As I sit here listening to Daphne “Change” (great track by the way, you’ll love it – or at least I will try to encourage you to love it), it’s starting to occur to me that change is somewhat dominating our lives at the moment.

We watch a cartoon called Humf, where the main character this morning proclaimed his sheer delight at the fact he could change his mind on the things he likes. Obviously the lyrics of the record I’m listening to are all about people changing their minds – I even opted for a beer from the fridge, when I had initially gone to the kitchen for a glass of wine before I started to write this.

But then those examples of change are nothing compared to what you are going through right now.

Every day it is as though something happens to flip your whole world upside down – making you do something completely different to how you start the day each morning.

Looking at them in their simplest form, it usually involves an adult telling you that we need to do something that goes against what you actually like doing. Encouraging you to grow up, without actually asking you if that is what you want to do.

In the last week you have moved up a class at nursery. This will undoubtedly mean a change of scenery, key worker, possibly even a change of classmates – though you will know most of them. It will mean leaving behind your familiar play room, the key worker who has always been there to encourage you over the last year; even those friends who haven’t quite reached the age where they can move up.

We as parents have lied to you for the first time (I think?). We’ve taken your dummy away from you – because we feel that at two, you shouldn’t be so reliant on something comforting to get you to sleep. We did this by collecting all your old dummies up and putting them in a bag. Mum then hung them on the outside of the front door. We told you that if they were gone by the time you both went to check – that other babies wanted and needed them more than you. In reality your Mum simply went out, took them out of the bag and threw them away. I don’t doubt that it will be the only time we ever use such a tactic, but it’s still something new to us; a change to the way we parent.

You’ve recently moved from a cot to a bed. This has been a massive change, as it enables you to exert some control over how you go to bed. Previously we’d give you a bottle, a dummy, put you in your cot and you’d be contained – seems a better word than trapped – until you really wanted to get up in the morning. Now you just get out of bed, open your door and let us know exactly how you feel about being stuck in your room. If it’s still night time, then we have to come and sit on your floor and wait for you to be ready – this change affects us all.

On top of all of that, we are also in the process of potty training you. This change will mean we no longer have to change you – a double change then. You will soon be able to go to toilet just as big girls do – being a big girl is important to you. It’s a difficult process. You don’t always go where you should – often behind the curtains – but your command of when you want to go is improving.

This may seem like a lot for you to be going through at one stage, but then it’s clear to me that this is just the start. We’ve night time bottles to get rid of; new likes and dislikes that will emerge. There’s another class at nursery; then there are new schools for you to go to. The biggest change I fear will come from the changes to your body. I think I might need a book to teach me how to explain everything to you properly – that, or hide behind your Mum.

The thing we most want you to understand as you grow older is that whatever changes do happen, you do not approach them on your own. Mum and I have both been through a lot of change – school, work, where we live and who we have in our lives. Just talk to us, open up to us – we are here to reassure you that nothing is set in stone. If you don’t like something – you have the power to change it; just as we have. We wouldn’t know each other had we not changed something – so plenty of good does come from new beginnings. It’s not all about lost dummies and wet carpets.

You even forced us to change.

Before you there was one life; after you were born, a completely different one. Yes we still do a lot of the same things we did before you were born, but very little matters as much as you. You were a change worth embracing, and we are grateful that you gave us the opportunity to change.

But with all of this talk of change, be sure in the knowledge that our love for you will never alter; no matter what arguments we may have, how you may feel you are being punished or even when we are being “unfair”. Our love will remain our one true constant to you.

That feeling will never change.

The intention of the letters up to this stage has been a way of introducing you to us, to your world – to try to explain how you came to be with us.

The intention of this letter is to try to offer you some guidance, to explain to you the importance of family – and to explain why family means so much more than just us, your parents.

I’ve never been great with my extended family. There is no negative reason for this, it is purely because I am lazy – I tend to get in touch with people when I need to, rather than just to keep a steady flow of communication going with them.

Family members are different. It appears that even if you think they are OK, or that you know what is going on in their lives – that it’s still a good idea to check directly with them. To keep up a level of dialogue even if it is far removed from your usual way of dealing with people. This is something I’m not always great at. For I will send an occasionally text, a social media contact or a phone call – but they do tend to be before/after we are due to see each other – there really should be more.

My advice is that you shouldn’t be lazy where family are concerned – better to be genuinely interested. Your Mum tells me that it makes life easier.

