Wow, Alex is two years old today. It’s hard to remember him as being anything other than the little boy he is today. Even looking back through the old photos, it’s hard to imagine a time before he could ask for “red juice” when he’s thirsty, “bread” when he’s hungry, or “playpark” when he wants to go on the swings.

When I came back from Boston at the beginning of March, I was amazed by the change in him. It seemed like in the mere four days that I’d been away, he had started stringing words together. Not quite into full sentences, but almost everything he said was a combination of two words. “Dada home,” or “Bye-bye mama,” or “Alex bus!”

He identifies and remembers people more readily now. When he hears the name of someone he knows, he starts looking around to see where they are. He knows when we’re asking him to do something, and sometimes he’ll even oblige. He knows that some words are associated with actions (verbs) and that some words refer to things (nouns). It’s amazing to watch his comprehension of language increase every day.

He has even invented his own emphatic suffix: if he really wants something, or someone, he’ll stick “way” behind the word. So when he wakes up, he calls out for “Dada-way” or “Mama-way”. If he really wants to go somewhere, or reach something, he points to “nere-way” (he can’t pronounce the “th” sound yet).

He loves to play, and he is intensely interested in the way the world works. Earlier this week, Abi and I were both (separately) vistited the dentist. Alex sat calmly on both of our laps and watched with close attention how the dentist poked around in our mouths.

Also this week, after almost a month of being out of his cot and into the big boy bed, he seems to have re-discovered the way to fall asleep on his own. The last three nights he has crawled into bed of his own accord, and hasn’t cried out when we gave him his final nigh-nigh kiss and left the room. This evening, after singing “twinkle twinkle” to him half a dozen times, I heard him softly whispering “winkle star” to himself as I crept out of the room and closed the door behind me.

Our boy. Our little boy. We love him so much.