Happy Birthday Connor

Dear Connor,
A week ago you turned two years old and I can not even begin to describe how amazed your Dad and I are by you. You are like watching a million years of evolution unfold before our eyes. Right in the middle of our den… right in the middle of our lives.

I almost feel sorry for the people that we talk to on a regular basis and realize how much they must love me to endure me talking about my children non stop. I always swore when I had kids, I would not let them absorb me, not knowing where I ended and they began but that was before you came into our lives. You are so amazing that we can’t help but surrender completely.

I was the perfect parent before I had children. I never thought you would eat sugar or watch TV. But when I see you standing in front of Go, Diego, Go! With a pop tart in hand and only one sock on I know it’s going to be ok, because you are just so damn happy. We have a good life.

Often I complain about how hard it is to stay home with a toddler and how hard it is to keep the house clean and how hard it is to not have anyone to talk to all day but I do it because we love you so and it’s the best thing for us all. When I think about the mom’s in other places in the world, the ones that are in refugee camps or the ones that don’t have the money for medicine for their children, I feel a deep sense of shame that I should complain about anything at all. My two year old gets pop tarts and Diego. We are so blessedly fortunate.

And the TV isn’t so bad after all. You know by site, condors, spectacled bears and green eyed tree frogs. You were so obsessed with the Diego show on condors that you talked about it and asked for the condors non stop for three days until Daddy finally told you that the condors were broken. That seemed to make sense to you somehow and we were blessed with three days of peace until you then became obsessed with a baby tree sloth or something equally obscure from your favorite show. You should hear yourself say “chinchilla” there’s nothing cuter.

You are finally getting used to your baby brother. You’re not so frantically active around him anymore and I have actually seen you ignore him for hours at a time. Life is getting easier for us all. Your preschool teacher said that you sometimes take the class baby doll and throw it and yell, Baby! No! No! Baby! And that some times you hold it close and love it. I think that probably sums up your feelings about your new brother.

We’ve developed a new time out system that involves strapping you into your old high chair for two minutes. It seems to be working, unlike our previous method that involved one of us holding you down in your toddler rocking chair for two minutes. You thought that was great fun, coming up and hitting us and then specifically saying hopefully, “time out? Time out? Connor hit, time out?” so that we will put you into your chair. We decided there had to be another way.

We had a birthday party for you last Saturday and you had a great time. You got a new Harley Davidson tricycle, a ride in Diego Jeep and a fish tank among other fine things. You became so obsessed with your tricycle that you had a temper tantrum and didn’t want to open any other presents, which resulted in us allowing you to open them while sitting on your tricycle. Once we finished opening gifts you resumed your tantrum, which was over something about the bike, but mostly about the fact that you were completely exhausted. I tried to get it on film when you threw yourself on the deck in midst tantrum, but you were so quickly swooped up and cuddled by one grandparent or the other I didn’t get to archive the moment.

There are a million things that I don’t want to forget about the past year. Like the way you went from your two words, cheese and dada to complete sentences and phrases. Or the way that you remind me of a Labrador retriever puppy anytime your hands hit water whether it’s in a cup, the tub, the sink, the hose or a puddle. Or the way that you say “Sleep tight!” before going off to bed with Daddy, then curling up in your crib with the menagerie of stuffed animals. Or how when you want something instead of saying “Connor wants”, you just say the two words, your tiny voice filled with hope, “Connor? Cupcake?”. Or how there can not be a child alive that loves “Outside!” more than you do.
But mostly I want to remember what a joy you are to have and hold even when you are throwing yourself on the floor screaming my name 500 times in a row because you have been denied a strawberry pop tart. Happy Birthday, baby.