Tag / new years wishes for my daughter

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Ten New Year wishes for my four year old daughter

Hey Pickle,

I’ve been reading back over my wishes for last year, and you know what’s awesome? You pretty much cracked them all. I mean, okay, there are plenty of lifetime ones that none of us will ever exactly nail – that life is a journey stuff? Trite, yes, but true – but all those goals like toilet training and staying immensely cool and surprising me every day? Yep, yes, done. As if there were ever any doubt.

And in the spirit of celebrating that joy and achievement, I have ten more wishes for you. Because I will never stop wishing for you.

1. I wish that you will continue to bring the laughs. I was bowled over when it turned out that your relentless good humour and the jokes and daftness that you bring to everyday life at home turned out to be your default position in school as well. It’s heartwarming to hear that you spend your time making friends and encouraging people to smile. Okay, we’ll probably need to have some conversations about not getting carried away (and maybe also not basing your worth on being the centre of attention), but I can’t really think of a better essential life skill than spreading the happy. You go, kid.

2. I wish for you to have an IMMENSE time at Walt Disney World! I know I’ve invested an awful lot in this since your first visit is to be at the same age as my first visit was. And it was different for me because a) different people and b) I had no expectations – whereas you, lucky creature, have been to Disneyland Paris twice already! But you’ll have your cousins with you, with my nephew the same age as his mum was when we embarked on this manic, lifetime’s love together. And I hope that will help you overcome any nerves about rides (not to mention entertain you in the crazy queues). There are some attractions we’ll experience for the first time together, and some I think will be reignited in my heart by experiencing them with you. I am highly aware that I need to not base my own excitement on yours, and that I need to accept that your experience will be what it will be. So, you’re the lucky one – when I took your father for the first time, on our honeymoon, I told him that if he didn’t love Epcot I’d regret marrying him. You, I leave to your own devices. (But please don’t hate Spaceship Earth!)

3. I wish that you will keep smashing those targets – in your own time. I knew you were a ridiculously good reader, but I had no idea until parents’ evening how good you are at, well, almost everything else as well. And it’s easy to get carried away with that and get complacent or smug – plus I’ll never apologise for being aspirational and ambitious for you, including academically. You’re smart, and that’s nothing to hide.  And I think we should look to find activities that will let you enjoy your love of singing, dancing and performing. But I also don’t want your formal achievements to be everything about the way you define yourself. That kindness and joy-spreading I talked about? Equally, if not more important. So while I will pray for every success and offer you all the support you could ever possibly want to do what you dream of doing, I’m definitely not going to Tiger Mother you to the next level.

4. I wish that you will keep being amazed by small things. I pretty much adore that you are equally blown away by theme parks and the dodgy-looking wobbly Christmas tree across the road from the childminder’s. The awe is so real – so genuine and heartfelt. I love that you find something wonderful in everything and I hope you keep that for a long time.

5. I wish that you will keep liking what you like, regardless of the opinions of others. Your life is an explosion of all colours, superheroes, princesses (and queens – let’s not demote Elsa like everyone else seems to), building, drawing, reading, writing, singing, playing, computer games, puzzles… no boy things, no girl things, just things. And you don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I know school has a way of knocking the corners off and making people hide their interests to fit in, and I really really hope this doesn’t happen to you. Especially after I promised to give you my Captain America leggings when you grow up. I’d really like to keep that promise.

6. I wish that you will get to spend even more time with your cousins. A holiday together will really help and you’d think a couple of hundred miles is NBD, but somehow we never seen them quite as much as we’d like to. And when you are together, it makes me so happy watching the close and affectionate and rowdy and ridiculous relationships that you’re developing between you. It’s a wish for all of us really, because you can’t ever have too much love in your life, can you?

7. I wish that you will keep inspiring me to be better. From drawing a story out of me, to forcing me to pay attention to the balance I strike between time working and time with you, you raise me as much as I do you. I spent the first year of motherhood trying to work out how to follow a script and be a mother. But being a mother can’t be done by me to you. It must be done between us, as a lifetime’s work. You have to teach me to be the mother you need, and I have to teach you to be your most honest self.

8. I wish that you would let me brush your hair more often. Listen kid, I get that it’s boring and sometimes uncomfortable, and from the perspective of supporting your control of your own body I really, truly don’t care if you want a crew cut or Rapunzel’s braids. Just, for sanity’s sake (and so that the school don’t think I’m neglecting you), as long as it’s clean, tidy and not the snarled and knotted haystack you far too often force me to let you get away with. We’ll use the special brush and the conditioner spray and all the rest of it, but for real kid, we need to keep that thing in line.

9. I wish that you will keep playing along. I’ve never been sure whether you know that it’s me moving Kinder Egg Loki around the house or whether you really think he does it on his own, but if you are humouring me well then keep doing it. All our little in-jokes and silly conversations that only you, me and your dad really ‘get’ are what makes our little world so perfectly, unforgettably ours. Also, the bizarre knock knock jokes like “Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? Banana, can you paint a wall? No.” Those have to stay.

