Matchy Matchy

It looks like we planned this, but we didn't.  First, I bought Roan new shoes.  Then about two weeks later, I told Jay to take Ilan to the shoe store and buy him new shoes.  Apparently, Ilan grabbed these blue shoes and wouldn't let go of them.  So Jay bought them for him, and was surprised to learn that they matched Roan's.

Which tells you something about how attentive my husband is to his children's foot ware.

Now, every time Roan puts his blue shoes on, Ilan has to put his on too.

Summer Knees

Hats / Helmets

No Babies on Piano

His Name is Not Ro Ro

Ilan is not even 18 months old, yet he is already perfecting his role as annoying little brother.  His latest stunt is to say "Ro Ro" again and again until Roan tells him, exasperated, "my name is not Ro Ro."

At which point Lani looks at him, smiles, and says "Ro Ro" at the top of his lungs.  Or chants, "Ro Ro Ro Ro Ro Ro Ro Ro."  Or, my favorite, pauses for dramatic effect, and only when Roan has turned back to whatever he was doing, says in a quiet, victorious tone of voice: "Ro Ro."

It's this last tactic that enrages Roan the most.  He gets up in Ilan's face and shouts, "my name is not Ro Ro!" Or, "nobody's name is Ro Ro!"

Truly, Ilan can only say a few recognizable words: Dada, Mamma, Again, and Ro Ro.  We are impressed that he's found a way to verbally torture Roan with such a limited vocabulary.

Ilan likes to save the Ro Ro game for mealtimes, when are all stuck at the table and he has a captive audience.  It leads to a lot of shouting, and sometimes Roan is nearly brought to tears, but it's an improvement over the Feet on the Table game, where both kids ganged up on me.

I try to lessen the blow by explaining to Roan that Ilan doesn't know how to talk, and he only calls him Ro Ro because he hasn't learned to say Roan yet.  So Roan has spent a lot of time patiently teaching Ilan how to say his name.  The result is that Ilan will occasionally say "Ro-Ahhh."  But why would he settle for Ro-Ah, when Ro Ro provokes a much more dramatic reaction?

The worst is when I mistakenly call him Ro Ro.  Sometimes I don't even realize I've done it.  Other times I realize it too late, but think I'm safe, because I'm upstairs and Roan is downstairs, or the clothes dryer is pounding away, or the music is on.  But then I'll hear his voice, laced with frustration, traveling all the way up the stairs, cutting through the din of our daily lives, shouting, "my name is not Ro Ro!"

Aunty Nub, I think Roan understands how you feel.

Hair Cuts

Before the hair cuts

After the hair cuts

Wear and Tear

These are Roan's shoes.  They are also his brakes when he rides his balance bike, which he does a lot.  See how the black marks end before they get to the inside of his foot?  That's not a design thing - Roan has worn off the soles of his shoes.  There's such a height difference between the outside and the inside of his shoes that when he walks he appears to be pigeon toed.  The last time we were at the pediatrician his doctor mentioned it to me, he said something like, "did you know your son is pigeon toed?"  And I said he wasn't, and I showed him the bottoms of his shoes.

Here is the outside of Roan's shoe, which has a nice thick rubber sole.

And here is the inside of the same shoe, where you can see the rubber sole is worn down the canvas.

This is part of a general trend I'm getting used to.  Last week I devoted 20 minutes each night to patching the holes in Roan's jeans.  I cut up an old maroon corduroy blazer that never really fit me right, and now it lines the knees of all of Roan's pants.

Guess we won't be able to hand these shoes down to Ilan!