Day 730

On Silas’ second birthday, he woke up calling for me at six am. I went into his room, and he climbed into my arms and fell right back to sleep. I took him back to my bed and tucked him in, right between me and JC. I just lay there for a long time, gazing at his face and remembering how, two years before, almost to the minute, our midwife left, and JC and I were there in bed with our little boy, watching the light slowly brighten the room and spread across his sleeping face.

As moms go, I’m not especially nostalgic. I’m not very good with babies, I think, and so I’ve celebrated his growing development, verbal skills, and independence with joy and very little longing for the squishy little baby he once was. I’m rather daunted at the fact that sometime, very, very soon, I will once again plunge into the all-consuming fog of parenting a newborn. And yet, now that Silas’ babyhood is moving into the glowing, warm past, I am able to remember less the hours of crying and give more space to the cuddly sweetness of his first days.

Silas, at two, loves:

• puzzles (he can even do the new jigsaw puzzles he just got!)
• birds
• his friends
• books
• Sesame Street
• Singing (favorites include “Little Bird,” “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” the ABC song, and the Doxology, which he calls “Praise Father.”)
• Christopher Robin
• Shoes and hats
• Cereal (wants it for every meal)
• Counting (he counted the six buttons on JC’s shirt the day before his birthday! And he nearly always finishes by laughing like the Count.)

and dislikes:

• sleeping
• leafy green veggies
• bug bites 🙁

Silas’ temperament is very much as it always has been: particular and meticulous, almost to a fault. Easily frustrated. Sweet with his friends, but sometimes doesn’t know when to stop loving on them. A bit on the cautious side, but learning to take some calculated risks. Totally resistant to being pushed into anything, and therefore a sucker for reverse psychology.

I used to think that one day, I’d realize that Silas had suddenly found his personality. Instead, I see that his whole babyhood was a long experience of trying to find the motor skills to express the person who has been present since his first breath.