Letters to my children

Giant baby girl

You are 10 months old. You are crawling properly, real baby crawling - hands and knees, ponderously. You still have a great commando shuffle but you use it less often now. You pull yourself up on anything you can reach - tables, chair legs, mummy's legs, dog-dog... you are just so pleased with yourself. You've learned that when you hold a phone to your ear and 'talk', people applaud you, and now you do that with every object you can find: a fridge magnet, a stick, a plastic farmer. I applaud you every time.

Every new thing, every new movement you master is a mountain you've climbed, and watching you climb is amazing. It maybe because I've watched your brother through this stage but I'm somehow more aware of you and your 'babyness' - knowing it will pass so quickly. I feel you're on the verge now, of babyhood and toddler. I was longing to see every new stage with your big brother, and with you I want it to last and last.. I want to hold you, ten-month-sized daughter, forever.

Big boy

You are officially a Big Boy. You wake up between 6 and 7 every morning, desperate to start your day, beginning at full volume and full velocity and not slowing unless you're strapped into a car seat and driven for more than ten minutes. If there are no car journeys planned you'll keep going.. and going... and going... until bedtime comes round again. Then you'll demand more stories, more cuddles, more conversation - until we leave you to play in your bedroom, hearing ominous thuds and thumps as you potter around until you eventually decide to be sleepy. Where do you get all this energy from? For such a small boy you have an amazing capacity for movement.

Your welcomes are the best in the world, and worth going away for - even if only to London to the office for the day. 'MUMMY!' you shout, and grin, and hurl yourself at my legs. You tell me about your day, so desperate to be heard your words tumble over themselves, stumbling in their urgency. You tell me about sharks, and tigers, and Harry Potter falling from a flying car, and DINOSAURS. I understand you perfectly - most of the time. The sentences I don't understand straight away I ask you to repeat and you do, explaining yourself carefully, looking at me closely to check I've got it - 'No Mummy, not that... this!'

You learn from us - such an obvious sentence - but you learn from everything we do. if I get shout at the dog jumping up at the table you copy immediately, telling him sternly to Get. Down. Now. Dog-Dog. You're learning how to manage people, arguments, expectations, reactions - all from our example. Such a weight of responsibility! I want to be teaching you patience, and love, and calm... I hope that the majority of the time I am.