Ten Things I Love About Having A Two Year Old

1.  We spent the better part of our morning skipping stones at Spa State Park, the cheerful October sunshine keeping us warm despite the chilly air.  Harry has learned to look for wide, flat stones, and he delights in chucking them into the water.  It has been years, if not more than a decade, since I spent a morning skipping stones, but there we were.
2.  He makes me SEE things, rather than just look at them. "What's that?" he asks about anything and everything.  When I try to give him a lackadaisical answer about what I think he has questioned, he calls me on it and demands that I see what he has pointed to.  Today he picked something brown up off the ground.  I told him it was just a leaf, but he immediately stopped and made me look to see it; it was a dried up branch from a cedar tree, and he was satisfied when I finally gave him the correct answer.  Sometimes I think he knows what things are, but demands that I pay attention to the world around me, as if it is of the utmost importance to him that I experience the world from his point of view.  That is special.
3.  His affection is shared carefully and abundantly with those he loves, including me.  Today he was walking past me in the kitchen and stopped, turned around and grabbed my hand.  He looked me in the eye and said "I really love you, Mama".  Then  he continued on his way.
4.  His exuberance for life is not yet outweighed by his caution.  He climbs to the top of the castle at the playground, not worried at all that the ground becomes ever-further away with each step.  He runs through the grass without thinking about his feet getting wet, or slipping on the damp grass.  If he falls and gets dirty he gets up and falls again on purpose, because it was fun. 
5.  At his first ever-parade experience this weekend, he delighted in seeing the trucks, motorcycles, floats, and characters.  He clapped and cheered with enthusiasm; he was so mesmerized by the parade itself that he barely gave a thought to the candy that the parade marchers were tossing to him.  But he was horribly afraid of the army tanks and the Star Wars soldiers (you know, the ones in white, Darth Vador's guys), so much so that he grabbed the legs of the stranger standing next to him to hide his face.  For some reason it made me feel really good that he knew, on some instinctive level, that machines and soldiers of war are scary.  I certainly think they are, whether they're on our "side" or not. 
6.  He is old enough to know when to turn on the charm and his manners.  We were told over and over this weekend that Harry has great manners, great self-control, and that he is a joy to be around.  I love that he knows how to be good company when it matters.
7.  Singing.  I will never get tired of his two-year-old voice struggling to get though an entire song's worth of lyrics and melody.  He sings out loud, clearly and passionately, without a care as to whether or not anyone can hear him.  Please please please let him always feel that way about his voice (and not just his singing voice).
8.  He is almost always excited about things that we, as adults, have lost our enthusiasm for.  Cooking dinner is a science experiment.  Raking the leaves is an adventure in sound, texture, and movement.  The lawn mower is a treasured machine which possesses amazing skills.  Doing laundry is an exercise in ' shooting hoops'.  He helps me see beyond the mundane chores of my daily life.
9.  He is appreciative of the smallest gestures and the simplest gifts.  You could hand him a paper airplane made from the day's junk mail and he would thank you as though you had handed him a pirate's treasure.  Lending him your hand as he gets out of the car grants you a heartfelt "thank you" and sometimes a kiss for your trouble.  Letting him go outside to play is his most favorite of rewards. 
10.  I love it when he sleeps.  Seriously.  Harry is movement, a force of nature.  When he finally tires out, stops the high speed chase of toddler-hood and relaxes into a good sleep, I find great joy in watching his repose.  I love the way his long eyelashes brush the tops of his rosy warm cheeks.  I love seeing his little chest rise and fall in calm, measured breaths.  I love seeing his baby fingers wrapped around the fringe of his blanket.  When he is asleep I am reminded that he is really only two, still a baby in so many ways, even though his awake self demands and pushes and tries to break into boyhood every moment of every day.  Only when he is asleep am I allowed to be still and appreciate him in full, and once I do my heart's reaction is to want to wake him up, to bring the animation back to his face and once again be surrounded by his boundless energy.