In which we are Two Years of Age
Some thoughts on our little guy's second birthday.
This past Friday was our little guy’s second birthday. We didn’t do a whole big to do; we took him to the new exhibit preview down at Port Discovery, I made him a carrot cake (because if you sneak veggies in, it’s healthy, right?) and he got to have ice cream for the first time, from The Charmery, naturally. Over the weekend, we ran our first race together, the BARCStoberfest 5k at Patterson Park. He’s a natural, little guy didn’t even break a sweat!
The idea that he’s two years old, though, continues to be mind-blowing. We haven’t used any outside childcare, which has been amazing to be able to spend so much time with him, and, admittedly, increasingly difficult as he needs more and more attention and activity than we can provide while working. To that end, he’s starting at an early childhood program in a couple of weeks. It’s going to be surreal to not having him here with us all the time!
The last year has brought so many changes. When you’re there every day, it’s hard to really appreciate just how much growth happens. Thankfully, Von has been using One Second Everyday, an app where, as you might expect, you add a one-second video clip each day, and has a video documenting his second year. Seeing him just starting to walk at the beginning to running down the block at the end, how tall he’s gotten, his little baby cheeks thinning out as he gets bigger and taller, and moreover, increasingly independent and opinionated! Even in the little one-second snippets, you can see so much personality developing.
There are a lot of ways I dislike modern technology, but the ability to capture so much of his life is a blessing. Sure, it can make for a somewhat overwhelming amount of content (I learned that a Google Photos album maxes out at 20,000 items!) but I’d rather dig through that than not have pictures and videos of him, even if it’s just stuff like eating breakfast.
In a couple of weeks, he’s going to start at a local school for their daycare/early education program. It’s going to be such a huge change not having him around for the majority of the day, five days a week. In our visits, he’s absolutely loved the place, and being in a more social environment will absolutely be good for him. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to handle this change, but if he can adapt, so can I.
Will I be a blubbering mess in the parking lot? Absolutely.
I got a little sad on one of our walks recently, thinking about all the plans I had for when he’s a little older. Things like going out to lunch together, and other little rituals we could have, and now with him in school every day, our opportunities for that are more limited. Still, it just means we have to be conscious about finding the time to make these “dad and me” moments happen.