Peter is nearly six! Here are six things we love about you, Peter.
1) You truly follow your own interests without an awareness of the outside influences of "gender" or "age". Your favourite colour is pink, and you count butterflies and Tinkerbell amongst your favourite things, alongside cars and trains. Many of your toys have an age guide of 12-36 months on the box, but they make you happy and you couldn't care less.
2) How much you love books. "Read together?" you say, and when I agree, you skip off gleefully and return with a handful. "Five stories mama! This one first!" I have no doubt that the hundreds of stories we've read together (including several hundred repetitions of the same ones!) combined with your incredible memory have contributed to your awesome word recognition. You're starting to read before you can speak fluently - that's skill!
3) You still love to sing and can now hold a tune which is so lovely to hear (although maybe not at 5am at the top of your voice...)
4) You have no understanding yet of winning or losing, you can still just enjoy the race.
5) You find the world a confusing and frightening place much of the time, but you're happy to go to new places and try new things as long as we're with you. We're so proud of you!
6) You have no idea how significant every one of your achievements is when we think about the dismal prognosis you were given when you first came into care, and you continue to amaze us daily. We were asked in a meeting recently whether we understood what your limits would be in terms of what you could achieve and what your adult life will look like. For a moment we didn't understand the question as to us you have no limits whatsoever! We hope you will see yourself the same way as you grow up and will never allow another person to tell you what you cannot do because of your disability.
It's a privilege being your mummy and mama, and we couldn't ask for a better foster son. We look forward to the next year with you!
