And just like that, our boy is two.

When I go visit for the weekend I make sure I’m there to pick him up from nursery. I peek my head around the door to see where he is — he’ll look up, realise it’s me, run over to be picked up (his little run kills me) and screams. After cuddling me with his entire body he leans back in my arms and looks me in the eye and screams again, as if to say YOU’RE ACTUALLY HERE! It is the best and most amazing thing in the world. No one has ever been so happy to see me.

He counts to ten and says please and thank you (“plea-sh” “ackoo”). Once in a while he’ll say something so perfectly it stops us in our tracks (“birthday cake”).

He’s still crazy for tractors and trains are now getting a lot of play time too. And he adores balloons. And painting. And Play Doh. He’s really good at naming colours now, though sometimes everything is just “colour!”

He loves cucumber, strawberries and blueberries. And I noticed all the pears, apples and bananas in my sister’s kitchen had little bite marks in them. He likes to sit on my lap when I’m eating my breakfast so he can have some too. Sometimes he’ll bite off more than he can chew, so he’ll hand it back to me:

When he’s excited it’s like his whole being is filled to the brim with light. He loves being outside, and sneaking into next door’s garden to bounce on their trampoline. He is completely fearless. We hired a bouncy castle for his birthday party and the lil dude was on it like a shot.

I handed him my book and without missing a beat he looked at the cover, smiled and said “Shoo-she!” As he flicked through the pages he’d stop when he saw pictures of me — “Shoo-she!” — and when I pointed to a photo at the end and asked who’s that? he said “No-no!”, his way of saying Noah. And yes, like the sap that I am, I got a bit teary. Couldn’t help it.

I am so lucky I get to be his auntie.

And in case there’s any doubt that we are related: