Even with the “real” camera for P’s party, I clearly need to up my game as these were honestly the best shots and the rest were all just blurs. (Yeah, even MORE SO than these blurs!) These tots are not going to pose pretty and I need to be better at catching the local wildlife in action!
That said, the party was a big success, save for one sick member of the Alves Family. Oh yes, no toddler birthday party would be complete without surprise illness. The real surprise being that it was not Paulo, or any of his friends, who was ill – but Nuno. He hung in there like a champ, but he was really suffering from some nasty food poisoning over the whole weekend.
It was a wonderful little party to celebrate a wonderful little man.
Two years ago Saturday (March 9), I got to meet my son. It feels like a thousand years that he’s been here, and yet, the most vivid moment of my entire life I can remember like it was just ten minutes ago. He had to be taken from me as soon as he was born due to some meconium, so I didn’t have the joy of having him placed on my chest. While they were making sure that he hadn’t aspirated his own poo, they were putting me back together (only three stitches, but still enough to distract me from the baby being in the next room). Soon they finished with both of us and he was there, on the warmer, next to me. Almost within reach and yet so far. And I remember – so viscerally, I can truly FEEL the memory in my chest – looking over at that perfect wee baby and with tears in my eyes saying to the nurses or my mom or whoever, “I want him.” And soon enough, he was passed from the nurse to my mom and from my mom to Nuno and finally, finally to me.
And two years ago I sang Happy Birthday to him for the first time when he was placed in my arms and on Saturday I sang it as I lifted him from his crib and it hasn’t lost any of its magic. It truly doesn’t get old that I birthed this amazing, amazing human.
And two! Two is amazing! Two is awesome! I know that two gets a bad rap, but two is my favorite. I love two. Two is what I envisioned parenthood to be, two is what I was looking forward to, two is what I’m good at. Sure there are tantrums and two can not be reasoned with – but there is just so much joy. Everything is exciting. P’s verbal development is starting to take off and he’s learning valuable life skills such as “gimme five.” It’s incredible and I love every minute of it.
Even if this minute he’s railing against the injustice of bedtime by kicking his crib and whooping in protest. So it goes with two.