Loulou Maya turned one the first of June. As we have many other things to celebrate in June (like our wedding anniversary, the day we first met and my birthday among others) we decided to have a party mid-June and celebrate it all at once.

We asked our friends to bring as a present a card with words of wisdom for Loulou and I want to thank them because they did indeed squeeze their minds and shared some amazing thoughts with us. Today I want to share with you the collective wisdom of our community and I hope that you will get as inspired by it as we did.

The postcard tradition

You should always be proud of how exceptional you are, even if (especially if!) other people find it strange and make you feel funny about it. Don’t worry. They will get it one day.

Never eat yellow snow.

Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.

Never try to act “normal”.

Think outside the box.

Always ask “Why?”

(the secret to happiness:) Good company, toys and good good food!

Even if you fall on your face you are still moving forward.

The only one that does not make mistakes is the one who’s not trying.

Always love your parents. They will always love you back.

Good girls go to heaven. But bad girls go wherever they want. Feel free to interpret this any way you like. Be your own woman.

As you can see, Loulou is lucky enough to be surrounded by people who strive to be true to themselves, despite life’s difficulties. They fall and get up, they try and try to make their dreams come true and they remind each other that life is equally hard and fascinating. Our friends are different from each other. Some are more scientific, others more artistic, other more theoretical, others more practical. But they are all caring and kind and considerate and supportive and those are qualities I hope Loulou will develop as well while growing up.

I hope that some of you will start the postcard tradition. Sure enough, we all need to make our own mistakes, but maybe Loulou will indeed avoid eating yellow snow and that would be something.