Two years old - part 1

When we first took him home, I was aware of every passing moment and took note of every minutiae of daily life: how many diaper changes including colour, consistency and sometimes, velocity of discharge; how often he nursed; how long he slept; every gurgle/smile/cry/laugh; the fine texture and length of his hair; every bump on his skin; the size of his fingers and teeny weeny nails. The first year seems so long ago now and the second year, well, what can I say? It's as if someone hit fast-forward and here we are two years and one month after his birth day and I could barely imagine him as a needy, gurgling, sleepy baby. At two, he is definitely a little boy with little boy interests and he continues to fascinate and give us boundless joy.

But let's not glamourize the days. There are difficult ones -- when he's sick or teething or aching in parts he is unable to express -- but even at the busiest, most exhausting day, at the end of the night, when Jon and I are alone chatting about the day's events, we would remember something he said or an expression on his face that would just erase everything else.

I can wax poetic on this some more, but I feel like such a cliche. I am so overwhelmed with this mothering thing, I sometimes need to remind myself, "Shut up already. These feelings are nothing new -- every parent has felt this and here I am carrying on as if I invented motherhood." So I'll just stop now and give highlights of the last two months:

Physical changes

Serious growth spurt the last two months. Pants are suddenly shorter, shirts are suddenly smaller and won't go over his head. Some days, we send him to daycare looking like the Incredible Hulk, wearing pants that are too short and shirts with sleeves that go up to his elbows and strain at the seams. It seems to happen overnight.

Skis for feet. In the last two months, he outgrew his size 7 shoes. When we were at the shoe store last weekend, we got his feet measured only to be told that he is already at the top of size 8s so we had to get him 8.5 shoes! This means, he's done the jump from the infant to the toddler, which means, ohhh, I don't know about another $10 or $20 price difference per pair...

Eyes are hazel. We need to get his passport photo done. We really should have done this sooner, but part of the delay has been trying to decide the eye colour. In the end, we decided to just call it "hazel." The left eye has more green, the right eye has more brown.

Big noggin. We need another set of t-shirts (see point one above). He outgrew his toque over the winter!

Last set of molars coming in. It's tough to get a good look, but for sure his last two upper molars are breaking through. Can't tell if the bottom ones are coming in as well, but knowing his pattern of sprouting them in sets of four, they are also on their way. It would be great to get this bout of teething done.

28 pounds -- nearly six times his birth weight! I'm not sure how tall he is. Must measure him one day.

Getting stronger. He can now scale the blue wall in the playground. It's a climbing wall with holes to use as footholds or for grabbing.

...to be continued