2009, a Recap

December 2008 and December 2009

This past year we had the blessing of watching Romi go from an adorable crawling eight-month old baby to an adorable walking, talking and dancing toddler of 20-months. It proved to be fun, exciting, hilarious, exhausting and the best year ever.

In January, we traveled to SoCal for Grandma Garcia's memorial service. Along with commemorating her long and full life, we got to spend time enjoying family and friends and showing off the Romster. As Romi's first birthday approached, he went from crawling to pulling himself up, gave up bottles for sippy cups, and expanded his impressive food repertoire. We celebrated his first birthday by sponsoring the Shabbat Passover kiddish (remember all those meringue cookies!) and officially naming the little guy. Romi enjoyed his first camping trip in May to Mount Lemmon, and we headed off to California in June for more adventures, including a lovely weekend at the cabin in the Sierras with Romi's Nana, Papa, aunt, uncle and cousins. Austin and Sabrina were charged with teaching Romi to walk and they did a spectacular job! In July, Auntie Jodi and Grandma came to visit. We then headed off to Cleveland, me for a conference and Rob and Romi to play at Camp Roth. After a wonderful week in Flagstaff with the Burgs and Werbows, enjoying the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Slide Rock, and being together., we returned home for Framily vacation with the Brunks and Dinsdales , which was in Tucson this year. The Bermans came to visit before we headed off to Pacific Grove for Tessa's Bat Mitzvah and a wonderful visit with the family.

In August, Romi started preschool. He goes two mornings a week and while it took him a bit to get the idea, he now loves it. He especially likes music and Gymboree. I like his art projects and Rob likes having two mornings a week to get things done. In October we celebrated our one-year anniversary as family. Rob likes to call it Family Reunification Day, but I just think of it as a day to count our myriad of blessings. Aunt Kim, Austin and Sabrina came for a visit in November, Grandma came for Thanksgiving and Nana and Papa are here for the last week of December.

We will be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary on the last day of 2009. To commemorate the event we bought bedroom furniture (not very exciting, I know, and it gave me a concussion, but we like it) and are going to a movie (which we are ridiculously and disproportionally excited about--welcome to parenthood!). Not sure what 2010 will bring, but with Romi around it's sure to be great!

Our Hamster Is a Turkey

The other morning, as Rob did the dishes, he heard Romi happily playing in the living room, singing to himself. After a few minutes, Rob decided he should poke his head in on the little guy only to find that he had successfully climbed into the dining room chair, had swiped a bencher (a little small prayerbook) off the table, and was imitating his parents benching (singing the blessing after a meal). Rob decided that Romi decided to get away with a little something and left him to his own devices. The singing continued and a few minutes later Rob again poked his head into the dining room to check on the Hamster. He was still singing and still holding a bencher, but he had migrated from the chair to sitting smack-dab in the middle of the dining room table. Hey, at least he was praying.

Romi's vocabulary is still sporadic, but he makes his needs and wants known. He recently foraged open the pantry door and brought Abba a bag of uncooked noodles, so we cleverly figured he wanted pasta for dinner. When he runs to the sunroom and takes hold of a black folding chair, we know it's time for him to do the dishes. He has mastered shaking his head yes and no, and he still uses the emphatic finger pointing when necessary although he has also started saying "yeash" for yes.

Recently, Romi enjoyed a wonderful visit from his Aunt Kim and cousins Austin and Sabrina. Romi loved playing with his cousins, especially on the swings in the park. The higher the better! And he looked absolutely adorable in the turkey hat he made with Aunt Kim.

Last Sunday afternoon, Romi and I walked across the street to see the rather extraordinary display of Christmas decorations on the neighbor's front yard. It literally stopped Romi in his tracks as he took it all in. He was intrigued by the lights and couldn't figure out what they were (they were off). He pulled on them, touched the large plastic colorful bulbs, and when all else failed, he carefully leaned in to smell them.

I eventually coaxed Romi over to a blow-up bear that didn't move. He was quite tentative and when I asked if he wanted to touch it he emphatically shook his head no. When I asked if I could touch it he was equally against the idea, but he did smile when I patted its nose. He eventually work up the courage to touch both the bear and the penguin, but Santa still freaks him out!