You have a great family. Beyond us – on your Mum’s side you have Grandparents who have substituted a working life, for a retirement that involves looking after you for two days a week. On my side, although it was often a negative thing at school to have parents who were no longer together – for the grandchildren this means double the love, double the support – hey, let’s be serious about this – double the presents. Admittedly you see Nonna more – but that’s purely a distance thing

We both have brothers and sisters – which mean that you have uncles and aunties. Alfie is Aunty Polly’s little boy – who is a cousin to you. Our cousins are your cousins – though this gets complicated as you are a removed cousin – or is it second cousin? Or even first cousin twice removed? I’ve no idea – the easy thing within our family is that we rarely refer to family members by their family title – so my Uncle Pete is always just ‘Gurney’ and my cousin Simon is simply to be known as one of the untrue Kings. Does that make sense?

It can get even more confusing if people who are our friends refer to themselves as aunties or uncles. Imagine me as a young boy, being brought up knowing a friend of my Dad as Uncle Ernie. Not only was he not a relative, there was no link through marriage – nor did we even have the same skin colour. I never gave it a second thought until I was old enough to fully understand the relationship – purely friendship. But it did teach me the importance of friendships, and how these friends really are just an extended part of your family.

I do make more of an effort by not having to try with friends (err, I know what I mean) – again, this is not from a negative perspective – more because, as you will find out, the older you get the more you relate to people with similar interests to yours. I clearly love my Mum but I choose to live with your Mum because of our likes, our wants and what makes us happy. It’s the same with my brother – who I care a great deal about and want only the best for him – yet he doesn’t drink alcohol (I’m not sure I know how to explain this) and plays videogames for enjoyment (he is very big in a virtual world – and Denmark). Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to start when trying to strike up a conversation. In the end it falls to base level grunting, and me far too often poking fun in his general direction. Not because I want to upset or embarrass him – but because I am often helpless and need to talk to him about something.

Where I struggle with my brother, with a mate I can just call him up – see if he wants to go down the pub and spend a night drinking, reminiscing or simply regurgitating what we read in the sports pages earlier that day. It’s easier because we don’t have to try – we can spend a night in each other’s company and find nothing out that we didn’t already know before we got to the pub, yet it was enough to keep things bubbling along. The opposite often applies with family, where we need to divulge the infinite details of our lives within the first thirty seconds of walking through the front door – something I’m never truly comfortable with.

The key then is to strike a balance. To understand that your family are just genuinely interested to know how you are, what you are up to – to which you should reply as open as you choose to be, but at least engage with them. Seek them out yourself – check they are OK – drop them the odd email, text or whatever fangled communication devices you will use when you grow older. Don’t keep them at arm’s length, but let them in as much as you do your friends – for even though you will see your friends more than your family, there’s still a bond worth working on – even if it is to ensure you meet up for dinner just once a year. Where you will reply to the same questions, eat the same food and wonder why you don’t do this more often (that will be because I’m too lazy to sort anything out).

You are lucky in that you have a family where, the odd argument aside, is pretty much happy and intact – and very grateful that you are part of their lives. Don’t be like your Dad. Don’t be a miserable, uncomfortable, standoffish person – embrace your family as you no doubt will your friends. For even if they serve a different purpose, they will be there for you whenever you need them – even if you may never really need to call upon their help.

Better to know the offer is there, that they know you feel the same – than to grunt something about being OK before ignoring them all in favour of the football results on your mobile phone.

Here endeth the lesson.

Dear Lauren

You may never read this. Given the fact that you can’t read and that by the time you can, this blog may no longer exist.

However your Mum asked me to write something to you when you were born, as a keepsake of who we are, and how you’ve changed our lives.

Admittedly I’m a mere 21 months behind schedule with this, but that’s nothing for me. I am an open procrastinator. One of the finest you will find. Actually, that’s a lie. Give me a deadline, tighter the better and I will produce the goods to an exemplary standard. Give me an open brief, a jaunty wave of the hand and tell me to go off and do something – and chances are I will go off and do something entirely different.

I also have to admit that it’s taken me 21 months just to get to the point where I can sit down and actually write something to you. I thought I had to mark the event of your birth with something so profound, that you would return to read it yearly; to remind yourself of how special you are. Every time I thought about what I should write, the pressure to encapsulate our thoughts, in to words, was far too intimidating a task. How can I put in to words how much you mean to us? Nothing I write can convey those feelings, nor do you or us justice.

Then it struck me. Why one letter? Why not make it a fairly regular thing – and rather than being profound, why not use it as a means to map your life, sometimes through our dreams, our goals, and our actions – though selfishly, as the author our may become my at times.

21 months is a long time. Happy, fulfilling and always rewarding; but ever changing – you change daily, and even though adults may feel as though their lives stop evolving past a certain point, we change almost daily as well. Our expressions change, our expectations change, our love grows and our ability to be surprised, to be astounded is magnified by everything you do.

