Smitten

You are two and a half. I find those words hard to swallow, almost as hard as the thought that you will be 3 this fall.

Where did it go? Two and half years old, how can it be?

Yesterday, it seems I was wrapping you tightly in a swaddle or tucking a blanket around you in a stroller. Yesterday it seems I was watching you take your first steps and say your first words. I was struggling with getting you to sleep and to eat your veggies and some days those struggles are still there, especially the veggies.

But these days you are incredible. You have so much personality and humor and charm that it seems impossible that you are mine. You are smart and inquisitive and thoughtful.

There is so much to 2 and 1/2 that I want to capture and hold forever because, right now it is all so fleeting. You are growing and changing so rapidly and I don’t want to forget any of the little details.

And I find myself pausing and thinking, remember this, this is important, I will want to remember these details to replay years from now or to embarrass you when you bring a girl home for dinner.

Like that currently your favorite book is But Not the Hippopotamus or that you pronounce it Hip-ot-o-mus.

Or that when I ask you if you had a fun day you reply, “I sure did”. Or how whenever one of us leaves the house you summon us for a “family hug” and sometimes if you forget to give a kiss goodbye you come running back yelling “I almost forgot! kisses”.

You are sweeter than I ever thought a little boy could be.

And while some days the words, “mama come play” seem to be like a broken record, I will never stop loving the way you take my hand and guide me into your playroom.

There is just something about two and a half that pulls on my heart the way no other age has. Something about it that makes me sad and a little heartbroken as we slip closer and closer to three.

Maybe it’s the knowledge that you really aren’t a baby anymore.

Though I’m sure three will have it charms, right now I’m just so smitten with you at two and a half.