Games we play

Dear Mia,

You're now 19 months old and are sitting here next to me watching the Simpson's while I ponder how lucky your mum & I are to have you in our lives. As I am trying to gather my thoughts, you are now becoming very active on the couch, now that the Simpson's are on a commercial break and are jumping all over me.

You are one funny little girl. You are active and have a wonderful sense of imagination, you seem to catch on very quickly to any games I make up, even when you were even younger than now.

One of your favourite games was playing 'rocketwoman'. You used to sit on my lap and I would have my knees up tucked into me so you could rest your back on them. I would then proceed to count down (like a space shuttle lift off sequence) and then when I reached zero, I would hold you up in the air like a rocket propelled space woman. You would giggle and 'fly' around until it was time to land safely back into the launch zone. We would play this game until my arms got tired. I loved seeing your smiling face and hearing you giggle.

As you got older, you became more robust and hence loved the more robust sort of games. This included, being swung from your ankles from side to side. You would giggle and laugh while you were being swung and then when you landed, you would say the word 'again' I had to limit it to 3 turns only though as I would get tired! But also because I don't think that much blood rushing up to your brain would be all that good! You also love to hold my hands as we walked around in circles until you or I got dizzy - most usually me - and on the odd occasion I would swing you around by the arms when we got the right momentum. Unfortunately your mum wasn't a fan of the swinging around bit, so we eventually just walked around in circles until the dizziness claimed us. You love playing with your stuffed animals and small figurines making them dance on the couch arm and then throwing them down and saying 'oh no'. I would then proceed to toss them back to you while you lay there enjoying the sensation of having stuffed animals landing on or near you on the couch. More recently you love it when the stuffed animals snuck kisses to you. We would play with the animals where I tried to make them kiss you and you would try to knock them down. Your favourite would be the white tiger trying to kiss you while you used a variety of other stuffed animals to deflect the tiger's kisses..

There's so many other games we played that I could go on for days. Some other memorable ones included playing aeroplane (where I would fly you around the flat carrying you to different rooms) and playing 'hide and seek', where I would hide under my Oxford University sweatshirt's hood while you clambered over me to see whether I was awake or not.

We have so much fun together. I hope that it continues for the rest of our lives together. You are the best, most funniest girl I know and I love every single moment I have with you whether spending time reading your cbeebies magazines, playing games or just hanging out together. I love you very much little Mia, I just want you to know that.

Love you!
Dad