A letter to my daughter

I was cleaning up today (yes, I do occassionally)and I found a letter I had written to Taylor when she was 5.

I spend so much time bitching about Taylor on this blog, that I thought maybe I should share with you that I actually do love this child. If you have been reading me for awhile you will see that I briefly mention one of our constant problems.

Here goes:


12 August 2000
Taylor,
This week you learned to ride your bike without training wheels. You no longer have a bike, you always refer to it as a "two wheeler." You learned to ride your bike like you do everything else- on your own, completely by surprise. You came running into the house "I can ride a two wheeler! I can ride a two-wheeler!" How proud you were! I thought you were wrong, frankly, for just the weekend before when we went camping with Jeremy and his mum, you wouldn't let Shelley or myself let go of your shirt on Jeremy's old 12". And here you are now! I came out to watch you- you pushed your feet to start and then you were off, down the driveway, across the road, up and then down that driveway and back again. You fell once that night- a scrape on your chin and a small one on each elbow. Now I watch you and it as though you were born riding a bike. But that is the way you do things, Tay- nothing is ever halfway with you. It is all (riding a bike, reading) or nothing (cleaning!)

You are reading alot. You can pick a book up you have never read before and read most, if not all, of it. When we e-mailed Great Grandad to thank him and Great Nanny for the gifts they had sent back with Nanny you wrote that you could read, I believe, 11 books. How high that number must be now!

I love you, Tay!
Mummy

P.S. Less than a month until kindergarten- how quickly you are growing up!