A letter to my son on his 7th birthday

Each year on my son’s birthday I like to write a blog post for him to look back on in later life. Today my son is 7 and growing up fast. He’s changing in a thousand different ways each day and each week. It’s hard to capture all the changes and all of our adventures in a few paragraphs, but I’ll try.

Dear Ben,

Today you are seven years old and growing up fast. I couldn’t be prouder to be your mum. In the last year we’ve had some grand adventures and I hope we will have many many more.

Being six hasn’t always been easy, we’ve been learning to live without your Grandad and we’ve said goodbye to a few special people who I know you miss. You’ve been brave at hospital appointments and you’ve taken everything in your stride. You are a star and I wish I could take every needle and test for you, but I can’t.

Seven. I can’t believe my tiny baby is now a seven year old boy. You’ve grown tall, you’ve grown strong and you’re growing into a funny, charming, chatty boy. You’re working hard at school and I can’t ask for anything more than for you to try hard and listen to your teachers.

We’ve done such fun things while you were six. Penny the crazy puppy burst into our lives and we’ve watched her grow up. We had that brilliant holiday in Ribby Hall, just the two of us, remember? We went to Lapland UK and met Father Christmas. We’ve been rock-pooling, we’ve met sharks and otters, we had that great break in Blackpool where we saw the circus, danced on the prom, rode a donkey and just had a brilliant time together. Shall we do that again?

Keep having brilliant times, keep making brilliant memories and keep being brilliant.

We’ve got so many hopes and dreams for you this year my love. We want you to work hard and try hard at school and to carry on reading and learn to love books as much as I did at your age. We’d like you to recognise how special you are, how kind, caring, lovely and funny you are. We want you to be confident and happy in yourself. We want you to know, really know that you are loved and adored by us.

I want you to be happy, I want you to love life and enjoy everything about it. Enjoy being seven Ben, it’s a great age to be and I hope you’ll let me join you on a few of your adventures this year.

Happy birthday my beautiful boy!

All my love, Mummy xxx