Nate!

My sweet boy is two.

He is relentlessly handsome, a face that makes me double-take at its cuteness often. 

He is strong and takes great pleasure in moving and lifting big things.

He is clever and quick with moving pieces and enjoys figuring out how things work.  He likes to pull things apart and put them together.  Buttons, plugs, screws and caps - these are a few of his favourite things.

He is funny and has a laugh worth hearing. He likes fooling and hiding and pretending.  He likes tickles and being thrown about and tossed like a sack of potatoes around the house. 

He has big hands, wide across the knuckles, as he's had since birth and they are just like his dad's. They make me love him, just like his dad's hands make me glad. 

He is easy-going and mellow, a word I used to describe him in utero. Not prone to big moments in any direction, he is steady and I think will be someone's rock, just like his dad.  But he is also sure and committed to his own self and glad to persist in the way he should go.  Perhaps a quality in a 21-year-old man, less appealing in a 2-year-old.

He is most often kind and happy with his sister, sweet and playful together they are.  Although each other's greatest frustration, they are also each other's favourite playmate and spend many happy hours together through the course of a week. 

He is a cuddler and hugger, famous for his pats on the back as he's cuddled up.  He likes to sing and is a fine dancer! He runs to daddy whenever he sees him, and likes mummy best in a crowd.  He doesn't speak too clearly yet, but he speaks a lot and has found ways to be a clear communicator nonetheless.

We love this boy so much and go to bed most nights exchanging stories of wonder at our good fortune to have him with us.  Before he arrived, we couldn't imagine how we'd have a second wonder-full one, a second one to thrill at as we had with our first.  And yet, two years in and we are still surprised to discover that we really, truly got the two best ones.  Gift from God indeed.