Fortunately the illness didn’t last for very long. Often when he is sick, we won’t give him anything to eat for 24-36 hours, because that’s still in the “barf zone”. But by Friday afternoon he was a lot better, and he even had a proper dinner. Now he’s just back to being his usual mischievous toddler self again.

I love watching Alex try out adult behaviours, role playing the parts of his parents. Last night was a wonderful example.

When I put him to bed, I tend to lie down next to him for about 10 minutes, singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or talking about the day. It can be hard to fit into the bed, with all the cuddly toys he has there (eight at last count: two bears, three elephants, a baby doll, Milo from the Tweenies, and Po from the Teletubbies). But he likes having all of his friends (we call them Clan Beowulf) with him at night, and these are the dolls that play Alex when he’s playing us.

So I was lying in bed with him last night, singing Twinkle. And I could hear him going “Shhhh…” intermittently next to me, and making some sort of patting, thumping sound. I knew he wasn’t shushing me, because when he doesn’t want to sing he isn’t very subtle about it. I glanced over.

He had Po in his arms, and was alternately patting her back and rubbing it in little circles while gently shushing her. Just like we do when he’s upset.

Awww…

He wasn’t feeling well yesterday evening, and he had a case of the chills when I took him out of the bath. He didn’t even ask for a story before bedtime! All he wanted to do was curl up under the warm covers and have me sing “twinkle, twinkle” to him.

When he woke up this morning, we found that he was very fevered and had been a wee bit sick during the night. (Usually when he does that he wakes us up as well, but he must have been feeling so exhausted from the fever that he fell straight back asleep again.)

He’s at home now with mom, being all tired and limp. Awww…

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.

We had the Bonellas round to visit yesterday afternoon. Their youngest son, Cameron, is about six months older than Alex, so he’s about two-and-a-third years olf now. It’s actually been a year since we last saw them, and Abi and I were amazed at how much Cameron has grown in that time.

Once we got over that amazement, we were fascinated to see how much Cameron could say and do. He can run and jump, which made him a hero in Alex’s book. (One of Alex’s dearest wishes is to be able to jump. He’ll squat down and stand up quickly, often falling over in the process, but his feet never leave the ground.) Cameron says “thank you”, and “please”, and strings words together into whole sentences! It was like a glimpse into Alex’s future, to see what kind of things he’ll be doing in six months’ time. Wow.

It was cool to see the two boys playing together, too. I drop Alex off at nursery in the morning, and occasionally pick him up in the afternoon, but I rarely get the chance to see him interacting with other children. And Alex has never had another baby or toddler round here at the house.

At first, Alex was very unsure about this intruder. He was very clingy. Cameron was playing with Alex’s Po doll, but gave it back when Alex wanted it. Alex grabbed it, but then put on his most serious scowl, as if to say, “just because you gave it to me this time, doesn’t mean that I’m going to trust you.”

By the end of the afternoon, though, they were playing together happily. They were zooming around with Alex’s little block cars, and passing the Pooh ball back and forth. Great fun. We must make sure that it isn’t another year until we see the Bonellas again!