2 years

Two long, hard years. Wait, I mean two fun, exciting years!

Or, for those that have kids, you know that both are true. Ethan has been a great joy in our lives. He's happy, energetic, inquisitive, adventurous, smart, and a great sleeper. But he also wants all our attention, likes to push boundaries, sometimes doesn't understand why hitting, biting, spitting, (etc.) are bad, and still has a hard time if we leave him (like with a babysitter or in nursery).

In short, we have a perfectly normal two-year old child.

I should say that even with the hard times, we wouldn't give our son up for anything in the world. Not even a million anythings! Our lives have been enriched and our understanding has been greatly expanded by having him.

As his birthday has approached, I've been thinking about the time when we brought him home from the hospital. Mia and I were so nervous because he was this little (metaphorically) baby that depended on us for everything. He could barely even move on his own. We wondered if we were really able to give him the constant care that he would need and were a bit surprised that the hospital staff was willing to just send us home with a 3 day old baby. I guess they needed the room for someone else ;)

Somehow we survived the long nights, especially long during the 2-hours of sleep at a time phase. We survived the breastfeeding ('we' is used very loosely here). We survived the first baby-proofing phase when we were surprised by how many things could be dangerous to him. We are now entering the second baby-proofing phase in which we are surprised at how innovative he can be when he wants to get something. This phase is mostly characterized by throwing stuff into our bedroom, or on top of the refridgirator. We'll see how long until those don't work either.

We have some video from the birthday boy to post up later. But I just wanted to get down some of the thoughts that I've been having on my son's birthday.

Oh, speaking of which, he loves having Happy Birthday sung to him. And he is starting to sing along too! Then he tells us to sing it about Mommy :)