give me liberte or give me...?

eli loves trash. 

and trashcans. 

and vacuums. 

i suppose he watches his mama handling these things. 

and i should be flattered that he wants to do what i do. 

but on the trash point we have some issues. 

for starters, our child lock works no longer. he figured it out. 

so when i came around the corner and discovered this... trash everywhere... i wasn't surprised as much as faced with a problem.

(and his blanket swimming in it)

i was trying to remember what my parenting handbook tells me to do. or what moon would tell me to do. or what moon would do. that works too. and then i just went with my gut. 

which was basically a gentle response that got the point across: trash isn't a toy. 

his initial reaction was basically photo 1, "what? this stuff, the trash? it's quite fun, really." and then it turned to photo 2 when he heard my serious voice not letting up. 

(i was quick and discreet with the photos, i assure you.)

and what do we make our baby do when he dumps the trash all over the floor...?
that's right. vacuum.
just kidding. that would be like a reward for eli. he got this sweet, little vacuum for 80 cents at our local consignment shop because it was very, very clear that all he wanted was to vacuum. he may have held it in his lap the whole way home...

because, really, being a baby is tough work. you can't use your words. or, well, the adults in charge of you don't understand "your words" because they really sound so russian to us. "da... da da da...."
and all you really want is your LIBERTE (yes, his bib is part of a series i created with all my french pride... liberty, equality, fraternity).

but really he's like this most of the time:

because with or without his liberty, he's a happy fella.