LTD and I have a pretty tight daily routine. However, the routine can be a cruel goddess, she gives with one hand and takes with the other. The benefits of our routine keep us from going into the tall grass. Kids need structure and I need a schedule to follow when I’m too tired to think straight. Also, it’s important to note that the routine doesn’t destroy creativity or spontaneity, rather it allows the little guy to take a nap and eat meals without getting hungry enough to have a level five meltdown. The routine is great if someone else has to take care of LTD, he hardly notices we’ve gone.

The flip side to the positive aspects of the daily routine lie in the brutal soul stripping sameness of every day activities. In and out of the car, putting the shoes and socks back on, and my personal demon the highchair tray. It seems as if I am always washing it. And let’s not forget the diapers or telling him to stop sticking his finger in the dog’s eye. One simple ritual from our daily routine somehow manages to make everything else worth doing every day. LTD will wander behind the couch and then pop out, open is mouth into a huge gaping grin and say, ‘ahhhhh.’

As long time readers of Beyond the Car Seat know I spend a lot of time in grocery stores as they are one of the few places open early in the morning. One of these trips yielded a boon of sorts. It turns out blueberries are in season and so the store was having an insane sale. Four pints for five bucks. The amazing thing about the sale was that it also applied to the organic blueberries. I thought to myself, that can’t be right, so I also thought it out loud to the clerk and made him double check. Organic blueberries are important because according to The Mommy blueberries suck up pesticides big time. Long story short we had now had a ton of blueberries in the house.

Well I’m here to tell you that LTD only had one thing to say on the subject and that was, bring it on. The little guy ate a little less than a pint by himself at one sitting. As fast as I could pour them out he sucked them down. The only thing standing in his way of perpetual eating was the fact that he would occasionally smush them with his finger before eating them. You can guess what the only problem with eating that many blueberries is, yup, that’s right folks we had some amazing diapers to the loan the diaper museum in Parsippany.

So we have one of those, my son is a genius things on our hands. Even though he isn’t even a year and half old yet, he is capable of reciting Shakespeare. Okay, that is not true even a little bit. However, he is still wicked smart and knows his animals. If you approach LTD and ask him what a cow says, he will answer with the only acceptable answer to that question, Moo. And yes, I know what you’re thinking, it is the cutest thing ever. The only small problem is that the little guy doesn’t open his mouth to form his lips into the o shape, so his moo is pretty muffled, but still awesome. In fact, his moo is so in grained in his system that if you read a book to him and there is a cow in it, he will moo. You don’t even what to know what happens if he sees a cow in real life, the cute police come and it takes forever to fill out the paperwork.

LTD’s vocabulary isn’t limited to bovines. If you ask him what sound a bear makes, he of course growls. The Mommy and I have had his growl analyzed and the scientists feel it is in fact funnier than his moo. Sometimes I even get scared when I hear his growl because I fear a bear is actually on the loose. He is currently working on his quack, which is getting stronger everyday and his oink, which needs a lot of work. The only challenge left is that I don’t know what noise a rhinoceros makes.