My son is two years old or, in the jaw-clenching vernacular of uber-parents, he’s twenty-four months old. Before having kids I vowed only to count a child’s age in months until they were old enough to count it in years. You say you have a dozen eggs, not four plus another four and another four. So after age one, my kids were one, one and a quarter, etc. But now that Number Two is Two he’s entered a new phase: adulthood. No, not true. But he walks and talks and understands when we say “rocketship” or “yellow door”. He is both curious and respectful of his older sister’s things. He can differentiate between a jet, a propeller plane, and a helicopter just by hearing them from inside the car. He smiles every time he hears a bird, and will always, always run if you put him down and prep him with “Ready…steady…go!” even if he doesn’t know the destination. Though he still runs with the stiff-legged jarring form of a toddler he’ll soon begin to move like an adult. I’ve been at the front row of his transformation from helpless squeaking naked mole rat to crying infant to smiling infant to crawling infant to stumbling toddler to walking toddler to running and climbing toddler. Now, after his second birthday, he’s no longer a toddler, he’s a boy. My boy. Enjoy the icing, Number Two.
Writer, architect, father, husband.