Today is Talia and Max's second birthday. Normally I'd put up a cute picture or two of them doing cute things, but my faithful Canon S30 digital camera succumbed last week after a long battle with a rare degenerative electronics disease. It's nothing but a doorstop now. You'll have to settle for these cuties until we get a new one.

I find it harder and harder to write about them now. Describing their antics and personalities is difficult because they're so complex. I can say that Talia is a feisty, inquisitive, and empathetic little girl, and Max is gentle, focused, and physical little boy. There's more, of course, much more -- but it's hard to put into words. Little kids may seem very simple from a distance, but up close they're very intricate. You expect everything they know to be something you taught them, but they often surprise you with unique insights and cunning observations. Max and Talia have rich internal lives and I only get to see the outward manifestations of them.

We had a little get-together for them last night. I gave Talia a toy shopping cart filled with plastic food for her birthday and Max got a plastic Tonka backhoe. I practice no gender conditioning in this house -- I bought these things because I knew they'd like them. Max is obsessed with trucks ('tucks'), especially construction vehicles, and Talia has an interest in food and domestic things. They both loved their gifts and were soon playing together on the floor. Max was scooping plastic strawberries with the backhoe while Talia drove her cart around and distributed fake food for everyone to eat.