Spongebob vs. The Crocodile

Now that we are back from 9 days of family bonding I thought I should get on the ball with a new post but I have been having problems getting the pictures together so the vacation post may have to wait. I do have a few pics thanks to Grandpa so I will post those here (although they won't have anything to do with what I'm writing).

Now that Rooney is older it is really much harder to write about dramatic changes because his development is not as visual but more subtle with being more verbal and developing his motor skills. A little change that I really started to enjoy is when he will refer to himself as "me". I just noticed he was doing that the other day when we were looking at pictures of him and he said "that's me!". He is also really starting to understand joking and role playing. Last night when I got him ready for bed I put him in his Spongebob jammies. I called him Spongebob and we decided that I was Sandy. We called Baby Cheesie Patrick and I said Daddy is Squidward. We both had a good laugh about that (you have to know the program). Then Rooney said "Daddy is Mr. Krabs" in which we had another good laugh together. Later when I put him down to bed he said to me "Goodnight Sandy". I thought that was really precious and of course said "Goodnight Spongebob". This morning Mike got up with Rooney and when he came back into our room a little later he told me Rooney was asking to see Sandy! I love it.

However there are some downsides to having him become a big boy (other than leaving his momma). Roonster has started to have nightmares and becoming scared when he sees things that creep him out. This is so heartbreaking and sweet at the same time. We had alot of this issue on our trip but the last bad dream entailed a crocodile trying to get him and animals in his crib. He was very brave about me putting him back in there to go to sleep but I could tell he was nervous because he put his around my neck and gave me a huge hug. It was the kind of hug you see on TV when somebody is about to do something and they're not sure if they will come back alive.

Thankfully he did and I would love to get another hug like that again...minus the intense fear.

Rooney Learns A Lesson

This is a picture of Rooney recuperating. He had a very rough morning this morning. Rooney got a big mouthful of peppermint toothpaste a few minutes before this picture was taken.

You may think that it is odd that they are now making children's toothpaste in peppermint when you can generally only find such flavors as bubble gum, strawberry or razzle dazzle blue (hmmm...I didn't think colors were flavors). Well you would be right to be suspicious and in fact you would be correct that they do not make children's toothpaste in peppermint. I'm pretty sure the reason they do not is because all the mints might seem "hot" to little kids who are not used to the flavor.

I tried to explain this to Rooney this morning when he dropped his Dora the Explorer toothbrush, that I preloaded with strawberry toothpaste, and grabbed my newly peppermint loaded toothbrush right out of my hand, and then crammed it into his mouth.

I wish I could have captured the look on his face when he tasted that toothpaste, or the wide eyed frozen look of fear that followed or even a picture of Rooney trying to wipe his tongue off with the bathroom hand towel. Capturing any one of these moments would have been fantastic but more so I would have also captured the exact moment Rooney learned a very important life lesson...Lick Before You Weep. That would have been priceless.