To Aly with love

Today is Mother's Day and I decided to write you a message expressing just how much I love you. I wrote you your first one last year here on this blog on Mother's Day and I am hoping to continue each year. It has been an amazing year for you. You started kindergarten this year and have grown up so much right before my eyes. It is amazing how fast a year goes by.

This year has been so much fun. You have really grown a lot physical, emotionally, and academically. Perhaps my favorite thing to see was you developing empathy and compassion this year. You have really wanted to learn to be good to others, be a good friend, and treat others the way you would want to be treated. I am so proud of you for that. You have learned to take turns during play and not always be the leader. You have also developed good relationships with new friends you have made this year. I am so proud of you.

Academically you have also really blossomed. You now read at a third grade reading level, you can do addition, subtraction, time, money, and even multiplication. You know what the best part is? You are self motivated! Most of the time you are the one going to the learning bins and picking up something to learn. I admire you for that. I love your natural curiosity for things and enjoy listening to the new questions you have for things in your daily life. You even began exploring where babies came from! While I took it question by question I became quite surprised when you started sharing your new knowledge with your friends. I was so hoping I wouldn't get an angry parent phone calls telling me that you told their children more than they wanted them to know about the "birds and the bees!"

I am so thankful and grateful that you are my daughter. I am so thankful that you are healthy. I hope that this next year brings you more fun and you continue to have a curiosity for learning. I look forward to you starting first grade and I look forward to have extra time with you during summer break. I hope that we can continue to do fun things together! I love you more than you will ever know! I am so proud of the beautiful girl that you are!