I just never seem to be able to find the time to update Roman's blog...I don't even check the blogs of my friends very often.

Roman is doing great!! He is going to turn 4 in just 2 months! I can't believe that my little baby is going to be 4...it seems like just yesterday that he had just turned one and we were bringing him home from Russia. Roman is growing like a weed...the youngest in his class at preschool, but one of the tallest. He towers over some of the other boys.

He and I went to Phoenix, AZ earlier this month to see his Great-Aunt Wanda who is my Dad's oldest sister. She is 88 years old and loved meeting her nephew :) Roman and I met my 2 first cousins, Karen & Cathy, out in AZ and we all stayed together in one hotel suite and went to visit Aunt Wanda a couple of times a day. We had such a great time listening to her tell stories of her childhood with her siblings (my dad, aunts & uncles). My cousins bought a DVD camera so we got a lot of her stories on tape for future generations to enjoy.

One of the other highlights of the visit to Aunt Wanda's was her sharing her own adoption journey 56 years ago when she and Uncle Cleo adopted my cousin, David. I knew that David was adopted, but I had never heard the story. It was amazing to hear Aunt Wanda tell of the phone call that they received that David had been born...and how she felt the first time he was placed in her arms. She had found her child...this was her son. The same exact feelings that I had had upon being handed Roman for the first time in Russia.

On our trip, we also got to see a lot of friends: my old roommate, Kristy who married my college friend, Charlie; some family friends of the Lins', the Heredias; and my best friend, Colleen, and her family. It was a lot of fun, but Roman and I were both happy to be back home...I think he got sick of seeing me 24/7 for 5 days :)

So, I know I have been really, really slack about posting on here..I just can't seem to find the time. I have even gotten behind on reading my friends other adoption & parenting blogs...and I have lost touch with many of my fellow adoptive friends here. I promise to try to be better and maybe to even be witty sometimes...like my friend, Elle (http://www.lifeofelle.com/).

Okay...so, now, onto discussing the title of this post...

me: "I love you, Roman"

R: "no, Mommy...I can't want to love you"

me: "But, why Roman...I do love you...you are my baby boy"

R: "no, Mommy...I am a big boy"

me: "okay, big boy...let's go poo poo on the potty"

R: "I can't want to, Mommy...I am a baby"

me: "Come on, Roman...let's try to go poo poo on the potty"

R: "no Mommy, I can't want to fall in and get flushed"

This is my life trying to get my son to go poop on the potty. The kid wears big boy underpants all day long and pees on the potty no problem at camp...but the goofball holds his poop all day long and then will go at night when he has a nite-time pull-up on!

Why does he not want to sit on the potty and poop you might ask? Well, the answer is simple...he is terrified that he is going to fall in and get flushed down the potty.

Why?

Because in May we were in Delaware at a family wedding and his Aunt Erica and cousins Casey & Haylee took him to the bathroom. (It is always a group trip :) Anyways, I am sitting down at my dinner table calmly eating my dinner when Haylee (6) comes running up to the table talking a mile a minute...

"Aunt Gaye, Aunt Gaye...you have to come now...Lightning got flushed"

Seriously, you could hear Roman screaming from across the restaurant...he was hysterical. Apparently what happened is he put his Lightning McQueen car on the back of the toilet so he could go pee-pee. Unfortunately, Lightning went in...no big deal normally because we could get him and rinse him off.

Well, no one realized that this was an automatic flushing toilet...right as Haylee was reaching in to get Lightning, the toilet sensed the motion and flushed. Roman watched his beloved Lightning flushed away to his death. Nothing we said or did would console my son...

"I want Lightning back, Mommy...can you get him! I don't want him to be in the ocean!!"

It was so sad and now he is forever traumatized that he to will be flushed away like Lightning.

Yes, it was today and it felt kind of surreal, you know?!!? Anyways, she told me what I already knew...that Roman is very bright and smart. That he is always smiling and cheerful. That all the kids like him. That he has a girlfriend...and SHOCKER...he always has to be first. Those of you that know my husband personally will know where that competition streak comes from.

They also took class pictures today. Roman looked so cute in his little suede bucks, khakis and plaid shirt and we can't forget the woven belt. I have got to stop buying clothes for this little guy...I am a toddler clothes horse while I just walk around in sweats all the time. Huh...what's wrong with that picture? Roman is the best-dressed member of the family!!