The Power of 2

Given that we've just celebrated LG's second birthday, it's probably not surprising that '2' has been on my mind a lot lately. There's significance to '2'. I see '2's everywhere.

I should not have had two pieces of cake.

It's hard to fathom that I've been a parent for two years. I can now call LG a 2-year-old, rather than refer to her age in months. Since her first birthday, there have been two gallons of milk in our fridge: a gallon of whole and a gallon of skim. For various reasons, we have two strollers, two highchairs, and two copies of Green Eggs and Ham (I'm a little unclear on how the last one happened). As we get closer to sending her to daycare, it's become more obvious that we need to have two cars, just to handle the logistics of it all.

And it brings me back to the original two, me and Hollie. We were the beginning, the dynamic duo that started this whole thing. Two was comfortable, happy and stable. Think of us as 2: the first prime integer. 2 is made of the factors 1 and 2. We were made up of two factors: we could be 2, but we could also be 1. She could exist as Hollie, and I could be Matt, or we could be Hollie and Matt. We were a single unit divisible only by ourselves and each other.

Then we chose to expand our unit to become something more, 3. Technically, still prime, but an odd prime. Rarely do we consider ourselves individuals now. I am no longer just Matt; I am Matt, father of LG. Previously, neither Hollie, nor I, expressed ourselves in terms of each other. But now, we cannot be expressed in terms apart from LG. The same isn't necessarily true for our daughter, though. As she grows, as she becomes more independent, she has begun to express herself as individual. She defines us, but we don't define her.

Nope. This smile defines her.

That's about to change, however. As the title above suggests, this post is about the power of 2. The power of two to become more.

Two to the power of 2.

2²

In other words, the two that became three are about to become four. And LG will have the chance to define herself as a big sister.

If she's half as nice to a younger sibling as she is to the dog, we'll be fine.