A letter to my daughter: I can’t believe you are in year 4!

I can’t believe that I have a child in year 4 at school! I’m too young to have a child in year 4… I can REMEMBER being in year 4 myself!

Today, Bunny started year 4, very very excitedly. Her twin sisters cried when we left her in the school playground, because they’ve loved having her at home to play with over the school holidays and they don’t start school for another year.

I’ve never done the emotional school-gate-mum thing… until now! Because you see, I only did half of year 4. It was in year 4 of primary school, that I got diagnosed with leukaemia. I missed the second half of the year and I missed most of year 5 too. Bunny reminds me so much of myself and although Leukaemia is not hereditary, for some reason I feel a bit emotional, about seeing my own daughter reach this age.

I don’t want to forget how smart and opinionated my little girl is. I had to grow up faster than I should have at her age, but she is still a little girl, who believes in Santa and the tooth fairy and can have a normal childhood and a normal school life. For this reason, I have written Bunny a letter, than she can read when she is older…

Dear Bunny,

Over the years that you’ve been at school, you’ve become an avid and fluent reader, who reads every single day and insists on completing the Summer reading challenge in the last week of the summer every year (so you end up having to read 6 books in one week). You’ve come home from school and Googled the topics you enjoy, because you want to know EVERYTHING. You ask us so many questions, that you drive us potty. You’ve gone from sweet little well-behaved girl, to feisty wannabe-teenager with an attitude problem and now you seem to be heading back to the sweet little girl again, but keeping some of the attitude!

You’ve grown a love for sports, gymnastics, dance, running and drama. You seem to be finding yourself. You have passion and enthusiasm and you get extremely frustrated and disappointed if you are unable to complete something. You like to do everything well and try everything once.

You’ve become slightly fussier about what you eat, which you know irritates me and your dad, but you make us proud because you will always try new things and have the courtesy to eat the things you aren’t keen on. You are learning that food costs money and there are children in the world less fortunate than you. You are learning to be thankful of all the wonderful experiences you get, through having a mum with a blog.

Over the summer holidays, you’ve been camping in Dartmouth, stayed in a caravan in Dawlish, been to LEGOLAND, Chessington and Alton Towers. You’ve been to Weymouth, you’ve played with your half brother and seen all of your cousins, grandparents, your aunty and some of your godparents. You’ve been shopping, been to softplay, parks, zoos, farms, fruit picking, cities and done the entire Shaun in the City trail. You’ve even been on TV and one of your vlogs has had over 2500 views on YouTube. You used to take all this for granted, but now you are realising that other children in your class aren’t as lucky as you. At the end of the day you now say, “Thank you mummy for taking me there”. The other day you told me you thought you were really luck to have me as a mum and that brought tears to my eyes. 

You’ve grown through bullying, having a mum with cancer, several house moves and a change of schools, yet your achievements have gone from strength to strength. You are the child who befriends the lonely kid at school, you find the quiet one with no friends and you make him or her smile, you are the one who picks another up when they fall down, you share your toast money with a child who has none and you care about others.

You might struggle with maths, but you can count in four different languages. Your handwriting is terrible, but you can spell really well for your age. In just 6 months, you caught up in Mandarin, with the children who’ve been learning it for three years. You might get told off for talking a lot, but you never miss a trick. Your school report in your new school, was the best you’ve ever had.

I can’t believe you are in year 4 already.

But your Dad and I are so very proud of you and we love you more than you can imagine.