Two

My wife wrote a lovely happy birthday message to our recently-turned-two-year-old this week, and toward the end she remarked, “I am curious what your daddy would add to this list…” So here I am adding to her list.

Happy birthday, E. You have no idea how much you are worried about, gushed and cooed over, and just flat out loved by Mom and Dad (not to mention your two Grandmas, Opa, Grandfather, and a gaggle of aunts, uncles and cousins).

Following Mom’s lead, here are some things you do that make me smile:

• You’re finally taking my advice and learning English. (And if I ask you what language you’re learning, you answer, “English”.)
• Even though you can’t read, you know what all your shirts say because we tell you and you remember. I showed you this picture yesterday and asked you what your shirt says, and you said, “I’s love Dad”:
  
• You call Smarties “Farties”. (See mom’s recent post and video about this.)
• You are starting to figure out subjects, objects and indirect objects, but you get them in the wrong order sometimes. The other day you said to mom, “Mom [subject] get Dad [indirect object] a car [direct object],” which was phenomenal, but you will sometimes say things like, “E pick Dad up,” when you really mean “Dad pick E up.” I’ve offered to help you diagram that sentence, but you oddly don’t seem interested in that. You’ll figure this stuff out, I’m sure, and in the meantime it’s genuinely fun seeing the wheels turning in your head as you experiment with language.
• You love driving the train with me (the Toca Train app on my iPhone/iPad). We have lots of fun together picking up passengers and loading things on and off our flatbed car with the crane.
• You also like playing Legos with me (Duplo Legos), but the fun is definitely not in helping me build something, but rather in destroying whatever it is I’m trying to build. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all upset by this, but I do look forward to a time when we will have more fun building things together.
• Ever since Aunt Kathlene got her new kitten, Gracie, when we sing “Amazing Grace” you won’t sing the actual words, but instead want to insert “Gracie” into every line. (“Amazing Gracie! How sweet the Gracie. That saved a Gracie like Gracie!”)
• You are an amazing eater. You’ll eat anything we put on your plate. We’ve fed you every variety of salsa (from mild all the way up to hot) and you seem to have no problem with any of them. I fed you some jalapeño jelly the other day and you loved it. You’ve enjoyed octopus, sushi, fresh lemon, avocado (guacamole), coffee, and many foods I turn my nose up to, like mushrooms and various other vegetables and fruits. There are one or two things you turn your nose up at, but for the most part you eat anything put before you in a seeming state of ignorant bliss. Everything is new, and therefore, everything is worth trying.

Well, my list isn’t as long as your mom’s, but right now I’m faced with the choice of either adding more things to this list or sitting down to play with you, and I’d like the record to show that I made the right choice right now. I love you to pieces, kiddo.