On another planet, I would find something other than the following tokens of business to say to my husband:

Hello. We fed the ducks and we got another power bill and did you remember to pick up more milk and I forgot to take out the recycling again and that cheese isn’t supposed to be blue and watch out, that’s a poopy sock. Goodnight.

If Evan ate half of what falls from his highchair to the ground, he’d be ten feet tall. Having lost patience with mushy spoonfuls, he is now in a nutritional no-man’s-land: he wants to feed himself, but needs practice.

Compounding the problem is a newfound discovery of likes and don’t likes – and as you can imagine, most food falls into the latter category. Not liking makes one feel gloriously decisive.

Like the miraculous journeys of worldly salmon to home stream or sperm to egg, pieces of food have the odds stacked against them. Not much makes it to the belly.

First, it must pass the contemplation stage. Does this look (or not look) like a blueberry? Rejects sit unexplored, an unappetizing pile on the highchair tray.

Second comes the grab-and-stuff stage. Slippery fingers and an unperfected pincer grasp means most falls to floor or lap.

Third: the chewing stage, necessary to give your mother a false sense of progress.

Then the fourth stage: the finish line. Nine out of ten pieces of food that make it this far are spit out, in order to make room in the mouth for more pieces which are chewed up and yes, you guessed it: spat out. Anything swallowed is probably an accident.

Can a child get big on nothing but tickles and crumbs?

In another post-birthday development, Evan has discovered MINE. In a room full of three thousand, four hundred and sixty seven fire engines, crackerjacks, squeaky balls, bumblestumblers, musical chairs, fizzdoodlers, stacking rattlers and wahooglers so thick you have to kick a path through them, MINE is the small, unassuming block picked up two seconds ago by his cousin.

The injustice! The protest! Behold, the Toddler!

“Do you ever get that feeling,” I said today to Justin, “when you look at Evan? That rush of love? What does that feel like for you?”

“Like Boxing Day when I was little,” he replied. “When I'd wake up and suddenly remember that I got the present I'd wanted more than anything.”

First, my stomach turns. Then it flip-flops up into my chest and chokes a breath. It hits me with a glimpse of a pudgy knee, or an ear smeared with lunch. It’s a powerful thing, this pouring, this zap. Not unlike the sensation of being scared – when you’re walking through the woods at night and are overcome with an urgent, irrational need to run from the dark, heart racing, bats and badness at your heels.

This is not intended to be a hallmark card. It’s instinctual, ancient, impossibly heavy. I can’t bear the thought of his life going wrong, or failing him in any way.

He keeps us light: most often with a well-timed fart. And with his stories, and cheshire grins, and his hair, standing on end from static and hummus. Four blessings of a million.

Oh! What’s this they call sugar, and creamy cheesy too. Rich and licky sticky to fingers. What’s that they call balloon! Oh! Floaty and bouncy and curly ribbons tickle the nose on my face.

I am all love! I jump and sing and do my walking like a circus pony, attached to daddy’s hand in the middle, round and round.

Oh! What’s this they call cousin, him over there who runs and plays and chats all-business-like. Grow fast, hurry hurry! Want to do like him. Joy!

This is what they call birthday, the day I arrived. That must have been some day, what with all these sweets and balloons and prancing and presents and people.

Someday, Justin will wear black socks with shorts. I will drive Evan to school in my pyjamas. It’s our job – we are his parents, and are therefore honour-bound to embarrass him.

He’ll never know us as we know ourselves – he’ll know us as parents only. PB&J-makers. Carpool-drivers. Lecture-givers (as much as I hope not to be, it’s another inevitability, isn’t it?). We’ll nag him with the best of intentions, smother him with enthusiasm. He won’t understand us, and we won’t understand him.

He’ll never know us sunburnt and giddy from 35 hours in a VW van with six people, six bikes, three tents and a canoe. I can still taste that beer, cold and sharp in the hot moonscape of the Utah desert.

It’s just one moment of hundreds, when we were cool.