Letter to Natalia

Dear Natalia,
You have just started full time school and it seems like a good time to write you a letter! You have changed and grown a lot, lot, lot since the last time I wrote you.

You turned five this past summer. Five! Five was a big deal for both you and your parents! For you, it was a huge and much-anticipated milestone. You and your preschool friends had been pretending to be five all year and you were unbelievably excited to be "real five," as you called it.

For your moms, it seemed almost impossible to believe that our tiny baby had grown so big! I admit to getting teary thinking of when you were newly born and how I held your little foot as the doctors worked on you. They were getting you all healthy so you could go and meet Mommy, who was waiting to snuggle you. I held your tiny toes so that you would know we were there with you in that moment and always. Now that you are five, I look back on that time and am just in awe of getting to meet you for the first time. You are such a special girl and Mommy and I are the luckiest parents ever to have gotten you as our daughter!

Natalia, when I think of you, I think about your sweet cuddles and your musical laugh. You love being close to your moms more than just about anything. You love to be held, to hold hands, and to be right next to us. Sometimes this isn't the most convenient, such as when we are rushing to get somewhere and you are yanking on my pants, but most of the time it is the sweetest thing in the world.

As well, your laugh is just magical. It is like a wind chime or part of a symphony. I am serious. We could record it and play it for sad people and they would feel better. You find humor in a lot of things, especially your siblings' and friends' antics, and you just bubble over with giggles.

In fact, you love to be silly a whole lot. You make up silly words, you give yourself silly nicknames, you answer questions in made up gibberish. You LOVE knock knock jokes and making up your own. You are a gloriously silly kid and we love you for it. You help all of us take ourselves a bit less seriously.

On a more serious note, though,  we so admire your bravery. You find situations involving new people or lots of people to be pretty overwhelming. It takes a lot of time and energy for you to "warm up" in a new situation. You don't always want to do things that are uncomfortable, but you almost never complain. You are such a brave girl and such a good sport about constantly expanding your comfort zone.

A year ago, you were still very nervous about school and often hardly said a word in your little preschool. However, as the year went on, you began to try coming out of your shell. By the end of the year, you had debuted the wacky, silly, loud Natalia in public for the first time. You were in your element at your tiny, outdoor-focused school. We were so happy for you as we watched you grow and engage with your friends and teachers.

This year, you started at a new school, where your brother also goes. We decided to give you one more year of pre-K before you started kindergarten, but you are in a nearly full time program at a school that will take you all the way through high school. You have been loving it so far. You already know kids in the class who are younger siblings of your brother's classmates, so that has helped with the transition. You have informed us emphatically that your friends are "only girls!" This is true, but we think you must be buddies with every girl in your class by now. You are a girl-centric kid, but you love your brother to pieces, too.

You have been listening intently to your teachers and learning a lot about being a good friend. This has already started to counteract your tendency to get very close to one friend and want to exclude others...only to get close to someone else the next day and exclude that original friend. This was an issue with a lot of girls at your other preschool, but seems much better in your new class. You have delighted in informing Mommy and me that "no secrets are allowed at my school!" if we ever whisper something to each other!

Natalia, you have learned a lot since I last wrote to you! You can read all kinds of stuff now, including signs, parts of books, and even some words in Spanish. You have mastered a lot of simple addition and are a counting pro. You can write all of your letters and even some numbers. Your fine motor control has always been impressive and it continues to be so. You love to cut paper into tiny pieces and topretend to knit. It won't be long before you are doing it for real!

Other favorites include riding your bike (a real two-wheeler!) and jumping on our new trampoline outside. You also love to play with your siblings. You and Mateo are in a good spot recently. Especially on weekends, you have been know to make up your own games and giggle hysterically at your own antics. You and Rosie have a special connection and you just light up when she rushes into your classroom at the end of the day. You heave her off the ground (she's pretty close to your size!) and beam as you spin her around and the collapse on the ground together.

Of course, like any siblings, you three have your conflicts during the day. However, at the end of the day, you literally end up in the same place! You and Mateo have chosen to share a room and both seem to take great comfort in having the other just a couple of feet away.

You still love your red blankie and sleep with it every night. It gives you comfort and security and helps you feel better when you are sad or tired.

Finally, you have quite a mutual admiration society (as your great-grandma would have said) going on with our new kitty, Iris. You love her and she loves you. She lets you hold her like a baby and fawn over her and you love to nurture her. You are going to be an amazing mom someday, but for right now you give a lot of love to Iris!

Natalia, you are a wonderful girl. We love you more than a CAT (as you once told Mommy!). We love you so much that it makes our hearts grow. We love you just exactly the way you are now, and we will always be there to hold your hand and cheer you on as you grow.

We love you!
Mama and Mommy