2 • sometimes a great notion.

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2

Two years ago today, right around this time of the day in fact, my wife called me at work and told me she thought she might have started to go into labor. She wasn’t entirely sure, but thought she was starting to feel what might be contractions, and would keep an eye on it and let me know. It was past the due date, so I was going to work every day with the idea that I could be leaving at any time (an odd position to be in when you’re a therapist seeing clients throughout the day), but it was just after July 4th and if I remember right, most of my clients were out of town and things were fairly slow at work. I was writing on tumblr at the time, so really, how busy could I have been?

As it turned out, she was in the early stages of labor and I came home mid-afternoon to help take care of our daughter and time K’s contractions and generally just try to be useful in some way, knowing that mine was not the heavier duty, burden, or pain to bear for the next 24 hours. It was a fairly normal evening all in all, as her contractions didn’t progress to Go to The Hospital Now frequency until nearly midnight that night, and we didn’t get checked into the hospital until around 1am or so, and then spent the night and the morning waiting for the baby to be born (at 11:30am), my wife the bravest and most amazing person I had ever seen up close, bearing the awful pain of labor with fortitude and (mostly) humor, being strong and vulnerable and aching and worried and loving and resolute all at once. To witness that, to see someone you love bringing someone else you love into this world, that is probably the truest definition I know of “life-changing”.

Anyway, the point of all that was this: two years ago today, right now, I still had no idea who my son was, or even that we would be having a son. We knew whoever was in there was healthy and active (far more “kicky” than our daughter had been in utero, according to my wife) and we couldn’t wait to meet him/her, but beyond that we knew nothing of this amazing new person that was about to come into our lives and change everything forever.

And now? Well, Elliott is a cute, curly-haired, perpetually curious bundle of awesomeness who amazes and inspires (and, of course, challenges) me on a daily basis with the way he is learning to make his own way in the world. The journey from birth to two is a lot about moving from total dependence on your parents to learning how to move away from them and learning to do things on your own, and in that regard, Elliott is certainly turning two tomorrow. He loves The Beatles, Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, reading, puzzles, being in water, climbing things you’d think wouldn’t be climbable, getting into everything, dancing, singing, and getting into adventures with his sister, his partner-in-crime.

Life can be amazing.