Our Hybrid

Like my beloved Prius, my beloved baby is also a hybrid. He crawls about half the time and walks the other half. He hasn't given up the crawling completely because not only is it is his most efficient method of locomotion, he has trouble when he has anything on his feet (shoes or footsie PJs). When it comes to eating, his hybrid status continues. He is a fairly adventurous eater, trying many foods, and shows a pretty mature palette (he loves black beans and guacamole), but he only eats with his hands, has very little interest in using utensils. and indicates he's done by putting his food-laden hands in his hair. Romi holds his own sippy cup and loves to drink from a glass (which we obviously hold), but will only take milk from a bottle, only if it's warm, and only if we hold it.

I don't mind a baby hybrid. I know he's on the brink of being an independent little boy and I know I want him to grow and learn and develop, but as long as he's a hybrid, he's still my baby too.

Father's Day

We had a truly wonderful Father's Day. We dressed Romi up in his cute outfit from cousin Sharon, loaded him into the car and headed to the Hoffman's to meet up with the rest of the gang (Parnabys, Saxtons, Ellentucks and Selzniks). When we all get together there is guaranteed to be mayhem, laugh er, noise and lots of food. There was so much going on Romi wouldn't even eat lunch. He just stumbled around, walking and crawling, trying to be a part of all the action. When we determined that eating just wasn't going to happen, we put him in his cute swim trunks and swim shirt from Aunt Kim and Uncle Joe and Ima and the Mooch headed into the beautiful but surprising cold pool with almost everyone else.

Simply put, Romi loves to swim. He laughed, he squealed, he kept putting his face in the water. He didn't care when I dunked his keppie (head) under, he liked the backstroke and leaned into it, he thought the side stroke was hilarious, and jumping around was the best thing since sliced bread. We definitely have a water baby on our hands!

We were finally forced from all the fun when his shivering went on for an extended period of time--the price for having no body fat! Like the pool mama pro she is, Stephi took Romi, quickly stripped him naked, wrapped him like a burrito and put him in my arms to warm up. When he was dry I let him explore the great outdoors for a while, sans clothes, an adventure which only ended when he peed on the terra cota tile. Rob and I dressed our kidlet and took him in to the house where he quickly discovered that Emily was eating ice cream. Being no fool, he climbed onto her lap. I'm really not sure who got more, but Emily was a very good sport about sharing!

We headed home to prepare for Romi's next new experience: an evening home alone with the babysitter. Rob and I had a wedding to attend and for this simcha kidlets were not invited. Stacy came over to take care of our little man, we sucked it up and headed out. When we returned three and a half hours later, Stacy reported that Romi was a little trooper. He wasn't happy at first and insisted on crawling to the door to see where we had gone, but he eventually came around and the two had a great evening together. He ate a huge dinner, took a long bath, played on the floor and even let her put him to bed. I'm proud of Romi and of us (I swear, we didn't call even once!).

Radom Romi bits:
He's walking quite a bit, but has trouble in shoes and footsie PJs.
He loves to push his lion around, but can't navigate well yet.
He's discovered how to make clicking sounds with his tongue.
He's the only kid I know that sits patiently for a haircut and doesn't mind the gel (he gets that from Aunt Jodi).
When he spies Ima he gets so excited that he hugs Abba (who says life is fair?)