Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Boo,

Eight years ago you came into our lives and changed it so that we cannot image a day without you. You fill our days with so much emotion...from pleasure and pride to anger and impatience. But most of all you fill our days with your presence.

It is hard to watching you grow up, knowing that as each stage passes this is the last time your dad and I will have to deal with it. Each year we watch you change and you are showing all the characteristics and character of being a fine young woman. People always tell us how charming and funny you are, how beautiful you are and how compassionate you are...we are glad to hear these compliments...but we see them for ourselves every day. There are many minutes, hours, days, when you are a very difficult to live with...and at the moment your constant whine is driving us to distraction. I guess this is to be expected when you are always fighting for the same rights as your older sister. Your emotions are always "up front", both the good and the bad. They always will be. That is who you are.

You have a wonderful quality of independence that we value and respect. You recently took your first flight with Lolly to Melbourne to visit with Grandma and Grandad...you were totally fearless. I cannot imagine your sister doing the same thing at that age. We see you gaining more and more independence each day and while this makes us proud it saddens us a little.

You have some wonderful qualities that those of us who love you have seen since you were a baby. Last year you befriende a new little boy in your class who was having a hard time settling in. His name is Harley and he had just move interstate and didn't know anyone. You were his friend in class; you stopped to help him and to talk to him and made first few weeks at a new school happier because he could count on you to seek him out and play. Your teacher, Mrs. Reardon, told me about this and said that she could always count on you to help out the kids that were feeling left out. Eventually we all learn to read and write and drive and cook and hold a job, but we cannot "learn" a good heart....and Boo you have a seriously good heart.

So today is special, and you are special. Not just because you are our daughter, but because you are a unique individual and one that we respect and enjoy being with. You have unusual taste, but you have lots of it. And you are tenacious when you want something and you usually end up getting exactly whatever it is you were wanting. Lately we have seen your love of art grow. And you are more often than not seen with a sketch pad and pencil in hand. You draw the most amazing pictures and we hope that you continue to foster this love of drawing and painting. As a young person you have figured out how to talk to people...you are instinctive in your "people skills".

All these qualities are sometimes covered over by anger and shouting and frustration and impulse, but as you grow you will get more control and you will learn to channel those emotions more productively.

So today as we reflect on where the past eight years have gone we want you to go forward... to make this world a better place for yourself..and t0 remember those who love you will be following right behind you. And we always will.

Love, Mum and Dad

P.S. It was the wonderchilds birthday yesterday...I got caught up in birthday cake baking yesterday morning and didn't get a chance to post it!