4

My darling Noora,

From the moment we found out that it would be nine months until your arrival you were wanted. Wanted by everyone, Me, Baba, Nana, Babu, your bibi and autnies and uncles. You were the much awaited baby. Being pregnant with you was tough, I wasn’t well and so many times we thought we’d lost you. I lost seven kilo’s in the first few months and then ballooned because of the pre-eclampsia. You arrived slightly ahead of schedule and I was relieved. Baba is a slightly older dad; he was forty three when you arrived. Even when I was pregnant I could tell that your relationship was going to be an extra special one.
Today you turn four, four! Where has the time gone? I can’t believe the four years ago today you were born at four thirty in the afternoon weighing 3.58kg. You arrived very quickly, I was only in labour for two hours. You gave us all quite a fright, the midwife thought that you would arrive by midnight but you had other ideas and fourty minutes later you were born! I should have known then that you would always want things done in a hurry. Once you were born you latched on like a pro, you and I went on to enjoy every moment of your feeds for a very long time after.
From that moment you were the perfect baby, you would wake every four hours to be fed and sleep deeply in between. On the day we took you home from the hospital you slept for seven hours, your father and I did everything we possibly could to wake you. I was panicking because I thought something might happen if you didn’t feed. Eventually you woke up, looked around at your new surroundings before letting out a beautiful cry to let me know you were ready. This was our life for the next three months, you were wonderful, so easy, I wondered why other mum’s made a fuss about sleepless nights and windy, fretful babies. You were nothing like this.
At three months old you started watching people when they were eating and would try to propel yourself towards their food. Nana was eating fried rice in bed once when you managed to roll over and wiggle yourself towards a stray grain of rice and eat it off the bed! She gave you a little more off of her fork but I worried that it might do you some harm and stopped her, you cried for ages! You were nearly four months old when you came on holiday wih your dad and I to Thailand. We went for a week, I still hadn’t given you any solids but you would watch your dad eating. He felt terrible about this and decided to give you some coconut water and allowed you to suck a water melon. To this day your favourite fruit is water melon. Sleeping had become to be a bit of a problem, you were always hungry and the weight was falling off me no matter how many mars bars I ate. I decided it was time to feed you, you were 17weeks old. I followed all the directions and made you up some baby rice with breast milk (they say a teaspoon a day for the first week), I gave you the first teaspoon and you clung on to the spoon for dear life! I had to wrestle you to get it back, you went on to eat the entire bowl! That night you slept for twelve hours. The next day, you had three meals and the day after that you were introduced to vegetables and loved them even more, what a star! You always loved broccoli and carrots and today they remain your favourite. You slept all night every night for a year.
You took your time learning to crawl, you preferred to roll over to get to your destination, paying no heed to the destruction you caused trying to get there. From the moment you were born you loved music, once you were able you would pull yourself up against a table and bounce away to your heart’s content, this is how you learnt to walk. On your first birthday, you and I were dancing away to Paul Simons Graceland (your favourite), I let go of your hands and you continued bouncing then I slowly moved away from you and you started to take steps toward me. I had to restrain myself so that I wouldn’t shout and scream, you walked as if you had always walked and never sat sown again.
You were a late speaker but once you started there was no shutting you up. The big words came fast and furious. You said to me yesterday: “mama did you notice what Abdulla did” not did you see or look at what he’s doing but notice!
Since then you have grown the most independent, stubborn and knowing little person on the face of this planet. You pooh pooh me and my ideas, look at me like I’m childish when I get excited about toys, tell me that dolls don’t need names because they aren’t real and come out with grown up one liners that leave me gobsmacked or trying to suppress my giggles. You ask me what chemistry is and are never satisfied with my answers and you can throw award winning tantrums . You tell me first thing in the morning that I am beautiful, you put your arms round us and give us the most fantastic cuddles( no reason) and try to teach Abdulla good manners even though you don’t use them yourself!
You are the best of girls. You are your mama’s girl, your Baba’s girl, your Nana’s girl and your Babu’s girl. You are a great big sister and a really good friend. You are loved, so loved. You are Stella Maris our Star of the Sea.

Love always and forever(no matter what)
From Us
You and your uncle Salim aren’t the best of friends. His hearing is quite sensitive to childrens voices and is forever telling you to keep quiet, his voice is very loud and you are forever under the impression that he is shouting at you. He’s not, he’s Autistic and that’s the way he will always be. Remember this, when you were in my tummy, he was always asking when you would come out. When you were born, he was one of the first to hold you and love you. When I would be feeding you, he would climb in to bed with us for a cuddle and when you were asleep he would always be going in to the room to check on you. You used to look at him with your gigantic brown eyes and think he was the bees knees. He is bigger than you and louder and will always be the friend that needs that little bit of special help from you. Always remember this!





I have somuch more that I want to add, so many things have happened is such a short amount of time. I'll add them as the years go by.



NB. I have tried to upload photp's that would compliment the letter but the net blogger is just not functioning tonigh. I will catch up once the party is over and add, so check back for some great photo's.