Dear Conan,

You will be two years old next week. You are changing daily: every time I see you (which is often), you’ve learned something new. You call us Gup and Gahauf - I have no idea why, but in those early days when you were not quite born and people asked us what we wanted to be called, I used to say I’d be whatever you decided to call me, so Gahauf it is, at least for now. It’s pretty unique, I know; certainly I’ve never seen a mug with ‘Gahauf’ printed on it, or a tee-shirt that say, ‘If Mummy says no, I ask Gahauf.’ It’s possible I might be the only Gahauf in the world. That’s cool with me.

You live and breathe for tractors, and you think all giraffes are called Diane. Your favourite song is ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, although ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ is a close second. When I pick you up from nursery, you run around in circles, beyond excited to see me, shouting ‘See you soon!’ to all the staff, a three-note call that has become a running joke in our family, so that we all say it now, deliberately parroting you, grinning from ear to ear as we do, because that’s the effect you have on us.

Food is a big deal for you. You like baked beans, bananas, brioche, cheese (boy, do you like cheese!), yoghurt (which you call Anna for some obscure, never-to-be-understood reason), pancakes, porridge  and pitta bread, toast, marshmallows, Ella’s Kitchen pouches and a whole heap of other stuff. Not lamb and roast potatoes though, at least not on Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday it was all about the chocolate.

You’re all business at mealtimes; you get to work on a bowl of beans with a teaspoon and don’t stop until the last bean has disappeared or dropped onto the floor, where the ever-ready Mishka hoovers it up before it’s barely had time to draw breath. Yes I know: baked beans don’t breathe. That’s just a bit of artistic licence. I threw that in in case you’re sixteen when you read this and you think you’re too old for artistic licence.

Your favourite thing in the whole wide world just now is Gup’s Landy, and your favourite human being (after Mummy and Daddy) is Gup. I don’t blame you; he’s mine, too. The first thing you ask me when you see me is, ‘Where where where where where where Gup gone?’

You’re naughty. Last week you asked for a drink, then tipped it all over Daddy’s lap, and we all burst out laughing. And then you asked for another drink, and you did it again, and the second time nobody laughed: we told you that was naughty. The adult definition of naughty, as you can see, is a fickle one. Good luck making sense of it.

You are irresistible. You’ve taken to saying ‘please’ with your face cupped in your hands. I’d give you a kidney if you asked for it like that. Any of us would. You are quite literally surrounded by love. I see what it’s doing to you - to all of us, in fact, because your confidence and unequivocal trust in the world touches every one of your family and makes us feel better about life.

When your Auntie Teddy was the same age as you are now, I wrote a poem about her and your Mummy. Auntie Lollipop wasn’t even born then. The thought of losing my little girls to adulthood used to send shivers of dread down my spine. Now they’re all grown up, and guess what? They’re even more joyous to me. So matter how great life is now (not that you’ll remember any of this), get out there and embrace whatever the future holds for you. It’ll be just as amazing. I wish every kid in the world got the start in life that you’re getting. You’re too young now even to know what you have, but some day I hope you realise it. Some day, God willing, I hope I’ll look at the adult you’ve become and think, ‘He did that two-year-old proud.’

Love (heaps of it, always),

Gahauf xxx