Status Report

This weekend, Romi cut a top tooth, ate Challah on Shabbat, decided he hated avocados and pulled himself up into a standing position. Can't wait to see what's next....

Tickle-Me-Romi

I'm not sure if I should share this information or not, but I figure it's important enough to keep for posterity. Here are all the almost-guaranteed ways to make Romi belly laugh:

1. Poke him on either the right or left side under his rib cage.
2. Grab his upper thighs and squeeze.
3. Kiss him energetically on the neck.
4. Gently bite him on the shoulder or the foot.
5. Make odd sounds, like burring or gurgling at him.

I don't know if this betrays any child-parent confidences or not, but the sound of his laughing truly is my favorite in all the world. Bring on the giggles!

Rite of Passage

We reached another milestone: the next size up of clothing. In a time honored parental tradition, I went through the Rominator's drawers and folded up all those shirts that were too tight and pants that were too short and socks that no longer stayed on (yeah, right, like they ever did) and boxed them off to pass onto to some other kid. It surprised me by just how attached I was to his little onsies that said "Baby MVP" and those cute little sleepers. I can't believe that it's already time for him to move up and move out, even if it just to the next size. And I also can't believe that there were a few favorites that I just couldn't pass on yet; I admit it, I stashed his little blue hoodie and denim shortalls in the bottom drawer because I'm just not ready to let them go. (He looked so darn cute in them!) Of course, I also saved the onsie he was wearing when we got him and the sleeper he came with in Taiwan and wore on the plane home, but those at least seem rationale. Intellectually, I can see his growth, both physically and developmentally, but somehow, making the physical change just seemed to make this time with him as a baby all that more elusive.

Of course, I shouldn't really complain. After all, the boychick has only graduated to "6 to 9 months" in size. (By the way, he'll be eighth months tomorrow.)

Don't Eat My Brain!

I thought it wouldn't happen quite this fast, but alas I am wrong. My little boychick is eating my brain. The upside to this is that he is getting smarter by the minute. The downside is that I am getting stupider. In the last week or so the little guy has learned loads of things, including how to get from his stomach to sitting up (seriously, he's a genius). I, however, have forgotten both how to accomplish anything at work and my area code. I'd be upset, but it's all for a good cause.

I am a bit more ambivalent, however, about Romi's rate of maturity. I know he had a whole six months without us where he pretty much did a whole lot of nothing, but we missed those months, and now it seems as if he changes and grows and learns something new every darn day. I freaked out this week when I was told that I had to register him for preschool next month. OK, I know school's coming and all, but jeez, we've only had the bugger six weeks and we're talking sending him off to school! I am so proud of him when he discovers something new and exciting that he can do, but I also want him to stay my little guy for a bit longer. Of course, I wouldn't mind a bit of maturity in his sense of humor. Last Friday he bonked me with his big head on the bridge of my nose, which I gotta tell you really, really, really hurt. When I started shouting "ow!" he thought it was one of the funniest things he'd seen in his seventh months of existence. I certainly hope the Three Stooges are not in my future.

And one more lesson of parenthood: not everything works for every baby. Jacob's parents rave about the "soother" they have for his crib. The lights and sounds of the swinging monkey, gurgling fish and popping frog keep Jacob happy company in his crib until he is overcome by sleep. Seeing as Romi loves the lion on his bumper (and said bumper's days are numbered), I figured we'd get him his only little jungle paradise to lull him to a comfortable sleep. Yeah, right. I strapped it to his crib, he was all cuddly and sleepy and ready to nap, I put him in his bed, turned on the light show and--BAM!--instant alertness. This was the best toy ever! He squealed, laughed and kicked his legs in enjoyment of the show. Soothing it was not and sleep inducing wasn't even in the vicinity. Now we don't know what to do with it; he likes it so much and makes him so happy we hate to get rid of it. Sigh.

