Greetings from Baltimore!

Greetings from Baltimore! I apologize both for the mass e-mail and if you haven't heard from us; moving is a bit overwhelming. Also, we don't have internet yet (Gary, don't look so mortified), but we are making do.

Here's a recap of what's been going on: Romi and I had an uneventful but loooooong drive to CA, the horrors of which we quickly forgot in the excitement of seeing everyone. We received amazing hospitality (thank you again Austin for so kindly giving up your bed). We played and ate with Gludts, Dinsdales, Bermans, and a slew of Shiffletts. We took a few meals outside while we could and appreciated a last long look at the “correct” ocean.

As Romi and I visited and enjoyed loved ones' company, Rob, Joel and Penny made great time across the country (even if if did take them forever to cross Texas). They drove 2300 miles with only one speeding ticket and are still friends...a miracle! Romi and I flew to MD on a direct flight out of LAX. Once again, he was an amazing traveler. We jumped in our rental car and relied on the GPS (not easy for me) to get us to Daniel and Miriam's, who made us feel welcome as we once again invaded their home. On Tuesday we picked up the keys to our new home, did some shopping and spent a truly lovely afternoon with our Chuckle Cousin, who so lovingly fought traffic both ways from DC to make sure we weren't lonely on our first day (a real act of loving kindness Suzanne!). Rob, Penny and Joel arrived Wednesday morning, and our belongings came by in a big old moving truck shortly after that. Once Joel got the lock squared away, we headed downtown to Fells Point for lunch and a bit of sight seeing. We spent the first night in our new home with pilfered blankets and pillows on a variety of air mattresses. A bit like camping, but at least we were home!

We may be living amid a myriad of boxes, but we love our new house and are settling in. The house here is completely different from our home in Tucson, yet we fit in the space well (even the kitchen). The move went fairly well (Kim, we had very little breakage and all of the china made it!). The basement has proved to be the biggest challenge: nothing fits down the stairs. And by nothing, I mean nothing. We couldn't get the mattress, dressers, washer or dryer down there, so we are working on a new game plan (mainly involving Ikea furniture which can be constructed down there). As a result, Romi has inherited the queen mattress, which is quite a bit of space for someone three-feet tall. (Not that it matters anyway, since he's still sleeping in our bed.) After way too much hard driving and even harder work, on Friday Joel headed safely home to Hallie while Jodi and Steven headed up to help us (the five hour drive took 10 hours, poor things). Romi is in heaven with his Aunt JoJo and cousins to play with while Rob and I scramble around, trying to make our home habitable before he leaves tomorrow for Texas. Romi and I have great plans for next week, including visiting his new school, taking the train to DC, and unpacking more boxes. He's holding up well, although he misses Tucson and everyone and everything in it (as do we).

We hope everything is well with all of you. Call, write, e-mail...we miss everyone!

Much love,

Kelley

507 East Lake Ave.

Baltimore MD 21212

What Romi Likes

Romi likes playing his guitar with a pick and a capo (OK, it's really a clothespin, but it works), finding photos and drawings of Asian children in books (he always calls them Romi), asking the name of everything (literally everything, from food to engines), airplanes (he can identify quite a few by the salient details, including engine location, the type of tail and if it has winglets), and swimming. Over the past few months he has been found sleeping all over the house, albeit mostly in our bed, although he has made special appearances on the floor of the guest room when Aunt JoJo was staying there and with Penny in her bed. (We figured that one out when he smelled like cedar chips. When asked why he slept on the dog's bed, he replied, "Comfortable." Hard to argue with logic like that.) He likes dancing in the monsoon with his umbrella (thanks Sharon!) and our full attention--he recently admonished Rob, "No reading!" and promptly confiscated his newspaper and put it in the sunroom.

Romi also likes his birthday. He had a wonderful time, especially when his music teacher sang to him at school. It's been three months and he still talks about it. He loved his party at Pump-It-Up (0nce he warmed up to the experience). He was a bit like his Aunt Heather that day, running into our room and finding me in bed announcing, "Wake up Ima! My birthday!"

Our little man likes to say, "I don't like it," "I have a question" and "Ima tell." He never tires of hearing the same stories, including the branch breaking at the school, the two-day sprinkler marathon and how the Airbus 380 scraped a wing at the Paris airshow. He likes the fact that he's potty trained, although lately he asks for help when he needs to go, only to ask us to leave when we actually get to the bathroom. (Gone are the days when I asked if he needed help as he ran by and he replied, "No, I got it!)

