I love you as big as this..

Baby, last Saturday you turned 2. Do you realize how ridiculously cool that is?

• You've got "two to the power of", "square root of two".

• 2 is the only even prime number.
• 2 is the atomic element number of Helium.

• 2 witnesses are generally required to validate most legal events.

• There are a lot of movies that end in the number two. Such as Terminator 2. Shrek 2. Rush Hour 2....and so on and so forth ad nauseum.

• Going "number 2" is considered slang for feces.

• Deux is the name of this Korean hip-hop duo, popular in the 90's. (thanks once again, wikipedia for giving me information that I will NEVER NEED)

I know these are your formative years. It's a very stressful prospect, thanks little runt. Frustrating especially since it's probable you won't remember ANY of this.
The painstaking bribes to get you to eat spaghetti (it's SPA-HE-TTI, everyone loves it! are you an alien or what?)
the cute stories about hippos in the molars before I can get you to crack an "ahh" so I can brush your teeth,
the embarrassing episodes of public rebelliousness (where is the "obey-goddamit" button on you?)
the "goddamits" repeated cute as a button that I have to smack your road-raging daddy for (ahem, heh),
the am I teaching him enough to be as smart as his same aged peers? Will he feel inadequate later in life? Will his character be strong enough to confront this hostile world?


All of this you are blissfully unaware of as you destroy our carpet, social life, paperback books, and septic system.

The past month has been one of the roughest of my life. It seems like everything clustered in a bottleneck and waited till I was unsuspecting and knocked my feet out from under me. When you're older, way older, we might talk about these things and you'll be all like, What? You had a life before me?

But newly two year old, you are my Saving Grace. I'm going to fail so many more times as you get older, you're going to point out every flaw in me and possibly hate me for them. But tonight, when I rocked you to sleep and hummed a very very tuneless song, you didn't care and you loved me with big blue adoring eyes and that, baby, is what keeps me waking up every morning.

If you can learn anything in life, it's that you're going to be a success and love what you've accomplished, you're also going to fail hard and miserably. People are going to praise you as beautiful and degrade your ugliness. You'll tell the truth but you'll also lie. Sometimes you won't know which one is harder to live with. Please, let every tough thing you face make you stronger, not bitter. Learn to embrace it and run farther.

I really think if you could learn only that I'd have given you the world. I love you stinker. Happy Birthday.