Romi 411

Everyone tells us to enjoy these days with Romi...that they fly by, they won't last, we won't even remember them. It's simply unbelievable to me that I won't recall every last bit of every wonderful (and not so wonderful) Romi moment, but I figure all those people must know what they are talking about. That, and it's amazing to me to see Romi today and realize how much he has already grown and changed in the five weeks we've been a family. So I've decided to write down some Romi facts.

Romi's favorite food is cotton. The preferred method of intake is to suck on Ima or Abba's soft shirt while they are still wearing it. A close second is to eat one of Jacob's onsies while in the car. A burp cloth will do, but it comes in a distant third.

Romi is ticklish, most especially on his upper thighs. Biting his shoulders will also make him laugh. His belly is ticklish too, but not as much. He can even anticipate a tickle, and will laugh as you get closer.

To get the Romster to smile, throw him. Yep, just toss him almost anywhere: up, down, sideways. As long as he's airborne and there's a threat of bodily harm, he'll grin like the Cheshire Cat.

The little man-arooni can pick up a Gerber's Puff, but hasn't figured out how to get it into his mouth. However, he is an expert at whipping off his parents' eyeglasses.

When he gets excited, Romala will kick his feet up. If he's on his back, that means repeated leg lifts and slams. If he's on his stomach, that means kicking donkey style, with his legs up and out.

Romi has absolutely no interest in his pacifier. He likes to talk to the lion on his crib bumpers. After sleeping, when you change his diaper, he does a full body stretch (which is cute but makes the diaper changing more a challenge). He can scream, grunt and make vowels sounds. Not only is he not afraid of water, he likes to put it in his mouth, which means take-you-by-surprise face dives into the bath water.

And still, the very best sound in the entire world is when he laughs.

Heh Heh

Our little guy has a bit of a cold. It's not much, but it does cause his nose to run, which in turn means we need to wipe it, which translates to Romi screaming his head off. We bought a cold mist humidifier and have been squirting saline up his perfect little nose, which also makes him shriek. Of course, all the crying just makes his nose run more, so I honestly don't know why we bother.

This little snarfy nose of his has also made Romi more tired then usual. Last night, the little monkey was so wiped out he went straight past sleepy, ran around grumpy and landed at punchy. As usual, Rob got up to put him to bed. (I admit it, I am too much of a wimp to do it. If he seems even remotely displeased I can't fight the urge to pick him up and make him happy.) I stayed on the couch and tried to distract myself, in case he whimpered or cried. But instead of the sound of cries of complaint, all I could hear was laughing.

It seems as if Romi got so tired he entered the silly stage. Rob would look at him and laugh: heh heh. And Romi would open his mouth wide and belly laugh back: heh heh. That would make Rob laugh, which would in turn make Romi laugh. And so the cycle went on until I couldn't take it and joined the laugh fest in the dark bedroom. It sure was more fun then wiping his snotty nose.

Rob's Real Job

Our dear friend, six-year-old Lily, is confused by Rob's life responsibilities. When told that he stays home to take care of Romi, she wanted to know what he really did for a job. He reiterated that he stays home to care for the baby, but Lily insisted that wasn't "real" work. I think her mother shared in equal parts pride and mortification.

Romi, however, is unaware of Rob's questionable status and continues to grow and thrive, although eating solid food still isn't his favorite activity. His main responsibility as we see it is to roll around the living room, playing with toys, exploring the world, laughing and coming closer and closer to crawling. Rob's main responsibility is to watch this happen, the lucky dog. Somehow, I got stuck with writing the thank you notes. Hmmmm.

When Romi gets really excited he gets on his hands and knees and jumps into the air using his back legs and tush. It's really cute; almost as cute as when he laughs in his sleep. (We love that.) He is such a pro at rolling that he can make it across the living room, through the dining room and pretty much to the family room, which makes us happy but certainly makes life a bit harder too. But all in all, Romi continues to be my very favorite person ever.

