart – and then the week that I decided that if you cried again, I would pull you out and wait until summer to start again, you jumped in and swam back and forth so happily.
You just want to keep up with your big brothers – riding bikes, jumping on the trampoline, running races, playing on the beach, kicking goals – if they are doing it, so are you.
Your favourite books are ‘The Gruffalo’ and ‘The Very Cranky Bear’ – you’re so good that you can recite them off by heart as we go for walks in the pram. Sometimes we walk up to the library and pick new books but you always come back to these.
You have loved becoming a big brother. And I have loved watching the bond you have formed with your younger brother. One of the sweetest things I have seen you do is climb into bed next to him and say ‘don’t worry, I’ll always have your back.’ I hope you always will.
You are kind, but you are also our joker. I love your little jokes and the way you laugh when other adults laugh – and you let us know that you too also understood the joke (even when I know that went straight over your head).
Happy third birthday, my beautiful boy. I am so proud of the kind, protective, confident, independent, charming, humorous, conversationalist that you are growing up to be. We love you so much xox
