Letters to Our Daughters- February 2013 {St George, NB Child Photographer}

 

Dear Kathleen,

I am proud of your beauty. I am not afraid to say it because it truly warms me to see what a pretty girl you have become. You look so much like my sister Samantha and myself. I love that you are not self conscious, you don’t know anything about being self critical. You are pretty and that is where it begins and ends. In your world all little girl are pretty. Please stay this way! Do not let the world into this point of view!

While your brothers are in school, you have girl time. You play in your bedroom, Barbies and dolls, and I sneak in to watch you play. You take me back  to when Leah and I played Barbies. I watch you decorate your beloved doll house with furniture that belonged to my sisters and I. You dress your barbies and dolls in clothes that all hold a little story and memories. The themes are the same; Barbie gets married, goes camping, has a party with her friends. Although, your dolls are often Princesses and named Cinderella, that is something different.

You watch cartoons and hold your Cabbage Patch doll and absently rock her, unconsciously. At only 4 year old you are maternal and motherly. You worry about your brothers and pester them about their well-being. You complain and bark sometimes like an old woman, your daily routine starts with you barking for the location of your glasses.

You make mistakes and you to try to do little chores without asking, as a way to ask forgiveness. I do the same thing and never realized it was genetic. At 4,  you are stuck between being an independent big girl. You watch Sesame Street intently because you told me they are teaching you to read, and you are going to school soon. Your biggest battle is with buckling your own car seat. You announced this morning that when you learn to cook, unlike your brothers you were not going to learn how to make toast, you would learn how to make cake. You seem so big and grown up but that thought is shattered when you put on your footie jammies.

To you life is a bit of a fairy tale, all you need is a pretty dress and you are an instant ballerina-princess.

 

Every month I blog a letter to my daughters, as part of a blog circle. To read another letter go to Sunshine Lane Photography by Sarah Cunningham Vaughn  (no relation! but I wish she was because I would visit this cousin on the beautiful island of Mauritius!) and read her letter to her daughter Sofia Anela.