Learning Curve

Rob went off to work today and left me home--alone--all day to play Ima to the little monkey. We did just fine, although I learned a few very important new mommy lessons.

First of all, do not go grocery shopping with a seven-month old. Most people already know this, but I was lulled into a false sense of security by the laid-back dude-factor of my particular bambino. And truly, it wasn't really him that made it difficult; I should know better than to go to Sunflower on a Wednesday afternoon. It's double ad day, which means everyone shops there on Wednesday (yes, including congregants). So the place was packed. I knew enough to get a small cart, but I didn't bring the baby carrier and Romi flat-out refused to sit in the shopping cart seat. Which meant that I spent the longest 30 minutes ever navigating a store with tiny aisles on its busiest day of the week all with one hand, seeing as the other arm held 16.5 pounds of baby goodness (who also happened to be eating the grocery list). I am proud to say I picked out fruit and vegetables one handed and got almost everything on my list.

My second lesson for the day is that a baby will not sleep through a barking dog and/or men from the gas company filling in a hole outside his or her bedroom window. Seeing as this all occurred smack in the middle of his "big" nap, I worked really, really hard to get him back to sleep. I did such a good job that I learned another lesson: a baby who wakes up when the dog barks at the gas company men filling a hole in the backyard will sleep soundly through two smoke detectors going off in the house.

Of course, I wish I had learned that last lesson before short-little-me got frustrated enough to jump up and rip the beeping smoke detector in the hallway out of the ceiling.

Sigh...live and learn.

Bloody Bagagge

And once again, we have to ask: they gave us a kid?

Just two weeks shy of being home, we were off again on another adventure, this time to SoCal for Devin and Paul's wedding. On one hand the idea of ever leaving home again, let alone getting on another plane, was completely abhorrent; on the other hand, this was Devin's wedding and there was no chance we were going to miss it (regardless of the fact that I was performing the ceremony). So we broke out the bags and began the arduous task of packing for a four-day stint at my mom's with Romi. We thought long and hard about what to take: four bottles, the Baby Bijorn (thank you AGAIN Hoffmans), formula, cereal, clothes. We also needed wedding attire for ourselves, so that meant a garment bag. And Romi needed a place to lay his little keppie, which meant schelping the Happy Cabana. Add in the car seat and we hit the four-bag limit pretty darn quickly. As for carry on bags, we had our stuff, his stuff and plane stuff. Ugh. The days of traveling light were long, long, long gone.

Travel day arrived quickly and we got up, got everyone dressed, loaded up the car and headed to the Park and Save lot at the airport (which is $3 a day!). We parked, got on the van, made it to the airport and balanced bags and baby all the way to the ticket counter, where we had to get a lap-child boarding pass for Romi. Once there the nice Southwest ticket man asked us how many bags we were checking and we proudly replied four. He looked around and said he only saw three, which just happened to coincide with the exact moment we realized that we had left the car seat in the car.

Rob was concerned about how long it would take to retrieve the car seat, so we got on the plane hoping for the best. We called Carrie for back-up; she left her extra car seat on the front porch. The car rental place, however, had car seats and after a frustrating 30-minutes Rob was able to ensure that Romi traveled in safe style.

Hey, at least we didn't forget the baby.

Time and a Bottle

Romi, genius baby that he is, has made the distinction between night and day in our time zone. Alas, knowledge does not equate to caring. Of course, before we are too quick to judge, in all fairness he did have three vaccination shots and a TB skin test, which has really got him off his game. He's been gritchy and fussy and is currently taking a much needed nap--at 6:00 p.m. Sigh.

Romi is settling into life in AZ. He loves being outside and is slowly beginning to get the concept of solid foods. He spends a lot of time on his stomach, inching ever closer to crawling, and has both grown and gained wait in the week and half since we've been home. Of course, he's as photogenic as ever.

We are off to SoCal this weekend, where Romi plans on spending quality time with his Grandma, Nana and Papa. Just what we need: another plane ride and one more time change!