One

The baby is one.

Woah, that went fast.

Speaking of fast, our little Roman is FAST. He toddles faster and faster now, and can open a cupboard or a toilet lid and cause trouble before you even know he's missing.  His new obsession is the kitchen cabinets with pots and lids and racks that jingle and smash and make all kinds of fun noises when you throw them on the floor.

Like Anika at this age, he doesn't like to sit and eat his food. You have to feed him a bite and let him roam around for a bit until he comes back for another taste. He actually gets more food in his belly this way than by sitting in the high chair, where most of it gets smashed between his fingers, thrown on the floor, or rubbed into his strawberry-blonde (sometimes literally) hair.

He's also LOUD. He kind of embodies that saying that a child is "noise, with dirt on it." If someone is enjoying something he'd like a taste of -- chicken, popsicles, bread, ice cream -- he will screech until you give him a taste. And then screech again because he wants the WHOLE THING RIGHT NOW. Please and thank you. One of his favorite games is to bang things together, or slam things into a table or the floor. Anything that makes noise, really, is fun. He even laughs when he toots.

One of my favorite times of day with him is bedtime, because we read our two stories and then we play hide and seek with his puppy. He throws the puppy (usually tossing it behind himself), then giggles and laughs when I pretend I can't see it. He knows exactly where it is, and he knows I'm playing along with his game, and he LOVES it. When it's time to sleep, he doesn't fall asleep when I snuggle him. He doesn't even let me snuggle him. He wriggles and flops and rolls around the bed like he's playing a round of jiu jitsu with himself, then I hold him and walk him (while he snuggles his puppy) until he falls asleep.

We love our little noise-making, happy, silly, please-don't-let-mama-otta-my-sight man.