Good morning Cooper

Happy birthday – you turn three today!

2 v. 3

This was you when you turned two:

And this was you after your birthday party last weekend:

Updates

The most significant update for you happens in a week, when you start nursery at Glasgow Academy. We’re looking forward to that. You have been at Poppins since you were small and, had the ownership not changed, we would probably have been happy with you staying there until you started Kindergarten at TGA (as Kirsten did). But we haven’t been as happy with Poppins as we were when Kirsten was there and we’re really pleased to have the option of sending you to TGA. It’ll also be helpful for your Mum and me because then you and Kirsten will be at the same place for a few years. So this will be the last year of you in a Poppins uniform:

We went to Centre Parcs for the October week last year and you had a ball. You really took to swimming and enjoyed trying some football. Even though it was exhausting this time around, it was nothing like as tiring as when we went when you were very small!

We went to Disneyland Paris for a week during the summer and all loved it. You did remarkably well with the rides. You’re a big boy (more on that below…) so you were able to go on rides that were probably a bit much for you. But you gave them all a try – even Big Thunder Mountain! We worked out which rides you liked the most – It’s A Small World and Buzz Lightyear, for example – and Mum and I took it in turns to go with you. The queues were generally shorter on those rides so, now I think of it, you probably went on more rides than any of us!

The biggest hit for you, however, were the Cars rides. You can’t get enough of Cars. You insist on wearing Lightning McQueen clothes (ideally everything from underwear to jumpers); you love your Lightning McQueen toys; you only want to watch the Cars films; and we even managed to see Cars in the cinema.  Here’s a sense of how much you love Cars, and Lightning McQueen (or, as you call him “Lightning McQueenie”) in particular:

Disneyland was also a blast outside of the Cars rides:

I’ll take plenty of photos of you on the Cars ride in California next summer…

Who is Cooper Anderson?

This may be best summed up by the fact that it’s fairly common these days for me or Mum to get you up and for you to say “I’m so happy”. That’s you the vast majority of the time. If you’re able to play with your Cars toys, or monster trucks, or hot wheels and you’re golden.

You’re speaking much more than you were last year. You had your tonsils removed and grommets fitted in your ears.  You recovered well from the op and it made a big difference to your hearing. Oh, and you love hoovers… no-one knows why!

ou’re a phenomenal eater.  You will eat pretty much anything, including things that should not go together (popcorn and tomato sauce comes to mind) and food from other people’s plates.  You eat at least as much as Kirsten.  But that’s because you’re a big lad – all in proportion; you’re just quite tall for your age.  Don’t know where you get that from…

You enjoy books – particularly books about dinosaurs, space and/or Paw Patrol – and you like music.  We tend to listen to Harry Potter audiobooks when all four of us are in the car but, when it’s just you and me, we listen to music.  Your taste is pretty good.  You usually have strong views as to whether you like or dislike a song and you’ve said that you like LCD Soundsystem and Elton John.  You also love the Cars soundtrack, of course.

You also get on super-well with Kirsten:

Life is a Highway

“Life is a Highway” is from the Cars soundtrack.  You just call it the “Lightning McQueenie Song”. It’s a good way into an observation this year about going the extra mile, which crops up from your nursery move.

We made a conscious decision when Kirsten was about the age you are now to put her name down for Kindergarten at TGA.  We did that primarily to maximise the chances of her getting into P1 and it cost us more to do that than it would have done for her to stay at Poppins for another year. We knew as soon as she started that it was the right decision but it’s also helped given us a choice about your nursery that we might not otherwise have had. TGA is now heavily over-subscribed (which it wasn’t when Kirsten joined), and our track record of sending a kid there for Kindergarten and school seems to have helped clear the path for getting you into nursery.

The older I get, the more I think that having choice is hugely important.  And having choice often comes down to treating what’s expected of you as a minimum standard, not a limit – in other words, going the extra mile.  That’s a principle that seems to work for pretty much everything.  I’m afraid that I may get boring about that as you get older.

Until next year, pal.

Love,

Your Dad