She will be two in a month. Two years have passed, seemingly quickly and yet it is hard to imagine a time when she wasn’t with us. Our old lives. It has felt like a long time, too.

Freya will reach the age of two and have no idea what Disney is, or what McDonald’s is. She has never eaten candy or swallowed soda pop. She hasn’t yet seen Blue’s Clues or Dora the Explorer or a Pixar movie. She does enjoy listening to the Beatles and Spoon and Coldplay, and knows what baseball and hockey look like, and can sing the Jeopardy! and Sesame Street theme songs, so it’s not like she’s completely isolated.

Anyhoo. Today it rained all day long, so we put on rubber boots and her sweet new denim jacket and ran errands, then danced around on the porch for the benefit of my camera since I found her outfit to be so ridiculously adorable.

I’ve started planning her little party. Autumn leaves, and colors, and miniature pumpkins, and gold glitter, apple cider, leaf-shaped cookie cutters, that’s what I’ve got so far. Her birthday is so close to Halloween, I don’t want her to be stuck with some kind of Halloween-themed birthday party, unless that’s what she wants. Her costume for that day has been chosen — she will be a cute little wood sprite, complete with wings and a tutu, and not a stitch of pink to be found.