It’s too soon for you to be two

To the most beautiful little boy in the whole world,

Today’s your second birthday. TWO! As far as babies’ ages go, that’s a huge number. I have to remember to stop calling you a baby because today, you just gave baby-ness a karate kick in the bottom. I told your daddy the other day that I wished you would stay this age forever. You right now is perfect, but then again I said that about you a year ago and I’m enjoying two-year-old you far more than one-year-old you.

Well let’s see. This year alone, you’ve learnt to converse, which is a massive milestone for me. You can actually tell us what you want instead of shrieking. I was really starting to get confused by the three short shrieks (raisins) and two medium shrieks (biscuits OR water). And if I got it wrong, you’d shriek even louder and then we would all end up in a frenzy because by then I would have lost track of the number of shrieks. That was a bad time for all of us. I hope I’m not speaking too soon but you seem to have made it out of the terrible twos. Before you even turned two.

You’ve developed into a cleanliness inspector and you certainly didn’t get that from me or your father. Your favorite line these days is “Oh no, you made a mess!” in that accusatory tone, then you order all of us to clean up with “EVERYBODY CLEAN UP EVERYTHING!”

I’ve learnt not to mess with the clean mode because that time we were running late (again) and you insisted on picking up every single last piece of your 100-piece Megabloks set which was strewn all over the entire house. I told you that it was ok and we could clean up when we got back but you got so upset that I’ve since incorporated time for cleaning up before we leave the house. Thanks, I guess.

You’ve grown to become a really superb big brother. Ever since Kirsten was born, we’ve taught you to love your little sister and you’re doing a fine job of that. You greet her every morning with an enthusiastic “good morning mei mei, you sleep well?” exactly the way momma does it.

You share all your stuff with her and kiss her ever so gently and take it like a man every time she screams at you for no reason at all. That’s the stuff big brothers are made of and we’re so proud of you for that.

You’re sweet and generous and affectionate and I wake up every day asking myself what I did to ever deserve such an awesome kid. Folks who meet you all think that I’ve done spectacular job of raising you but they don’t know that it’s really because you make me look good all the time.

I know I whinge a lot about how difficult being a mom can be and all the sacrifices we’ve had to make in our lives. Most of them are true by the way, but I’ll do them all over again in a heartbeat. Sometimes your daddy and I talk about how maybe we should have taken a few years off to travel, spend more alone time and pursue our own dreams before having kids but then we look at you and we choose you. I wouldn’t have wanted to spend these years not knowing you.

You’re our little sunshine machine.

We love you with all the love in the world and then some more.

Momma and Daddy.