A Stick and a Rock

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but my baby-turned-toddler has morphed into a boy.  It's beautiful and wonderful and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it certainly is a different world! 

Romi may be a "big kid," but there are times when he still has trouble putting himself to sleep, especially if he manages a catnap during the day.  If he tries and isn't successful, one of us will go into his room and do the "relax your feet, relax your legs" game to see if we can't get him on his way to dreamland.  The other day, Romi was struggling to get some shut eye and told Rob that he needed help getting his body to sleep, simply requesting, "Abba, please unfold me."

One of the best things about having a kidlet is to discover all the things he knows.  Romi loves to "read": and "spell" and do simple math problems.  He's fascinated with the alphabet and new vocabulary.  I was curious, however, how much his reasoning skills had developed and as he walked around counting, I asked the little man if he could count backwards.  He quickly assured me he could and to demonstrate, continued his upward counting while walking backwards.  He honestly had no idea why I found this so damn amusing.

A true story:

Rob and Romi were driving to school when Romi spied a lost dog (no Heather, not the café) poster on a telephone pole.  He asked Rob what it was and Rob explained that someone had lost a pet and was hoping to find it so it could come home safe and sound.  Later that day, I had picked up Romi from school to take him back to the synagogue with me.  Seeing as it was such a beautiful day, we drove through the park, which houses the Maryland Zoo.  The zoo had recently begun a summer ad campaign, with large posters hanging from light poles around the park.  Romi carefully identified each zoo animal, penguin, lion, zebra, until he exclaimed, "Wow!  The zoo has lost a lot of animals!"

A snippet of my life:  Rob, Steven and Romi are hanging out.  I come in, look at Penny and exclaim: Who put tape on the dog's head?!  The irony was that I really had to ask.  It could have been any one of them.  Bets on who was the dog-tape perpetrator?

It should come as no surprise that Rob loves to torment his son.  When his birthday came around and Romi began to discuss gifts, Rob insisted that we were getting him a stick and a rock.  This went on for days.  My son, however, is a quick learner and yesterday, when I inquired what Romi wanted to get Rob for Father's Day, you guessed it, his suggestion: a stick and a rock!