You Did What?!

I admit that Rob and I aren't the most traditional of parents. We let Romi play in the front seat of our cars (supervised, of course), let him eat with a fork and knife since he was one (come on, it's a butter knife...do you know how hard it is to hurt yourself with a butter knife?), gave him nuts before the age of two (a truly punishable offense in this day and age), and let him play with plastic bags.

OK, we don't really let him play with plastic bags, but he did manage to get this one off the kitchen counter and of course we took it away and told him not to play with them, etc. etc. etc., but not before we took that really cute picture.

Romi's vocabulary is definitely expanding, although "no" is still the tried and true favorite word of all time. I tried to get him to say Ima by bribing him and going through the painstaking process of telling him to say "E" and then telling him to say "Ma," which did not result in him calling me Ima, but did teach him to say "Ma!" every time I said "E."

Romi's paralyzing tortoise terror has abated but he still has a healthy fear of the four-inch wide reptiles that roam our backyard. He has taken to carrying around a large oatmeal container, although we have no idea why. (When he wants oatmeal he simply gets out the saucepan.) He dances to most music, eats tomatoes as if they were apples, insists on inserting any and all car keys into a screw hole of his Cozy Coupe and still loves babies and water.

Speaking of water, a Shabbat or two ago, while Abba was schluffing, I got the brilliant idea of filling the water gun and showing him how to use it. He caught on pretty quickly, using his thumb to pull the trigger. His aim was mediocre, but his joy was boundless. All too quickly I got bored of going into the house to fill the squirt gun, so I got the brilliant idea of using the condiment squeeze bottle to fill the squirt gun. Of course, then the Romster wanted the condiment bottle. And when I got tired of running into the house to fill the condiment bottle, I decided to use the hose. I know, I know, I'm a slow learner. As all of you experienced parents know, I ended up soaking wet, with a naked and dripping but very happy baby on my hands. Well worth it!