Somehow or another, Romi actually turned two. (If you ask him how old he is he puts up an index finger on each hand. No, he doesn't really get it, but it's awfully cute.) I know there are many parents out there who can't believe their baby is graduating, getting married, turning 40, etc., and I get that, but I'm still freaking out that my baby is two!And along with two comes all sorts of new things. Romi has completely and utterly mastered the word no, which he says with his very own special accent. He even has many different versions of it. There's the regular, everyday, single-syllable "no" to use for mundane things. Then there's the emphatic repetition "no, no, no" for the more important stuff. And finally, for the truly horrific, there's the long, drawn out "noooooooooo." Funny thing is that I think they are all wonderful.
As of late Romi is really into babies. He can say the word "baby" and points to them anytime we see one. He loves to look at pictures of babies and has a baby doll. Of course, his favorite baby is Jacqui, our dear friends the Hoffman's six-week old daughter. He kisses her, touches her head, taps her on the nose and tries to generally love her up. We hope she's strong enough to survive Romi's love and devotion.
Romi has also taken to covering his eyes. He does so when he doesn't want to do something so we can't find him, to play hide and seek, and when he's afraid (especially of the tortoise, which is about 4-inches long and terrifies him). It looks like this:
He likes to drag our stuffed bear Bermanese around by the dog leash, and he loves it when Abba and Ima fight over him (and I mean that in a truly physical sense of each taking half and pulling). I began giving him rides throughout the house on a towel, which gets us the best smile, but I did get a bit annoyed when he decided to read on the trip. He still loves the car, school, his shoes and animals. He is obsessed with his chickens and they are actually far less afraid of him then they are of Rob or me. He lets us know when he has a dirty diaper (potty training here we come?) and his undying love of asparagus has been thrown over for a new obsession: mushrooms (he prefers them sauteed but will also pick them off everyone's pizza to eat). I tried to give him cotton candy at the Keep On Truckin' festival, but he refused to eat it and insisted on an apple. The things that give him the most joy in life are watching his parents ham it up for him, getting all three of us under the covers, and tormenting his beloved mother with a stuffed monkey.I love two.
