Under normal circumstances, I would’ve liked to have written something on the actual day. But mythical wife and I were at Disney World with #1 celebrating her second birthday, so appropriately understandable, I just wasn’t around to take the time to write and reflect.
And just like that, my first child is two years old. Naturally, the passage of time has felt like a blip, and I can still remember lots of the finer details of raising my daughter, and the world she grew up in and has been living in, still amazed at just how things have progressed in that span.
Over the last year, between first and second birthdays, a lot has most certainly occurred. Not long after turning one, my daughter really kicked it into gear and began crawling like a speed demon obsessed, which was a might’ve been considered a little late in the development game, but honestly that part didn’t last long at all, because before we knew it she was suddenly upright, and it was barely a month after turning one, did she take her first steps and frankly, she hasn’t stopped running around since then.
#1 basically eats everything in sight now, and she went from being introduced to solids to not just inhaling everything that’s put in front of her, but now an innate curiosity and determination to utilize utensils and not just eat everything with fistfuls jammed into her mouth.
Obviously, one of the more substantial occurrences to have happened within the last year was that even though she was just one year old, #1 became a big sister already, when #2 was born in July, and my household had to deal with the harrowing realization of being a house with two under two, and the hard mode of life we were about to embark on.
In spite of everything I may have written detailing the difficulty and hell that parenting under these circumstances might have been, one of the joys to have emerged from it all has been witnessing just how much my now elder daughter, loves her little sister. What started off as hesitation and fussing about the new edition to the home, #1 has taken to big sisterhood quite well, and fewer things bring genuine happiness to my heart than seeing her open up her arms and envelop her little sister in big hugs, whenever the opportunities present themselves.
Not a day goes by where I don’t just stop and watch my child at varying points throughout the days, just to see what she’ll do next. Not a day goes by where it doesn’t seem like there’s some sort of growth or development with her, most of the time pertaining to absorption of the things she’s hearing and her ability to repeat and recollect, which also means that I have to really watch out for using profanity around her, because much like this meme, there’s no doubt that she’ll remember the bad words forever.
But every night while I wind her down for bedtime, I tell her that I love her so much, and it melts my heart every single time, when she repeats the words “love you so much.” I know for now it’s mostly just repeating the words that I’m saying, but I’m hoping that one of these days eventually, she’ll be saying it as a declarative statement of her own volition and with understanding the meaning of the words.
As much as I love her though, all the same, has arrived the time of toddler defiance; a lot more no’s, a lot more fussiness at being told what to do, and a whole lot more determination to do things herself and her way, and not necessarily how others want her to do things. I’m guessing this is probably the onset of the suppose terrible twos, but really it’s still just the never ending adventure of raising a child that I’m clearly experiencing first hand for the first time. Hopefully she doesn’t make my life too hell as mythical wife and I embark on this next chapter of our parenting lives, but I’m confident that our love for our kids won’t waver, no matter how much trolling and exasperation they’re going to inevitably test us with throughout our lives.
Either way, I thought I’d have more to write about this than this, but I am still a tired dad with too much on his plate, and not enough time to accomplish everything he wants to do. Regardless of the circumstances, a happy belated-in-writing birthday to my first child, whom I love so much, and will always love so much. I look forward to watching her grow and develop, from the good to the bad, and there will never be a day where I am not thankful to be her dad.
