rudderless

TWo!

Dear Roo-

A few days ago, officially, you turned TWO! Two years old! Your big day was folded into the craziest of months, installing the engine, getting underway for the first time, celebrating with grandparents. But what a week to be TWO! This morning you’re sitting in your usual spot on the settee, legs folded underneath you, your hands crossed on the table, watching Wallace and Gromit with Sophie. I will remember your wild sun-bleached hair, pink tie-dyed shirt. Your constant narration of the movie- “Dat Doggy! Dat Sheep! Dat a white sheepy!” You’ll drink from a sippy cup, which you’ve been relegated to on the boat, due to your insatiable urge to pour water from one container to another. You’re a candidate for Montessori school if there ever was one! But aside from the no-spill cups and the binkies that you horde like candy, there are very few remnants of babyhood in our lives. I can’t remember the last time you rode in a stroller or wore a diaper, or the last time I rocked you to sleep.

We celebrated three times, the first with Tabitha, your first friend, two days older than you. Our water girls played in the pool and dressed up, ate pink cupcakes and gummi worms. You savored the singing and the candles, but took so long to blow them out that you felt the heat of it on your nose. Now you decline all candle-blowing duties. Thankfully, Sophie is here to help!

A week later Goonie and JoePop came down and after swimming, we shuffled you upstairs for a bath while Sophie and I decorated the condo. You were pleased and surprised and approached the present-opening with the utmost seriousness. Your pink cake with weeping M&Ms was truly a work of art. But what we’ll remember most from the weekend was you pulling your trains around the round table in the living room hundreds and hundreds of times. The simplest kind of fun.

Your real birthday was a good old normal day on Rubi. Daddy worked on the running lights. We went for a nice swim, had a long nap, made pizza and surprised you with a donut and two candles. Simple and sweet. Happy TWO!

And now we’re off on a real adventure, Rose! In just a few days we set off for the great white north. We’ll sail from here to Fort Pierce and then on to Beaufort, North Carolina, and eventually to Boston and Maine. This fall will bring your first Transatlantic adventure (by plane, not boat!) and a few stamps in your passport. Then your first real winter! Last night we were out walking after dinner and it started raining- one of those tropical showers that can turn a dry parking lot into a lake in minutes. Suddenly there were puddles everywhere. You were in the very definition of your heaven, splashing and running, “swimming,” trying to catch water on your tongue. You are one for adventuring, never complaining about a fall or scrape suffered in the quest for fun. You are your Daddy through and through- confident, determined, stubborn, wicked smart. If we can keep the adventures coming, and manage your energy (and acrobatics), it will be a very memorable year indeed. John often wonders, looking at you, how his mother managed to raise five kids, and “this” as the youngest! It’s clear to me. I love you fiercely. Our frustrations and challenges are balanced by this crazy love for your happiness, goofiness, the crazy way you just emanate light and life. You glow, Rose. You truly do. You’re a charmer, even as you terrify us.

Thank you for being exactly who you are. So different from our first-born, who loves you so dearly, who says, “Rosy, I’m so glad I have a sister like you.” I know just what she means. A sister full of ideas, of fun, of mischief at times, but most of all, full of enthusiasm, curiosity, and love. You’re a beautiful girl, in so many ways. Holding you in my arms two years ago, I had no idea who I was holding. If I could have only imagined . . .

Happy, happy birthday Roo. We love you!