Dear Jack,
Yesterday was your birthday! You’re two years old now! I’ve been working with you for a month or so, trying to get you to hold up two fingers and say, “Two!” I want you to be able to answer when people ask how old you are. You do it sometimes and it’s usually one finger from each hand.
Even if you won’t always hold up your fingers, you are learning numbers. I can get you to count with me up to five, but you can identify all the numbers up to nine when we read your counting books.
Another thing you’ve gotten a lot better at lately is drawing. You really take your time. No more random scribbling for you! You draw circles, big and little circles, circles inside circles, all over a page, sometimes while saying, “Round and round and round and round!” You draw faces, too. Here’s a perfect example (I drew the train, you drew the face):
I usually keep crayons and paper with us all the time. You’ve had your own bound sketch book, a smaller version of the kind Daddy uses, for several months. You love it. You love it even more when we draw with you. Or, sometimes, you ask others to color, too…
“Steve, color? Pleeease?”
For a long time, you would say “Mama Dada” and “Dada Mama” (which sounded a lot like “edamame”) when you were talking to both of us. Now you call us Mommy and Daddy individually and “guys” when you want us both. This morning, you said, “Look, guys, train!”
You’ve started playing with your toys in a whole new way. You ask us to play with you and hand us toys. You like to make the toys speak to each other. The conversations are you usually about eating, we’ve noticed. Then all the toys bounce or dance. You say to them, “Bounce, friends!” and then, “Stop! Stop! Stop! Dance!” Daddy and I have lots of fun seeing what you’ll think of next.
You’re such a fun, friendly boy. No mommy could be prouder.
Happy birthday! I wonder what joys your third year will bring…
Love, Mommy
What a difference
one year
can make.
