10 things we enjoy most with Lauca (aged 2.5 years)

(See also here).

Mine.

1. You are amazing. Plain and simple, you are amazing and there is nothing plain and simple about you. Complicated and beautiful, that’s you. It seems you are learning about everything all at once.
2. Lately you’ve been called upon to occupy yourself for hours at a time, in someone else’s house, with no other kids around to play with while I talk to my friend. This has been one of the most important things I’ve ever asked of you and you have more than risen to the occasion. My friend’s mother has been dying in my friend’s home. You have pottered around the house quietly. You are wonderful.
3. You drew an anatomically correct man (complete with chest hair) and woman this week, both with genitals. I was bowled over by you representing bodies so well in your art work.
4. Suddenly you’re actually becoming quite confident with people outside your little circle of trust and it is very validating for us as parents. It feels like watching your child go off to university. Like when we were shoe-shopping and you walked around the store with the saleperson and you let her touch your feet and you answered her questions about how the shoes felt. And we were actual metres away from you, lots of metres. I thought it would be you going to university before we saw that kind of thing.
5. The way you sing-shout “I need to do a wee, I need to do a wee” with such glee and abandon whenever we are looking for a toilet for you in the shops.
6. When you begged me to buy that over-priced stuffed toy dog for you because you said it was ‘the stuffed toy dog at home’s’ mother and he was at home right now crying for her, you told me. Everything with you is about mother’s. Where’s this horse’s mother? Which animals lay eggs and which grow babies in their tummies?
7. The way you repeat all the adult phrases you hear around you. Said ever so seriously out of your little mouth they sound hilarious.
8. When you told me the t-shirt I was wearing was “really nice, really beautiful”. Aw, this old thing?
9. The way you jolly along into any game I can come up with as long as it’s silly, like let’s run around the house to put the washing away instead of walking. You don’t yet look at me as silly, you’ll try to laugh at things just because I find them funny.
10. The way you’ve come to understand the lay of the land, the little rules about how things are done. Like Mummy gets to tell Daddy to get off the computer all the time, so you do too.
11. The way you are starting to understand Christmas and you seem to love that mythology just as much as I do. I can’t tell you how nice it is to hear you ask me to tell you the story about what happens on Christmas Eve. Or the way you love to hear stories about your past, about when you were born, when you were a baby.
12. Your thrill-seeking, I say this every time but I am dead impressed. When the little horse you were riding went down the steep hill and turned sharply to get back into his paddock your face lit up. You loved almost falling off. You also loves “weees” as you call them, sharp dips in the road and you’re still talking about the log ride we took you on at SeaWorld.
13. Appreciating things I’ve previously over-looked simply because you love them. Like parmesan cheese. You know, it is a pretty cool cheese, you’re right.
14. Your incredible loving attentiveness towards little babies.

His.

1. You give a little squeal and say “I feel esited”.
2. I like all the opportunities to teach you new skills and introduce you to new things.
3. Playing imaginary games with you, like acting out the story of The Cat in the Hat together, which you instigated.
4. Playing those games with you where you provide all the instructions, and they’re such descriptive instructions. I get my character and my lines outlined to me.
5. Watching you become more and more confident all the time, you’re becoming very self-assured in amongst all your shyness.
6. Seeing you do puzzles and admiring how adept you are with solving them.
7. Each day brings a new manipulation technique from you and it’s quite fascinating to see how you’ll get your own way today.
8. “Amy’s here, and Bannas Jarmers and Maria too” – you’re always telling us how your imaginary friends from your books and DVDs are here with us.
9. The way you doctor you dolls and you give them medicine and take their temperatures and you’re really proud of them when they don’t spit it out. And if they do spit it out you tell them in a serious little voice that they’re really sick now from not taking their medicine.
10. When you sent Thomas the Tank Engine to your room and then you brought him out straight afterwards, yelling to me that “Thomas ready to listen”.