We are now just one month shy of you turning two. Two! Mon dieu, Monsieur. C'est trés magnifique! I'd ask you to slow down but your pops and I are already looking forward to when you're older so we can leave you for a night out without our departure being the most distressing thing to happen to a human being ever, which is how it is right now for you. This did not stop us, however, from hiring your first ever bona fide babysitter - Miss Hailey - so we could catch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in the theatres. Yes, you cried when we left, and we felt bad about that initially, but coming home to find you asleep and the condo building not burned to the ground was absolutely awesome. 
You are a spitfire, bean. Your boldness knows no bounds. As evidence of this I point to your recent brazen act of thievery. It occurred during breakfast a week or so ago. In the kitchen. You and your pops seated at the island. Your little hand sneaked over and pulled a piece of cereal directly out of your dad's bowl. And then you popped it into your mouth and waxed triumphant. To curb what could be the beginnings of your life of crime we have implemented family hugs. Yeah, we're loving the potential criminal right out of you. Family hugs are much like they sound. You smooshed in the middle of your father and me. Usually there is a brief squeeze and you giggle and then we squeeze you again to get more giggles. Squeeze and repeat. Eventually we release you from this parental love grip and set you free. Often you don't go far.
You had been riding your borrowed bike to the elevator and downstairs to the car in the mornings so we could take your dad to work, but this past week we started biking downtown instead. It's been a blast, which surprised us because the last time we put you in the trailer and hitched you to my bike you made it very clear how terribly miserable you were. (Read: You cried. A lot.) Now, for much of the ride you are relaxing back there repeating "daddy" over and over again and laughing when he passes us by. When we aren't biking enough to satisfy your needs, you will go and sit in the trailer and say "bike ride," which comes out sounding like "butt ride". You like to spur us into action. And it works. It's very hard to resist a cute toddler sitting in a bike trailer signing outside while yelling "owshit" and "butt ride".
You are enthralled by the skateboarders we see at the park. We watched them perform their tricks for nearly an hour one day before breaking away for a rousing game of frisbee. You have quite the frisbee-throwing technique, Huck. Your frisbee-carrying arm goes back and then whips across the front of your chest in such a way that the frisbee is released and flies far away from the intended recipient (a.k.a. me) and lands somewhere behind you. This is followed by a game of 'who's going to reach the frisbee first' as we both bolt after it. You're a pretty good sport. Back to the skateboarding bit, later we were shopping and while at the store you came upon a dollhouse and in said house there was a teeny doll skateboard. You traipsed over to the aisle I was standing in, set the tiny skateboard on the ground, and proceeded to try and ride the skateboard, putting your rather large toddler foot on the teeny tiny board and hopping with the other leg. Danger's your second middle name. I predict knee pads and helmets are in your future.
You're making progress on your ABCs and 123s, although sometimes I'll ask you to count something and get letters, and you do have an odd habit of leaving out the number 4. That repeating phase you hear kids hit, well, you're there. You'd think this would cause me to be overly careful about the words that come out of my mouth but sometimes, particularly when I'm driving behind some jerk who is talking on his cell phone when he should be focusing his attention on the road, I say bad things. As all parents eventually find out, the problem with this phase is that you tots hear and repeat these bad things. So, I'll try to curb my potty mouth if you try to curb your repeater potty mouth, k?
This letter doesn't even begin to address all of the changes you have made and skills you have acquired over the past month. When leaving daycare, you'd say "bye bye, guys" and wave - sometimes to people in the room, sometimes to yourself. You seem a bit perplexed by the waving process but still recognize it as a convention of polite society so you do your best to participate. You are sleeping in the bed in your room without the baby gate in place. It's as if an invisible line has been drawn and you know we have every expectation that you will stay in your room once we have placed you in bed. You hate getting your hair rinsed. Milk is your preferred beverage. You shout "Woooo!" when you hear the Black Eyed Peas "I Gotta Feeling". You're learning to take off your own shoes and socks, and you think it's funny when I talk about your stinky toes. You're ready for yet another haircut. You retrieve our shoes, bring them to us, and encourage us to put them on when you want to go outside, which is pretty much all the time. You run hard. Play hard. Dance hard. Laugh hard. And fall hard.
On any given day at any given moment I can be completely overwhelmed by the love I feel for you. I wouldn't have thought it possible and it takes my breath away.
Love,
Mom
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