10. I wish that you will watch Ratatouille. Cos it’s great. And that Care Bears movie thing is doing my head in.

Yours with a full heart,

Mama x

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Ten New Year wishes for my three year old daughter

Morning Pickleface!

We’re all feeling a bit the worse for wear today, and sadly it’s got nothing to do with partying but with things like fevers, snot and raging colds that Will. Not. Die. Not even on the promise of a wonderful new year! The buggers – oops, I mean, erm, boogers?

Anyway. While you sleep off the Calpol and I create a Matterhorn-sized pile of damp tissues, I have been rubbing my addled brain cells together to think of what I wish you for 2014. Of course, a list of ten can only ever be limiting, and I’m sure that many, hundreds, thousands more wishes of every size will present themselves to me before, oh, the end of the day, but here’s what’s on my mind, right now, as we blearily rub the crust from our eyes and gaze out on 365 fresh days of possibility.

1. I wish that you will crest through the fear phase and show more flashes of your fearsome, awesome side. The threenager period took me by surprise as my previously fearless daughter – who will still hurl herself off the sofa without a second thought and never has unbruised knees – suddenly started to fear things. Weird, random things. Bears. The pirates in Peter Pan. I Want My Hat Back. Anything new that hadn’t been thoroughly trailered and spoilered. The toilet! And those fears would come and go, and apply to some things and not others, and mean that you could go on Buzz Lightyear’s Laser Blast three times in a row and gleefully shoot at a huge, deafeningly loud Emperor Zurg, but you ran away from the telly when Toy Story 2 was on and he grimaced on screen. I mean, I get it – I’m a person with a bunch of weird fears myself, who can enjoy Expedition Everest but balks at the idea of ever doing Splash Mountain – a ride it took me until the age of 29 to brave – again. But I also want it to pass because I don’t want fear for you. Except a healthy fear of breaking all your bones, which is the one you don’t seem to have picked up…

2. I wish that you will finally nail this toilet training thing. I knew, like all the family from me and your auntie down to your cousins, that you would be around 3 when you cracked it because every single one of us has rocked up quite late to this party, but a recent burst of pre-schooler resistance has dragged this, erm, shit out way longer than necessary. We’re going to get a handle on this, and soon, right? Right. *high five*

3. I wish that you will continue to develop this growing interest in art and painting. I love how you’ve started to observe things and actually tried to draw what you see – do you know how hard that is?! Well obviously not and I’m not telling you because I don’t want you to think of things as hard, but it is. I also love how your passion for drawing has reignited something in your dad, and started me down a path of sketching and daubing that I’d seriously lost touch with. With two artsy parents, it’s inevitable you’ll be exposed to this stuff, and I really hope you find as much joy and satisfaction in it as we do – more, in fact, since I will always wish more of everything good for you.

4. I wish that you’ll keep up your beautiful manners. Seriously, I’m so impressed! I know you sometimes struggle to speak up when you’re shy, but your many pleases and thank yous are a joy to hear. I frequently second-guess my parenting skills, but no-one will ever be able to question this.

5. I wish that you’ll keep asking questions! My proudest moment reading your nursery ‘report’ wasn’t all the stuff you can do – I know you can write your name, recognise letters, count, build, draw, spell a bit – but the bit where A wrote “when she doesn’t know, she asks questions”. Kid, if you’ve cracked that now, the world is your sea creature of choice. Seriously. It’s so much harder than you think for adults, so if you can get in the habit now, you are So. Sorted.

6. I wish that you will never let me off the hook. Look, I know the job I signed up to. I love the job I signed up to. But it’s a total attention suck of the highest order. When you take my phone out of my hand and say “put it down, Mummy” you are doing a great service to me and yourself. But to make this wish happen I promise to really be with you when I’m meant to be. No more crafty little phone checks when I think you’re busy by yourself. I will mark out time to work and time not to work. I promise you that. No more excuses.

7. I wish that you will gain further understanding of your boundaries. I love that we’ve got into the habit of establishing your bodily autonomy, and you can be very clear about when cuddles, kisses and tickles are welcome and when they’re not. You’ve learned that we respect your opinion on this, and that we expect others to as well. Long may this continue.

8. I wish that you will keep playing Tickle Monster. Because the sound of your hysterical, unexpectedly deep and totally joyful chuckle literally pumps the blood through my heart.

9. I wish that you will keep surprising us. Whether it’s with your impressive vocabulary or your intense sweetness, your unfettered imagination or your madcap sense of humour, I hope you keep making us stare at each other and go “where did that come from?!”. Because that is never not brilliant.

10. I wish that you will watch anything other than Tangled. Please. For the love of God. I love it as much as the next person and Flynn Rider is, well, I think quite popular with many mums, but seriously, there are many not-scary films you could intersperse your 4 millionth and 4 million and first viewings with. That one time you agreed to The Aristocats gave us all hope, and I’m sure you’ll watch Frozen again when it’s out, but we need some variety yes? Good.

You know what, Stinky? I think we can achieve all this and much, much more. 2014, we’re ready for you.

With all my love,

Mummy x