My fearless, sassy, smart, compassionate beautiful little girl, Happy Birthday.

I cannot believe that you have only been in our lives for two years. How have you crammed so much joy, spark, laughter and love into such a short time B?!

The city is your natural habitat. You are such a city baby, in fact I think you might be one of the only people in NYC who actually likes the subway. You love being pushed around Manhattan in the stroller with Freddie, holding his hand singing your made up songs and chatting away to me about everything that you see.

We have had so many visitors out here since Freddie was born and the way that you have warmed and loved everyone who has come SO QUICKLY has been beautiful to see. You chat to family on Facetime most days and it is the most normal thing in the world to you that all of your relatives all live inside my phone. The amazing thing is that it wasn’t weird to you to see them in real life too! Technology hey!?

At two years old you…

• are fiercely independent. “Belle do it self” is your motto. You want to do EVERYTHING by yourself. We are not allowed to put you in the stroller, the highchair, or your bed. We can’t put your shoes on or press the elevator button, peel your banana, orange or string cheese and under no circumstances are we allowed to feed you. Heck no! Hey, I admire that little girl, but there is still something so sweet about hearing you say “Mummy help please” after you try and try and try and eventually surrender to needing help… because you are only two! I hope to nurture that strong independent character that you are blessed with little Belle, whilst gently teaching you that we are not made to succeed alone and that we can only thrive when we recognise our own weakness and lean on Jesus, family, friends and even total strangers for the help that we all need.
• You are incredibly vocal. The language that you have at two amazes me. You are speaking in sentences and even starting to string sentences together. I love hearing your sweet little voice. I wondered for so long what you would sound like. The other day in the elevator a stranger said hello to you and you responded saying “I’m a bit shy”. You had the whole elevator laughing. FYI Belle, generally shy people don’t announce to a group of people that they are shy.
• You are so compassionate. There is one little boy in your Sunday school class (who is now your friend) who was crying and, without being told,  you went over to hug him and tell him that he would be ok. Your teacher told me that you do that most weeks. Empathy is something that many adults struggle with so I am so proud to see you nail that one before your second birthday.
• You are so sassy. Sassy is kind of your thing. Now we are working out  teaching you to be an appropriate amount of sassy whilst still being respectful. It is a work in progress little girl.
• You are so smart. As your Mama, your intelligence both scares me and really keeps me on my toes. You NEVER forget. If I say that we will do something after your nap, you will wake up and remind me. If I say that we are going into Manhattan, you will go to my bag, take out my purse, grab my Metro card and say “lets go!”. You are one smart cookie B and I cannot wait to see where that takes you. I can even say “we are going to the store to buy yoghurt, bananas and bread” and you will remind me when we get there and point those things out of the shelf. It is actually very helpful, there have been times that you remember things that I don’t.

You LOVE…

• Dinosaurs! You even had a Dinosaur cake for your birthday – good job Daddy!
• Dogs. Always.
• Food – all food – apart from cooked Zucchini which you think are cooked snakes. Fair.
• Messy craft – even when it is not meant to be messy
• Peppa Pig, Barney and wheels on the bus
• choosing your own clothes – which explains the tutu
• the park
• swimming (you can’t swim yet but you think that you can. I like that you love the water already)
• books (we can’t read a book before bed because you always cry after the last book!).

You are constantly amaze us and make us up our parenting game all of the time. Thank you for being our first little Belle.

We love you crazy amounts Belle Henfrey.