And now, you are seven.

Jazz hands

My darling Missy Woo,

Today, you become seven. It doesn't seem possible but then, people ask me if you and Monkey are twins and are surprised when I say you are still six if they ask your age. There are girls at school two years above you who aren't as tall as you. People naturally think you are older because you are tall but also you have a grown up way about you most of the time. They obviously don't see you when you are being giddy and giggly. 

You love to dance and so it seems apt that today is also your first ever dance exam. And you can't wait. You are almost as excited about your exam as your birthday. You love the idea and you're so proud to be doing your exam. You are not scared at all, and you've practised your moves in the conservatory to the music a few times. I'm not sure if it's the fact you get a couple of hours off school or just that you are going to be dancing. 

Today is going to pass by in a blur. Presents and breakfast, dance exam, school, where you'll have golden time and celebration assembly as it's a Friday. Then, we'll be going to Blackpool to see Granny and Granddad and go out for tea with them. 

It seems like the complete opposite of the day you were born. Having arrived in this world at 4.52am, all hell broke loose after you were born and you spent much of your first couple of hours in a hospital cot whilst the staff dealt with me, put me on drips and stopped me bleeding. I lost half the blood in my body that morning but luckily, the staff were ready and did a fantastic job, but I had to stay lying down all day. I did get to hold you but it was hard to hold you constantly with a drip in my hand. That day felt like it was frozen in time but eventually, they moved me down to a ward and in the afternoon, Monkey came to see you and I and jumped on my stomach. By the time they allowed me to stand upright again, you were already 14 hours old. Of course, you didn't know this - you were either sleeping, or lying wide awake looking around. And boy, you could sleep as a newborn! Even now, you are the one I have to wake up in the mornings. 

Seven years on, you are still my baby. You are funny and you can talk the hind legs off a donkey. If I ask you what you did at school today, I get a blow by blow account and it takes you five minutes to tell me about the first lesson! You are kind and you are a great friend. You rarely fall out with your friends and if someone says something horrid to you, you let it go over your head. You often sort out arguments between other girls in your circle of friends. 

You love to draw and if I'd kept every one that you'd done, we'd have had to move house. You are always drawing, colouring, making and creating. But you're also really good at maths and it's your favourite subject. Actually, you love school all round. You first walked in your school just before you were two and when we went back a couple of months later, you sat down in the reception classroom and started to try and write with the children. You wanted to go to school when Monkey started the year before you did and when it was finally your turn, you walked in without a tear or a moment of worry and you have blossomed there. Every now and then, you have a crisis of confidence in some aspect of learnin - it's been reading, writing, and even some of your dance moves so far. I have to remember to keep telling you that no-one is brilliant at anything first time around and you have to keep trying to get better. Then you do it and you completely forget that you ever doubted your abilities.

At seven, we have a glimpse of the woman you will become. The world is opening up to you, a world of possibilities. You don't know what you want to be when you grow up, mainly because you want to do so many things. You'd like to be an author, an illustrator, a dancer or a mathematician (although you are not sure you can do maths as a job). If you could work out a way to do them all together, I have no doubt you would - unless you change your mind about any of those things. 

And so, on your birthday, I want to wish you happy birthday and tell you how much I love you - although you knew that anyway, didn't you?

I have one final message for you, Missy Woo, on this day of days. Don't stop being you. 

Love,

Mummy xx