On the Day You Were Born

Fox,

You have arrived at your 2nd birthday and you have already developed so much personality that I sometimes forget that you ever were unable to talk. You’ve been singing songs for months and making up your own songs for the past few weeks (or longer?). Not only that, but you’ve also been playing “make believe” in all new ways. Empty plastic bottles are magically filled with “soap” and “water” and you make me and your Daddy wash our hands over and over again while you direct us to “do the back” and “rinse the bubbles.” And you ask us to sing the “ABCDEFG song” while we wash (though recently you’ve been calling it the A-B-Sadie song Your empty little dolphin box now doles out “stamps” on everyone’s hands. You pretend like you can’t reach your cup at dinner and then announce “I got it!” when you finally do. You jump behind pillows and under blankets and yell out “Where’s Fox? I don’t know!” and laugh like crazy before jumping out with a “There he is!”

Just the other day you made a “fishing pole” by pushing together a pen & a straw. You caught all sorts of fish of different sizes and colors, announcing each one and bringing them to me. I unhooked them and helped slip them into the seat compartment of your fire truck. Dozens of red and blue and purple and yellow fish are now swimming about inside your fire truck!

This fire truck (along with your excavator truck…did I mention that you can identify all sorts of work trucks at a glance?) are your favorite rides these days and you absolutely HATE sharing them with any other children who come to visit (2 year olds don’t share very well, but they make up for it in other ways!). I was very surprised when you drove your fire truck into the kitchen & asked me for money while I was cooking dinner. I thought you wanted to play with coins in the piggy bank, so I got it down for you. Nope. You really wanted money. You collected the coins from the piggy bank and put them into your fire truck! Just where were you planning to go and what were you planning to do? I didn’t expect you to do that until you were a teenager!

I don’t remember when we had our first back-and-forth conversation, but I can’t remember NOT being able to talk to you. Just like when you started walking by running across a room, you’ve started talking non-stop out of nowhere. You speak in sentences, laugh at jokes, and listen for answers after asking questions. When exactly did you get to be such a fun person to hang out with? You’ve started using words like “favorite” when referring to items and you love saying “see you later, alligator” and “after while, crocodile.” You pretty much repeat anything you hear and you’ve gotten rather good at eavesdropping.

We have all sorts of adventures these days. What a treat that I have summer days off to spend with you! We’ve done all sorts of things this summer, with your Daddy and family and other friends, but my very favorite times with you are still those early morning hours…right after you wake up. I’ll come join you in bed after you let me know you’re awake and we’ll silently stare out the window together (or at the walls) and eventually you wake up enough to get into some sort of mischief…running around the room, tickling me, pulling up your shirt and pointing out your belly button AGAIN, jumping off the bed & doing flips.

There really is no way to capture all that you are and all that you mean to me and your Daddy these days. We love you, kiddo! Thanks for being part of our adventure. And Happy Birthday!