It's your 5th birthday Carter

My sweet baby boy - you still remain my quietest and sweet natured child..... until you've got your hands on a football, then you turn into someone I'd liken to a WWE wrestling fan. You are intensely into football and spend 90% of your time playing or practicing. I often look out into the yard and see you commentating your own plays as you practice. It's adorable and oh so fun to watch.

We finally managed to get you in for some speech therapy this year. I know you won't remember but you would often mumble words, run words together and couldn't get your sounds out. Well, that's all turning around. You love speech therapy. You are excited to have your appointments and are proud of how well you are going. You take your "homework" seriously and ask me every day to do "your speech" with you. It's made a big difference in your confidence to speak up at school and to not let Mason dominate conversations. 

You were not shy or uncomfortable or even hesitant to go off to your first day of pre-school, despite being in a different class to Mason. In fact, as much as you love him, I think you liked having a class to yourself. Your little hand slipped out of mine,  let go and walked away into school  without ever looking back. I was so excited  for you and you beamed when I picked you up, full of new found confidence and freedoms. 

You received your first ever merit award for being a good role model at school. You listen and participate and demonstrate such respect for your teacher and coaches. On your birthday you headed off to play footy in Bungendore and came away with best of field and gosh were your proud. 

You are one smart cookie Carter. You learned so quickly to write your name and you love to read all matter of books. You are super intelligent but also so aware of your space. You still recognise when it's too much for you and you still take yourself off to play quietly on your own or put yourself down for a nap. You still love your cuddles and will always let me know when you need attention from me. 

We spent a lot of time together late in 2021 due to shut downs and isolations, I'm still so thankful for that time with you. While I may have found it completely overwhelming at times, the moments where we could set aside work and focus on fun with you were my favourite of the entire past year. Playing outside and laughing with you and your brother are the highlights of my days

You are sweet as sugar and stubborn as rock (particularly around apologising). You are look before you leap and always ask if ever in doubt. You are the Ying to Mason's Yang. You are not my baby any more and I long for these days to go just a little slower.

Carter at 5:

• you are: 113cm tall
• you weigh 19.9 kilo
• you still have all your baby teeth, 
• you love: playing  football in the front yard with Jackson (our neighbour), being Cooper's shadow, sleep and food.
• your favourite food is: Spaghetti or Nachos. 
• your best friend is Mohammad at school
• you hate: People (Mason) talking over you. 
• My most favourite thing you've said this year was whenever I said I had an appointment you'd say "for your eyebrows mum?" because you remember that one time i took you to my eye brow appointment.. and it was clearly a highlight 
• biggest event this year - spending a whole week with just Oma and Poppy at Forster, going on lots of fun camping trips and catching 21 fish in the space of 90 mins on holidays.