TWO YEARS!

 Having birthday pancakes!

Last night two years ago I had the strangest pizza of my life - eight days before Dag was due my water broke Niagra-falls style at a launch party I was at. After being monitored for some time at the hospital they sent me home in the evening to await the labour (pains) to begin, or to return in the morning to get it started for me. It was around ten p.m and we hadn't eaten during the day so we stopped at an Italian restaurant on the way home. I had a pizza and it felt rather absurd to sit there munching it, knowing that the next day our baby would be with us. Some memories are such that you can't really place them; they feel like they could be five years or five weeks ago, but this one feels like a lifetime ago already.

Dag about one hour old.

And today my little baby turned two already! Time goes so fast!

 Opening his big present.

A trrctr! Tactoo! Trr! 

And a paaanda!

Dag has developed into a charming little person, and also a very stubborn little one. It gets more fun to be around him day by day, as he interacts more all the time, naturally, developing from baby to toddler to child.  Which means he can also be very annoying.  Which he usually makes up to by giving you a truly genuine hug with all the love a two-year-old-with-half-of-his-sandwich-mashed-out-over-his-hands (that are now nestled in your hair) can, and a big gooey kiss on top of that. Saying MOM! and being very sorry for pulling the cat's tail for the n:th time.

And just like the love to any other person or living creature develops by time so does the love to a child. You grow to love your child more; it's a very different kind of love that I have towards my son now than I did when I he was a newborn.

Before you become a parent you always hear about how you will have your hands full and how absolute it is. And you get it, even though you can't really realise what it will be like, to have someone so dependent on you, before you have that little caterpillar in your lap and instantly learn that it is constant, there are no free seconds, it is ON all of the time. I did have something of a clue as we already lived with Dag's half brothers although they of course are much older. But I was a bit surprised (and, yes, annoyed) the first year over how everything always was about the kids' schedule, when they would need to eat and be; all arrangements had to be made according to them, they way it is when you have children - so I had some training. But thinking back now the 24/7 babyperiod was over rather soon, after a few months it was smooth sailing; eating, getting dressed, going out, taking a shower (or a piss for that matter too) and all that gets easy after a while. (Altough, leaving the house will not be the same for another ten years or so. It takes so, muh.more.time to exit trough the door...) By now I've almost forgot how it was like to have a tiny baby! Well, both my sisters and Eddi's brother will have babies during the following months (bye bye babysitting grandparents, damn!) so I will be reminded...

And if the constant on-duty of being a parent is something that is not possible to comprehend before you are there, so is the parental love. I thought it would be similar to the love of you pet, perhaps the closest you can get to imagine it if you don't have children, but stronger. And yes perhaps it is like that, but of course different too. (Well, sometimes I compare babies and small children to puppies too. They are always crazy happy to see you, for example. Hehe. ) And as with any love it comes with worries as well, and also with the worlds strongest urge to protect. The love for you child s filled with parents-only moments with stings of your heart melting over the smallest things, his small shoulders bending over a toy car,  over how much happiness a slice of apple can bring, or a truck driving by "THERE! LOOK!" and aaaaw how well and concentrated he eats with a fork and tries to pick up his macaroni one by one and there he's pouring out one and a half litre of -what, wait, uh-oh, NO DAG NO!