Trouble,

Well, things have changed a lot since my last letter 15 months ago. You are definitely becoming a big girl, in fact you don’t like being called a little girl or a baby, even though up until 3 weeks ago you were the baby of the family. You still are the slowest eater of the group, but you are definitely the least picky. You are our fruit bat of the family, you eat more fruit than anyone else in the family. Now, being much older, you have more responsibilities. On a daily basis you wash dishes, Momma dries them and puts them up for you. We still need to work on you actually helping with picking up on the back porch and in your bedroom. You might pick up one item, but then play with the next which actually defeats the purpose of you picking up. It’s quite obvious that your last name is Cunningham, because you are very strong-willed and hard headed. It can be a good thing, but it causes quite a bit of friction between you and Ruth.


You are no longer the baby of the family though. You have the new responsibility of being a big sister to Kate. You are still a bit on the small side, to help Momma with daily things and the baby. But you can help by doing your normal chores (washing dishes, cleaning your room, making your bed) without complaining. It’s going to be interesting to see with you and Ruth being different from each other, how Kate will fit in. I’m always surprised just how different all of you children are.


You try to always show just how much bigger you are. You get upset when Britt and Ruth can do something like a certain ride at the fair, but not you because of your height. You seem to enjoy casting your blue fish in the water, and reeling it up again. You’ve gotten very good at it. You’ve also gotten better at riding your big wheel and the tricycle. This year was your first year of t-ball. But it seemed to be difficult to keep you motivated and interested in playing, unless you were batting or playing “in the middle” (what you called pitcher’s mound). To be honest, you were my most difficult player to coach this year. You were one of the youngest, but because I was your father, you just ignored me, or did the opposite of what I said, as the mood took you. You also have your very own butterfly garden full of weeds to attract butterflies. You told Momma what you wanted and she helped you find the right kinds of plants, that you then picked from.

You still have one more year of freedom from real school, or homeschool, enjoy it. The little bit of school work you have been doing is learning to trace the alphabet, and coloring pictures that go with the letter like coloring a boat for letter b. Numbers on the other hand, need much more work. You always leave out the number 5 when counting. You beg to do school, and on days that you don’t want to wash dishes Momma threatens you “Fine, then I’m not going to let you do school.” And you cry. You are right there at the age, where things are going to start changing quite a bit – school work and education, more responsibilities, and those things aren’t fun, but there are also things like learning to ride a bike, learning to fish, being a big sister, getting to ride roller coasters, or being able to drive on your own in a bumper car.

There are some things that I want you to work on for next year. The biggest one is patience. You seem to get very frustrated and aggravated, when someone isn’t immediately there and attentive. With Kate coming along, Momma will have to provide her with a lot of attention to care for her. I want you to have more patience particularly with your sister Ruth. It concerns Daddy when I come home and hear that you and she have been fighting on a regular basis. Another major thing that I want us to work on this year, is to use our inside voices – to whisper. I know that our family can be very loud, and that we can have fun and laugh, but it’s also important to not be so loud that you are hollering or screaming at the top of your lungs.

I love the way that you come up to people and tell them that you love them. It’s sweet, a bit manipulative, but sweet. I love that it doesn’t take much to make you laugh and smile. I like the way that you seem to just bounce when you move from one thing to the next with lots of happiness and energy. You seem to be a very happy little girl. Stay out of Trouble.

We love you,
Daddy aka Trouble Maker