I use this blog sometimes just for me – a place to remember some of the things that make me smile about my son. These posts are a bit soppy and they are definitely not going to change the world so please don’t feel obliged to linger on this one (unless you’re my husband).

Not that I’ve written one like this in blooming ages…partly because there’s been a few millions things that haven’t made me smile so much recently and partly because I had a break and a new baby and all that jazz.

So my fast-growing-but-you’ll-always-be-my-baby three and a half year old, there are at least 18 million things I love about you and they include:

The way you are the only person who can consistently make your little sister stop crying – your loud and persistent neeeee naaawwww seems to work a treat

The way you have different sirens for the different emergency services and I don’t know if you’ve made it up or if they actually do have different sirens…

The way you say you’d like to be a paramedic when you grow up and ‘I want mummy to be a fireman and daddy a police officer and Ol will be a taxi driver’

The way you took it upon yourself to very naturally coin the nickname ‘Ol’ to your little sister, despite the fact that no one else calls her by anything but her full name

The way you collapse on the floor in a dramatic fashion and declare you are ‘out of breath’ when you are actually just a little bit tired

That you will talk to anyone and shout ‘morning’ to people as you pass them – it’s both reassuringly northern and embarrassingly precocious

That you are so expressive. You feel everything fully and completely and you let us know about it – the good and the bad – and we know that your expressive, emotional nature will be to your benefit as your grow

The way we cook together with you standing on your little chair at the stove and work surface – you are so confident, concentrated and sensible for one so young

The ‘one more cuddle’ and ‘a proper kiss please’ at bedtime

The way you frequently decide that you are not hungry – ‘I am only biscuity hungry mummy’

The interest you show in learning new things and going new places

The complex and in-depth life you led before meeting us ‘when you were older’ – you lived in a castle and ate lots of cake and had lots of brothers and sisters by all accounts. It was ‘a long long time ago’; sometimes a hundred years ago, sometimes ‘thirty ten years ago’

Your love for your treasure chest and the way playing pirates sometimes just means getting out all the jewels, putting them in colour order and putting them away again…

The mild obsession you developed with death, poppies, remembrance day, Henry VIII and Queen Eleanor

Your rather fabulous impression of the Lincoln Imp

The way you are ‘just looking after’ ALL of your little sister’s cot friends and that your favourites to cuddle are your Mr Cow and Bogdan and their little sisters, Missy Cow and Oleg

The way that your little sister lights up when she sees you. That you are so loved (for now!) by yet another person makes me feel happy

That you are such an amazing team player in our new and often bewildering little team of four.