I don’t know quite how it happened (well, I suppose I do, but time is weird), but here we are, nearly a month into life with a two year old. Her birthday was a casual family day, but it was also fun and adorable. The Engineer’s Two Year Old is proving a pretty fun person to get to know.
So far, Two is up and down and a bit all over the place, especially because it coincides with having a month to pack up all our stuff and move halfway across the world.
Two is also:
- Pleading eyes and “Watch videos now, please?”
- Long bedtimes and early early mornings (we’re talking 5am, or even earlier!)
- Lots and lots of stories, again and again and again.
- Picnics (or NICNICS!) on the floor in the lounge with all her friends.
- Copying everything we do, with sometimes hilarious consequences.
- Counting “1 2 3 4 6 8 9 10”
- Stripping down for “nudie” time whenever she gets the chance.
- Possessives: “Elsie’s friends” “Elsie’s Papa” “Elsie’s snot”
- Feeding the fish one tiny piece of food at a time, so it takes forever.
- Reading her animal books to me from the back seat. “Ox bellows. Mama make noise!”
- Running away as fast as she can to show us she is done.
- Showing us just how much she remembers from a surprisingly long time ago.
- Snapchat. So much Snapchat. (She calls it “masks”)
- A quite sudden ability to complete more complicated puzzles.
- A whole new level of communication. “Spicy! Spicy mouth! Milk helps…” and “Kiss knee, Mama. Ouchie Elsie”
- Inventing names for things. Flavoured crackers are “messy crackers”.
- Telling us a story over and over until we figure it out.
- Meltdowns over stopping her using our phones.
Two is hard. Two is messy. Two is a whole lotta fun.

Two is two candles on a birthday cake and one birthday girl enthusiastically blowing them out.