2 and 26.

I'm 26 years old and Roman is 2 years old. He is a very healthy little boy who seems content, at peace and able to express himself as well as a toddler can. I try very hard to not shout or use unkind language and words because the world is full of them and I want him to feel safe at home, like I did as a girl. 

I can't believe how quickly time moves because in February, a few short months away, my toddler will be turning 3 and I'm not sure what I'm going to call him by then. He's not a baby any more, hasn't been for some time, and he feels more child than toddler these days except when he's in my arms; easy to pick up, easy to capture on the run and smother in kisses. He'll stretch, grow and mature. He'll become my boy, then my man...and then he'll be someone else's man and father. He'll make me a grandparent, just as he made me a parent and his mum. 

I don't know why I constantly look forward, perhaps because I can't look back in the same way as I can focus forward but I seem to find myself thinking a lot about the future lately. His future, more specifically. I try hard to picture him, this wild child with the kindest heart, in his future life. I try to handle him with care now so that a therapist or wife doesn't have to mend the broken pieces of his childhood. I try never to keep him out of my sight, but to keep my fears at bay, too. Parenting is hard in this way, but so much easier in others, and it's given me a fresh perspective. 

There wasn't a lot I couldn't empathise with in the past, but I could only give my sympathies to parents and wonder how everyone was managing to do it. It's always seemed like a mammoth task, because it is. But not for the reasons I believed. And now that I'm living through it: I understand it so much better.