Letter to daughter on her 10th birthday

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The time has come to write the final birthday letter to my children. Through my experience, after the age of 10 children become more self aware and embarrassed. After my son turned 10 it no longer felt appropriate to share his birthday letter on my blog and to keep things fair (and expecting my daughter will follow suit as she so often does) this will be my final birthday letter to my daughter on her 10th birthday…

Letter to daughter on her 10th birthday

Dearest Lena Beana, my baby, my angel, my little monkey,

HOW ARE YOU 10! A whole decade of you in my life makes me feel like the luckiest woman in the world. I absolutely ADORE you.

I will never get over the fact that I made the coolest chick in the world and now get to hang out with you every day. It’s the absolute best and just keeps getting better. I’m so excited to experience 10 with you.

What happened in your 9th year?

Your 9th year has been a pretty great ‘uneventful’ year with no major setbacks on a personal level. Just plodding along nicely.

On the bigger stage you got to enjoy an election cycle and Labour got back in power in the UK which we were all happy about. Trump got back into power in the US and we were all not happy about that.

The world feels a bit harsh and scary right now and I feel sad that there doesn’t seem to be the same hope and progress that I had growing up for you kids now.

It’s not supposed to be worse for your kids! Thankfully you are mostly oblivious though you get angry about people not respecting the environment.

School aged 9

This last year spanned years 4 and 5 for you at school. Everything with school is pretty much the same as last year. You’d still much rather stay at home with us and you don’t like having to do work at school but you do like the social element of it.

You ask for packed lunches as you don’t like to wait in the long school dinner queues and you don’t think they have good vegetarian options.

Recently we’ve been battling the dreaded headlice as they are rife in your class right now. I don’t know who it has irritated more, you or me and your dad. It has felt like a part time job the past fortnight!

You still go swimming every week with school but don’t enjoy it anymore as they make you work too hard in the big pool. I’m sure them pushing you will be to your benefit though and you’ll later come to value your increased endurance.

You were chosen to take part in the 2024 FIRST Lego League Challenge and every week you’ve been going to after school club to learn how to build and code your own robot.

It’s a global STEM competition that develops key skills for future careers, including coding, design and research so it’s pretty cool you get to do it.

Funnily enough, my friend’s son (who you play with on VR) is taking part over in Pennsylvania too! Growing up is so much more global now!

Holidays aged 9

We definitely had fewer holidays this year than last year. Our main holiday was a trip to Costa Adeje in Tenerife over the Easter school holidays. That was such a nice trip and my main memories from it are of you and I playing in the sea together. You covered in the black volcanic sand with careless abandon.

We had a little mini break to a dog friendly hotel in Scarborough for a couple of nights over the summer holidays.

You were so excited for Gizmo to come on holiday and you and your brother both fought over who got to sleep in bed with Gizmo. You ended up doing a night each with him and a night each in bed with me.

On the Scarborough trip we went to the Rotunda Museum which is a museum of coastal heritage and geology. There were professors in showing off all the different fossils and you spent ages talking to them, looking at dino footprints.

We also had a mini break to Otterburn in Northumberland with your grandparents. We stayed in a log cabin called the Retreat Monday to Thursday at the end of August 2024.

You enjoyed playing in the hot tub (and making it a lot less calm and relaxing for me) and woodland walks. We visited the annual Elsdon Village Fete and Wallington National Trust.

We also had some nice meals at Otterburn Mill, William de Percy Inn and Creperie and the Redesdale Arms.

What are you like right now?

Right now you are absolutely perfect. Scrumptious. A big personality with a great joie de vivre but still with a teeny bit of little kid baby cuteness about you.

Your sense of social justice is strong – especially when it comes to the environment, animal rights and LGBTQ rights.

You are mostly vegetarian (but will occasionally ‘flex’ for something you really want like a McDonalds or bacon bun).

You are nearly always happy and see the positives in everything. There’s nothing that you can’t turn into an adventure.

You love to be outdoors and busy. You don’t like relaxing and bore easily.

You are nearly always still awake after your older brother falls asleep. This was the case on New Year’s Eve 2024 when you were up to see in the New Year and he’d fallen asleep much earlier. You NEVER say you are tired and I’m genuinely not sure you even understand the concept.

