Today is Atti’s second birthday, and I’m rendered nearly speechless. I can’t count the number of times someone told me, “Treasure this time! It goes so fast!” but boy howdy, they were not kidding. How do I have a two year old?
In some ways I don’t. He’s caught up on the growth chart, but developmentally he’s much younger. Even aside from the whole not walking part. I had another preemie mom tell me that her doctor explained it took 1 year for every month of prematurity for them to catch up to their peers. So theoretically, by the time Atti’s three he’ll be socially and emotionally caught up. He’s already making big strides. Throwing tantrums like any toddler worthy of the title. Learning to come out of his little shell and play with other kids. Capturing more words every day.
The other day I was bent over cleaning up a mess he made, and Atti came up behind me and surprised me with a smack on the bum. I jumped in the air and said, “You goosed me!” and ever since he’s been crawling around the house saying “Goose, goose, goose.” With just the tiniest bit of a baby lisp.
He’s just blossoming all of a sudden. After working on it for a solid year of therapy, he finally decided he was ready to start waving Bye-bye. But instead of doing it when we asked, he’d crawl off into a corner and practice by himself. I’d find his little legs sticking out from under the table and hear “buh bye. Bye, ba bye.” As he stared at his hand and willed it to move back and forth. I’ve been reading stories to him his whole life, but overnight he went from bored to fascinated and now he throws a fit if he doesn’t get to have as many stories as he commands. He kisses the baby in the book, and turns the pages by himself.
He’s in this amazing limbo state. Part of him is becoming so aware of the world, so keen to interact and discover, and the other part of him is still my baby. While writing this I had to stop three times to give snuggle breaks. He crawls over to me and pulls on my pant leg to check in for a snuggle before he goes back to playing with his toys. He still loves kisses so much that I can motivate him to keep working through therapy by just saying, “Mama has kisses for you! Come and get kisses!” and then he will.
This little guy brings me so much happiness it’s almost embarrassing. Whenever I talk about him with his therapists and teachers, I catch myself grinning like a fool and I can’t wipe it off. I’m so proud of him I can barely stand it. My little champion.