You’ve moved from being a babe in arms, to crawling, to walking and now to knowing what you want. Telling us about things you like – constructing sentences so that we understand. You use cunning and guile to attract our attention – you have a clever knack of throwing a dummy behind beds so that we have to get up, have to interact rather than lay in bed. You are very much an independent spirit in a body that can’t always do what you want it to; though that doesn’t always stop you trying.

We are a happy family. We always have been. You just make it easier.

It’s not all been plain sailing. We had some issues over sleeping – you didn’t want to when we really did. I even felt a bit uncomfortable changing you at times as well – let alone having a bath with you. For some reason I was worried what people might think if they found me on my own changing you. It was daft and wholly irrational of me. Thankfully your mum was very understanding and did a lot of the changing at the start and as quickly as the unease came on, it went away; though I’ve always been a shower man so it’s partly understandable. Living with you is a learning curve and I shouldn’t over analyse my fears or the fears other people may have. I should just embrace the time we have together – not in a morbid, it may not last sense – but in a live and enjoy our lives, our family sense.

As much as we have welcomed you in to our lives, we also have to stop and remind ourselves that we did both have a very good, happy, active life before you came along. Life is all about you, but it doesn’t always have to involve you – does that make sense? Occasionally we need to pull the ripcord, let your grandparents look after you at a time when we are not at work, and devote a bit of our attention to each other.

I need to take your Mum out more than I do. As you grow older, you won’t be surprised that your Dad manages to sneak a few hours in down the pub from time to time. At the same time, I’ve been selfish and I’ve not been good enough at ensuring your Mum also gets out of the house – either with me, with friends and even on her own. We used to go to pubs, to clubs, to the cinema or concerts. Life doesn’t stop when you have a baby, but occasionally the desire to sleep; to rest or to just curl up in front of the television overtakes any want to go out partying to the early hours of the morning. You are now far more assured, far more comfortable with being around others that the odd night out a month for your parents would be good for us all; especially the grandparents who dote on you. Everyone dotes on you.

In thinking about your Mum, if you do want some advice going forward – to keep her happy, do your washing, tidy the house, write her a letter or buy a small bunch of flowers. With your Mum it’s not the thought that counts, it is the action – but the required action is so small, so effortless that we and I include myself in that, should do something to make her happy every day. It’s not hard – and it is worth it.

We’re off to Italy soon. Italy is a big part of our lives – it was where we got married, it is where you went on your first holiday – it is where we would go time and time again; and we do. It is somewhere, where we would eventually like to live. I’d like to live there now. It’s usually at this point where I say that we can’t because Nonna lives in Leeds, we don’t speak the language fluently enough or have enough money to go out there without a job. Or that it would be hard for me to convince an Italian company to employ your Dad over a local who is fluent in language and local customs.

I tend to use a lot of excuses not to do the things I really want to. It’s a defence mechanism. Better to find a reason why you can’t do something than start and fail at it. Sometimes I do this at work, often refusing to put myself forward for better, more demanding roles as I fear failure at the interview stage. Which is that daft, irrational side to me once more – as I’m paid to work on projects that are open to failure, open to rejection, and it is my job to ensure that the solutions are there to overcome those hurdles. How is it easy for me to overcome the excuses of others on a daily basis, yet throw up my own on a personal level? It has to stop.

So this year, with your help – as I do talk to you about these things – I need to put myself in a better position to realise any career aspirations I have, or to open up the opportunity to live and work in Italy. I can put myself in a position to get a job with more responsibilities (thankfully I have an excellent boss that is giving me the skills and experience to make this happen). We will learn the language. We will find jobs, Nonna can move out once we’re settled and you will learn new and wonderful things. It doesn’t have to happen this year, or next year, or even this decade. It may never happen, which is fine. But it shouldn’t be my excuses that stop us, if we really want it to happen.

Writing to you has been cathartic. My biggest want is to write more. To write more, with passion, about the things I love – so to write about you, for you, is a lot easier than I thought it would be. Your Mum always says I should write more. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she has always been right – for me, for you, on everything. If ever you need someone to look up to, to learn from, to use as an example – you will find no better person than your Mum.

You are, and you will be your own person; there is no doubt about that. But there’s no harm in asking us for help, for guidance, to be there for you and to show you the way. We’ve made the mistakes that you undoubtedly will. We’ve come through them, and I’m sure you will come through them. Strength lies not only within, but within the family as well.

We are a happy family. We always will be.

Love Dad

xxx