When you love something you are obsessed – songs get played on repeat. This year you fell in love with the Titanic and I think you’ve watched the movie 3 times already.

You love to snuggle and be stroked. You still hold my hand whenever we walk together and squeeze it as code for I love you. We also have a 3 movement gesture as sign language to tell each other I love you without words.

What do you love right now?

For a while now you have been obsessed with the VR game Gorilla Tag and love nothing more than playing with both friends and strangers on it.

You play with my cousin’s daughter on it and my American friend’s son on it. It’s so fascinating to hear your transatlantic conversations about politics and royalty as you play!

If you aren’t playing Gorilla Tag then you are talking about it or drawing it. Gorilla Tag is life. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you so obsessed with anything. You play it every day.

You still love all things animals and nature, rocks and gems. You like the moon, stars, sky and all things witchy.

You love music and currently love Chappell Roan (which I’m happy about even if I’m pleased you don’t understand what some of the lyrics mean). You also enjoy Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo.

You have not seen a stuffed toy you did not want and no matter how many times I declare a moratorium on stuffies more seem to appear.

You like to watch Call the Midwife with me on a Sunday night. We snuggle up together and I let you stay up late and we watch it live texting Grandma whilst we all have a 3 generational live watch party. You always pull your top up and make me stroke your back though!

We are also slowly making our way through Gilmore Girls together which you love and we love singing the theme tune to each other. I love the things we can enjoy together now that you are getting older.

10th birthday wishes – what is on your birthday list?

Your brother got a mobile phone for his 10th birthday so of course you are holding us to account for one now too.

Personally I’d rather hold off another year but as we will start letting you walk home from school on your own in year 6 this will have you ready for that.

You’ve asked for lots of Gorilla Tag merch, Meta credit and VR gadgets like these (ad/affiliate link) arm extenders (what is life).

You are love capybaras right now so have asked for a capybara (wearing a slice of bread) plushie which I have to admit is pretty dope.

You want Michael Morpurgo, Roald Dahl and Dog Man books.

You couldn’t be less interested in clothes!

Wishes for 10

As a joint birthday/Christmas gift I have got you tickets to see Olivia Rodrigo this year which we are excited about.

You have asked for more Yes Days in 2025 – Goddess help us lol.

You are excited for the final season of Stranger Things in 2025 and are going to rewatch all the seasons before the new one comes out.

You are now confident to sleep solo (though still bedshare most the time) so my wishes for you this year are for you to stop having the fan and light on all night. I don’t even want to work out what that is costing us.

I told you I had read that its bad for your eyes having the light on and your solution was to just purchase an eye mask. Crafty little divil you are!

I just want you to enjoy this year. I think it is the last year before school gets less fun as next year it’s all about the stupid SATs – the prep has already begun.

I want us to have fun and have lots of new experiences together. I think your yes days could be good for both of us – let some of your joie de vivre rub off on me. Joy is an act of resistance after all!

Conclusion of the final letter to my daughter on her 10th birthday

Our relationship is truly special and I know that you feel that too. There’s an electricity between us and we often talk to each other about our ‘special bond’.

Neither of us has any doubt about the love we have for one another but even aside from love there is a huge amount of ‘like’ between us. We genuinely like spending time with each other.

I often wonder what the future will hold for us and like to day dream of us being the best of friends when you grow up, going to festivals together and travelling the world. I hope that turns out to be true.

I want an outrageous and remarkable life for you because you are so unique and you deserve more than ordinary. Life around you is never boring and so I can’t imagine anything more awful for you than a boring life. Though, as you find the joy in everything I’m sure you could seek it out even in the most mundane.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. I do not want to wish the time away, I want to soak it up and drag it out.

For now, I love you more than I could ever put into words. Thank you for being the best daughter I could have ever hoped for. Even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t have created such a perfect daughter.

You make every single day better just by being you. I’m the luckiest mother in the world.

Be more Lena always.

Your Mama always.

If you liked this letter to my daughter on her 10th birthday, here are her previous birthday letters:

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