She Is Four

My dearest Mei,

You are officially four today. You’ve been counting down the days till this day so it was of no surprise to me hear from your Papa that you bounded out of bed this morning and shyly waited for him to wish you happy birthday before bursting with excitement. (I missed it as I was out sending your Gor-gor to school.) That is so you, by the way, as was your later pronouncement:

“I am four years old!” you said proudly. “So I’m going to be five?“

Tarry a while my dear. You still have quite a bit of growing up to do, even as I have to accept that you are my baby no longer. I guess in many ways, you stopped being a baby a long time ago. You, my dear, are our bright, funny, really cheeky, LOUD, and above all, fiercely independent sweetheart. You want to do everything yourself, which is sounds like a wonderful thing for a parent, but isn’t always the case. I put on your shoes for you and you’ll take them off to put them on again yourself. I put in a puzzle piece for you and you’ll take it out to re-fix it yourself. “I know how to do it,” you’ll tell me impatiently as I try to give you instructions on how to do things. And honestly, you do manage to do a lot of things yourself. (Well, maybe except for going to the toilet yourself instead of asking me many MANY times a day.) I’m pretty sure your sheer stubbornness plays a big part. You are one who needs to be schooled by experience and I can only pray that life would treat you kindly.

Over the past year we’ve seen the social side of you develop. You LOVE being with your friends, to the extent that Mummy here becomes persona non grata. I recently joined your class for a trip to the theatre, thinking we might be able to enjoy some bonding time. You were happy to see me, right up to the point when you realised you would be sitting with me in the bus instead of with your friends. You were not a happy camper. Yes, at three-years of age, you already think I cramp your style. It is for this reason that your father and I are thinking a bit more carefully about where you should be going in Primary school for it seems to us that who your friends are will come to have significant bearing on the type of person you turn out to be. I’m glad we still have a few years more to decide.

At the same time, I’m glad that we have a few more years to spend with you during these preschool years. We get a little time together everyday now after I pick you up from school, now that Gor-gor is in Primary 1, and I try to use that time to play and catch up with you, To listen to your stories, play your games (for they must always be your rules) and read you books that you love. You’ve also started showing more interest in words and can recognise quite a few sight words, so these days when we read together, you will suddenly start pointing out and reading words that you recognise. It feels like something has clicked in your head as you slowly pick up more words everyday. You even recently learnt to spell “Legoland”, thanks to our recent trip up. A very important word to learn to spell as your Papa would tell you! More than English though, it is Chinese that you’ve learnt to read really well. You are always pointing out words that you recognise — recently it was all the “福” and “年” on your ang pows — and you love to pull out your Berries book and flash cards to read on your own. I’ve even caught you trying to teach them to your soft toys. “When I grow up, I want to be a Chinese teacher,” you have declared on more than one occasion. Your Papa and I marvel at the fact that you’ve taken to the language so well despite having really minimal exposure to it at home. Long may it continue.

My precious little daughter, my birthday wish for you is that you will always know, like you know now, that your Papa and I love you very very much. That that knowledge would stand you in good stead as you journey through life. That you will walk close to the Lord and grow to be a woman after His own heart. And that you will stare down every challenge with those huge eyes of yours and meet every trial with grace and good humour, knowing that we will always have your back. I used to cringe at parents calling their daughters princess, but that was before you came along. Then I understood. Because you really are our princess, precious and rare. And strong and brave and clever and funny and everything that a princess should be.

Happy birthday princess.

Loving you always,
Mummy