Gloves.

The living room was turned upside down all weekend as we'd been sorting through papers and junk on Saturday (plus cleaning mould, but that's a different story) and today was the first day that Roman could roam free. I think this made him a little bit crazy as he pulled off his socks and told me, very proudly; "THESE MA GLOVES!"

'Medicine.'

I really have no idea what goes on inside his head at times ;). Today was a sleepy day, like most Sundays are around here, and so me and Bryan mostly just sat back and watched Roman from the comfort of our couch. We laughed ourselves silly when he began to fill up his toy cup with water and then spooned it out, declaring it was 'mec-ci-cine' (medicine) and that it was 'yummy.' 

Freezing.

I was happily sitting wrapped up in a blanket when a little tea leaf came along and nabbed it from me. "Roman's freezing!" he told me, wrapping himself very snugly in his (my) stolen blanket. 

A History of Undressing.

From about 5-6 months Roman began undressing himself and I have to confess as a parent one of the things I was dreading was being encouraging about my child dressing and undressing themselves - most of the children I've known and worked with hated dressing and undressing themselves and teaching this basic skill to them has always been a nightmare. 

With Roman he started early; beginning with disliking socks or shoes on his feet and learning to eventually wriggle out of them by 2-3 months. At 5-6 months he was pulling tops over his head. At 10 months I began to give him the freedom of dressing himself, selecting his clothes and leaving him to his own devices. It didn't always work out perfectly and some assistance was often required...but still out went the awkward phase of 'you need to do this basic thing for yourself, I can't dress you when you're 18!' and I was glad.

Today I began to develop a very sore throat and pounding head ache and was very grateful Bryan has the rest of the week off. Then he went off with the missionaries tonight! We did okay and I was so, so, so very grateful that Roman could undress himself...although he did leave that vest sitting on top of his head and told me it was his new hat ;). 

Lettuce.

This is the only photo I managed to capture today; Roman blatantly ignoring Bryan, who is telling him to hop into his buggy. "Lettuce!" he tells me, clutching his precious toy ever closer to him.

'Mummy, Ew!'

"Mummy, ew!" Roman said to me, pointing to the flour on the pitta bread. "Ew, yuck!" he said, to hammer home the point he was trying to put across. Then to completely discredit his comments he shoved one of pitta bread pieces straight into that crumb coated mouth. I love toddler double standards ;).

This Toddler Life.

Bryan took this photo of us two. I was aiming for a 'nice' shot of me and Roman. By 'nice' I mean without his arms floating above my head so wildly or the fact he wasn't even looking at the camera...but that's not toddler life. And parenting a toddler can go two ways; you either laugh or cry into your pillow and while I sometimes do the latter, I try to do the former a lot more often because this set up is pretty sweet despite the wildness and the mood swings (me and him.)

Shoes On.

This year has been one full of large leaps of independence. In the past week or two Roman has been perfecting his shoehorning technique and all of a sudden he is completely able to take his shoes on and off himself, getting annoyed when I try to rush him by helping the process. "I doo it!" he'll scream if I try to interfere. So I don't. I've learned to step back and allow him the freedom and independence that comes with growing up.

Boobies and Grapes.

After suitably embarrassing me by declaring, 'I've got boobies!' over and over to the missionaries at dinner time Roman decided he quite liked the grapes the Elders had been munching on and decided to climb up and steal some after they'd left. He didn't care he'd been caught, despite the photo portraying otherwise, and kept on eating through them.

"They nice grapes," he said as I pressed down on my shutter button and captured his cheekiness. And the 'boobies' thing? He's been saying it ever since he spotted that men also have 'boobies' on the Biggest Loser, or rather that they have 'moobies.' I know I shouldn't laugh when he says hilariously inappropriate things but it's so difficult...he's just too funny.

Popcorn In The Air...

This is the face of the boy who walked into the kitchen and, with his nose, discovered that popcorn was not far behind him. "POPCORN!" he yelped at me. "Mmm, popcorn." He disappeared into the living room where a bowl of unwanted, slightly sun tanned, popcorn lay in wait. These were the bits and pieces of popcorn that we hadn't wanted to eat this afternoon, while we attempted to watch a movie (our Internet timed out a lot) as Roman was over at gran and papa's house. 

I came through to the living room to catch him eating all the rubbishy bits of popcorn. "MMMM! POPCORN!" he declared, shoving fistfuls of the stuff into his open mouth while I watched from the sidelines, totally mystified at his popcorn obsession. I haven't really been one to munch down on it in the past but the funniest thing happened when I got pregnant: I became obsessed with it. If we went to the cinema or the scent of cooking popcorn filled my nose I needed a piece of that stuff, I was drawn to it and would even eat the rubbishy burnt bits left over in the pot. It was disgusting. And today, that memory came back to me. This popcorn obsessed toddler was a popcorn obsessed fetus in utero.

I have a feeling that popcorn will be in all our futures ;).

More.

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A little story before the main story: we've been re-introducing Roman to the potty lately. He's adjusting to it very well - he's always been aware of when his nappy needs changed and has lately become aware of when he might need to use it and sometimes not quite making it there. Well today I put him to bed like I always do; in a nappy. 

When Bryan went to get him after Roman's nap he shouted through to me; "Is he naked?" I didn't really understand why he was asking me that so I was thinking; 1. um, no?, 2. well if you have eyes, use them (yes I'm cheeky like that) and 3. the heck? Instead I replied back with, "no. Why would he be naked?" Well, my friends, Bryan replied with; "well, he is now." He peed into his nappy, ripped it off and slept naked. Then he peed all over his sheets (sorry 18 year old Roman if this story embarrasses you.) I couldn't stop laughing when I saw my little nudist sleeping on top of his sheets - he looked so comfortable. 

After the nap and getting him up - and recovering from a fit of laughter - I decided it would be nice for us to do a little activity together. When I say 'together' I mean I do all the hard slog and he reaps the rewards by getting to enjoy eating the mix from the whisk ;). When he'd licked the whisk dry he kept looking at me with his puppy eyes and asking for 'more sweeties.' 

He is so like me that sometimes all I can do is laugh my head off.