Dear Mack - Two Years

Dear Maverick,

Today you are two years old. Technically, not until 11:07pm tonight, but the plan is for you to be long asleep when the official moment passes. As I write this you are squealing around outside my bedroom window on your latest discovery mission with a multitude of "oh, wow!"-s and "look at that"-s. And I sit here realizing I say both of those things much more than I thought I did. Some days I can hardly believe that you are two. I look at pictures of you when I first brought you home from the hospital, and I wonder where that teensy tiny baby went who didn't even fill up a whole sofa cushion. Then there are days when I can totally buy the idea of you as a two-year-old, because you are being very, very two right now. As in now I understand the phrase 'The Terrible Twos.' I don't think it is an accurate description of who you are most of the time, but some days it fits. Really, really fits.

As two approached us I have been amazed at how for the last month you look bigger almost every morning. Every day you learn to do something new or say something new. It is getting hard to remember what you were like even a few months ago before your amazing language explosion.

As you get a bit older I am so excited to experience one of the most amazing joys of parenting, which is how much fun it is to watch your child have fun. It's why it is actually kind of awesome to do things like take you to Chuck E. Cheese, which I'd have paid good money not to do before you were born. And it's really like that with Disneyland and hopefully Disney World when we go this summer. I wouldn't be heartbroken if you didn't love love them, but the fact that you do has let me enjoy them in a new way again, too. I think taking you to a live baseball or hockey game or some other sport is also starting to climb pretty rapidly up my list of things I'd really like to do with you one day. Or maybe get you a dog. That's how warped my brain is now.

This month, if you had your own Facebook account, as some of my friends have suggested you should, the things you would "become a fan of" would include: Mickey Mouse; ice, something you have become obsessed with eating; big trucks, which will stop us dead in our tracks wherever we are so you can watch them go by; and outside. Yes, you are still obsessed with the great outdoors. No, I am not. But you love it so we go. And some days I even find myself having a really great time. You would also be a fan of swimming, apples, water, bubbles, the phrase "Oh wow!", and your Aunt Jen's famous cookies.

Later today we are going to have a little party for you with your cousins and Aunt Jen. Carrot Cake cupcakes are on the menu and I will probably get you a bunch of helium "boons" (balloons in Mackanese).

You are getting your first remote controlled car and some blocks and you got a massive new playgym out back that you love.

These last few months have provided you with a multitude of "firsts" - your first time behind the wheel thanks to Uncle Z :

and first snow...

first gingerbread house decorating...(where I heard from the kitchen: "I think he ate the chimney")

first marshmallow roast...

First fire building...

You know Maverick, two is an age that sounds impossibly big to me. I have a two year old. And I like to go outside to play and watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and go to Chuck E Cheese and I will probably go to some sort of ballgame one day. And possibly own a dog. How remarkable, what one little person can do.

Reflecting on the last two years with you is so surreal, mostly because I find it hard to believe that you haven't been a part of my life forever. I am pretty sure I knew, holding you in that delivery room in the wee hours of the night 2 years ago, that things wouldn't ever be the same. Everyone tells you that, and I didn't doubt it. What no one could make me understand was just how so very much I would love you, how much being your parent would require of me, and how profoundly I would be changed in the process. It is probably a good thing I didn't know, because I would have been even more terrified than I already was. But if I could go back and tell myself one thing, it would be this: "Relax. This is going to be the most fun you've ever had in your life."

And it has been, Maverick. Happy Birthday. You are my heart.

I love you so much,
Mama