This was Jerome's idea of bedclothes a little earlier this month. I promise I will show pictures of the rest of the family sometime soon. There really are other people who live here besides Jerome and me. For now, though, we will be focusing on him.

A particularly endearing thing that Jerome does is to add Ys to the end of almost everything he says. If he wants milk, he'll ask for milky. If he's getting ready to go outside, he wants you to put his sockies on. If you ask who knocked over the flour bin and dumped a pound of flour on the carpet outside the kitchen, he'll answer "Jerome-y did it!" At least he's honest. And cute.

Jerome has been a bit of a mama's boy, though nowhere near what Dominic was, but he has recently been exercising his will and differentiating from me. Where before, he would immediately acquiesce and agree with me, now he seems to think he has a right to his opinion. It has been a trial not to smile and laugh at these efforts, because he is so funny, but when he directly contradicts me or disobeys, I cannot afford to laugh and egg him on. I just save the stories for the blog.

At Amira's ballet studio (see, we have a daughter, too!), I saw him chewing on something. We had brought no snacks. I told him to come directly to me, so I could figure out what it was he had in his mouth and asked him what he was eating. He wouldn't answer and walked as slowly as he could while chewing as fast as he could. I had Yasmina (Look! Another daughter!) in my arms, nursing, so I couldn't easily go and get him, of which he took great advantage. By the time he got to me, all that remained in his mouth were undiscernable crumbs in his mouth. I asked him where he had gotten it, what it was, etc. He told me he found it. I explained to him as slowly, clearly and kindly as I could that it wasn't good to eat things he just found, especially in a public place, as it could make him sick. I said it was kikha (Arabic for yucky, essentially) and could hurt him.

He said, "It isn't yucky!" in the sweetest, cheekiest little boy voice you can imagine.

I know he was thinking that what he ate tasted pretty darn good, thank you very much, so who are you Mama to tell me that it's yucky? You didn't eat it. You don't know. I stifled my smile as best as I could and told him that I didn't want him doing that any more, because I didn't want him to get sick. Did he want to get sick? No he didn't, so he agreed not to do it any more.

Tonight, as we were getting everyone ready for bed, he was playing with his baby doll, Bob. Yes, Bob, you have a problem with that? He had Bob walking on the glass coffee table, and Amira (the bossy sister that she is) told him that Bob shouldn't walk on the table. I decided to insert a lesson in parenting for him. I said that he should tell Bob not to walk on the table, because he could fall and hurt himself and a good daddy would make sure that his children didn't get hurt like that. Surely, he wanted to be a good doll daddy.

I smiled and said, "Why don't you tell Bob it isn't safe to stand on the table? He could fall."

Jerome answered sternly, "I don't want to."

Not surprisingly, we frequently have to get Jerome off the table. So much for teaching him the rules through toys. I think he was trying to tell me that if I was a good mama, I would let him crawl around and stand on the table.

Labels: Family, Humor