Dear Kate,

Today you are two years old. As I write this you are busy picking out your clothes for the day, which will apparently consist of a swimsuit coverup and a pair of sandals that really don't fit you any more. (Update: Now we've moved on to your new big girl velcro tennis shoes and a pink polka dotted outfit your Grammy sent you. We'll see how long that lasts.) Changing clothes and shoes is a big deal with you right now. Leading ladies in musicals go through fewer costumes changes in a day than you. And they can dress themselves, not that you aren't trying. Half the frustration in your life right now is about the fact that you can't handle buttons and zippers, but at this rate, you're going to have it all figured out by next week. Practice makes perfect and all.

You just got done spending four days with your Daddy while I was visiting with some friends in Minnesota. It was the longest time I've been away from you as well as the longest period of time you've spent alone with your dad, and I think you fared considerably better than I did. Based on Dan's report, it seems you were totally cool about the fact that I just got on a plane and left you for four days, whereas I had to stop talking to you on the phone when I would call home to check in because it made me feel so homesick to hear your little voice. I do think you missed me, because you were really excited to see me when I got off the plane yesterday evening, and squealed and danced and hugged me. You looked bigger to me and you knew a handful of new words, all in just a few days. That's really what it's like with you right now. Every day you learn something new or say something new. It makes it hard to remember what you were like even a few months ago.

This month, you have picked up a new hobby for me to supervise: Waiting for the garbage truck. On Fridays, the city dump trucks come to our neighborhood to pick up the trash, and this is the highlight of your week. If you were content to watch this amazing event from inside the house, that would be one thing. But that will not do. Not even close. So every Friday morning at about 7:30, we start camping out in the driveway to make sure we don't miss the truck. As soon as you hear the truck, which with your super-sonic hearing can happen when they are still blocks and blocks away, we have to go outside and start our vigil. I have learned that on Fridays, I better get my coffee ready to go and put on some decent clothes first thing, since we'll be greeting the entire neighborhood in the course of this little ritual. I think you are developing quite a following on our block, because all of our neighbors are getting in their cars to go to work around that time in the morning, and people take great pleasure in checking to see what you're wearing that day and waving to you as they drive by. You love that. But it pales in comparison to the fact that the garbage truck drivers not only wave to you from inside the truck, but one of them now honks his horn for you. I am not sure the other residents are appreciating that so early in the morning, but you are beside yourself.

The downside of this is that the city, having recently added recycling pickup services to the garbage routes, now sends two trucks, and they each go down the street twice so as to pick up the cans on both sides of the street. That means that we don't just have to wait for a truck to come once. No, we have to watch the truck four times in a morning. It becomes quite a production. I have started bringing breakfast. And a book. Because you never get tired of waiting. If anyone in the Albuquerque area wants to drop by for a chat, I have a couple of hours blocked off every Friday morning between 7:30 and 9:30. Come on by.

Back to your birthday: Really, you've been getting presents for about two weeks already, since I smuggled home some loot for you from your Gam and Geez after our trip to Mississippi and your Grandpa brought some gifts out on behalf of himself and Grammy during a recent business trip. Among those was a pink plastic doctor's kit with miniature doctor tools, including a fat plastic syringe that you have used to give your baby doll about 200 shots a day ever since. Apparently, you are very pro-vaccination, or perhaps you have just been watching too many news reports about swine flu. Either way, I doubt that poor baby doll is going to get sick any time soon.

Later today, we're going to have a little party for you, just the three of us. Strawberry cupcakes are on the menu, and your daddy is getting you a bunch of helium balloons on his way home from work. Your Gam and Geez sent you a bunch of new dressups (Fairy wings and tutus. I have a feeling I know what you'll be wearing to church for the next three weeks.) and your Grammy and Grandpa sent a little step stool, which you are going to love because it will enable you to climb up and "help" me with things in the kitchen. I may never get anything done again. Your Dad and I bought you an enormously tacky Dora the Explorer toddler-sized backpack that has wheels on it and a handle like a little suitcase. I would have preferred something without a cartoon character on it, since you don't even know who Dora is, but on the other hand, Dora has a monkey, and you are going to think that is just the coolest thing ever, so I got over myself and bought it.

Reflecting on the last two years with you is so surreal, mostly because I find it hard to remember that you haven't been part of our lives forever. I think I knew, holding you in that delivery room that night, that things wouldn't ever be the same. Everyone tells you that, and I didn't doubt it. What no one could ever have made me understand was just how much we would love you, how much being your parents would require of us, and how profoundly we would be changed in the process. It's probably a good thing I didn't know, because I would have been even more terrified than I already was. But if I could go back and tell myself one thing, it would be this: "Relax. This is going to be the most fun you've ever had in your life."

And it has been, Kate. Happy birthday. I love you so much.

Mommy