But what Romi likes above all else is his Aunt JoJo. He was lucky to get two recent visits, one in May and one in July. He is not alone in thinking she is one of the funniest people on the face of the planet. When she is here, he not so gently or kindly asks Ima and Abba to go away. We've seen him run to get something only to return to the guest room, throw open the door, and announce to his beloved Auntie, "I'm back!" For her, Romi will wear tags in his clothes, put lotion on his body and tolerate mouse in his hair.

Romi's favorite child at school is baby Zachary, so called because he is the youngest of all the students. He isn't in Romi's class, but they get to see each other throughout the day. I have come to pick Romi up to find him sitting by his friend's mat (Zachary stays for nap), patting his back to put him to sleep. One day, Romi and baby Zachary where on the playground, standing on the bridge connecting two pieces of play equipment. Another child pushed baby Zachary, who headed for the edge. While not a huge fall, the height is significant enough. Romi, however, was not going to let anything happen to his best bud and threw himself on top of baby Zachary, preventing him from falling. Romi stayed there until a teacher, who saw the whole incident, managed to get to them. He's his father's son!

Lest you think our little fella has no mischievous side, never fear, he would also make his grandmother proud. We let Romi roam naked through the house and backyard. (He has to have on clothes to go out front or when we eat.) This drives Papa nuts, a tidbit which Romi picked up on. One night, when Nana and Papa arrived to visit, a clothed Romi ran to greet them, immediately stripped down and proudly announced, "Papa, I'm naked!" Go Romi!

The Score: Ima and Abba = 72, Romi = 54,987

We have a real problem: Romi is, hands down and without a doubt, winning and the kicker is we just don't care. He is so cute and fun and funny and sweet and amazing, that we cave way too often. Our friends tell us that we will all grow out of it, which is good, but at the same time sad because today I realized today that if he goes off to college at the age of 18, than we've already had Romi for one-sixth of the time he will live with us. This sort of thinking isn't helping to fortify resilience to the Romster.

The most astonishing thing about our Little Man is how much his vocabulary has increased in the last two months. Romi has always been a toddler of few words, but he worked hard to make the best of his repertoire. Lately, new and mind-boggling words are falling out of his mouth daily. He has used correctly and in context such gems as "blinking," "stripes" and "trade." His favorite question used to be "What's this?" which he asked ad nauseam. That has morphed into "What you doing?" His articulation is pretty darn good, although he does say "told" for "cold." He also doesn't use the word small, but prefers to call anything little "baby," as in baby bus, baby bowl and baby dog. When he wants to claim something he makes sure we know it is his by his emphatic "me's!" He still refers to M&Ms as "blues" and calls Penny just "dog," and yes, I am still most stubbornly "mommy" even though he points at me if you ask him who Ima is. He understands certain concepts, like "broken" and even recently switched his vegetable-laden dinner plate for Rob's plate full of french fries with the command, "Abba--trade!" And the other night we figured out that Romi wanted to head out to a restaurant for dinner and not just stay at home when he looked at us and exclaimed, "eat bye-bye!"


Romi has the annoying but sweet habit of asking us if we're happy precisely when he know swe're upset with him (like after he takes a swipe at us--something we do can and do resist). Sometimes he even makes a list to check to see who is happy. It often goes like this, with a cute little lilt at the end of the sentence: "Happy Mommy? Happy Abba? Happy dog?" JoJo has made the list, as has Max, Michael Hoffman and Mike Harris. One night the list even got longer, like this: "Happy Mommy? Happy Abba? Happy dog? Happy Nana? Happy Papa? Happy Nana dog?" I reassured the little guy that Rusty, Nana's dog, is indeed happy.

The cardinal rule in the house of late is that Romi gets to turn on the washer and dryer and clean out the lint screen. You can ignore this injunction at your own risk. He still sings and dances (he does one damn cute Hokie Pokie) about the house, but his true love remains the guitar. He has moved up from the ukulele to a small guitar that used to belong to my sister. He gives her her due and calls it "JoJo 'tar." He insists on using a pick, the neck strap and my recipe books that are spiral bound for music. His favorite songs are "Happy new," "two eight," "bim bom" and "Trees are blowing in the wind." The last one comes complete with hand motions and the "woosh" sound at the end.

A final word on yet again why babies could not live in the wild: we were going into school the other day and to draw attention to the Scholastic Book Fair going on inside one of the dads dressed up in a seven-foot Clifford the Red Dog costume. I was convinced that Romi would freak. The guy was huge and red and a dog and Romi has no concept about this character that was waving so vigorously and energetically at him. I was wrong in my assumptions, however, and Romi didn't even flinch when the large hairy red thing reached for him. Unfortunately, that was also the moment the mailman drove up in his truck, which completely terrifies my Hamster and he proceeded to freak out. Like I said, no survival skills...none at all.