There's a long list of reasons why we did it, but this one's near the top

Meet Lambie. This little plush rattle was a gift from Brenda and Bob, and it's a current favourite of Liam's. Whether in his high chair, jolly jumper, car seat or exersaucer, he is most often holding Lambie and chewing on his ear.

This is deja vu for me, because when I was a kid I had a stuffed rabbit, and I used to chew on its ears, too. I don't know when I got my rabbit, but I didn't give it up until I was considerably older than Liam - I can remember it, so I must have been at least 4 or 5 - and it's amazing and amusing and bewildering to see my son going through the exact same experience. (Although I do hope he gives it up long before I did.)

Anyway, last night Chad was into (what else) Monday Night Football, and looking for something to eat. With both our races being this week, we have had a moratorium on junk food in the house, which is kind of ridiculous because when we don't buy it we just wind up making it ourselves. So he started an assembly line of cinnamon toast. (Because, no, white bread slathered with butter and sugar CAN'T be bad for you.) Chad and I come from very different schools of thought with regards to cinnamon toast. We both start out with a slice of buttered toast, but Chad then applies a thick layer of brown sugar (which he referred to as 'whole wheat sugar' in a pathetic attempt to justify the fact that he's eating it during race week) and sprinkles the cinnamon on top, whereas where I come from, you mix the cinnamon into the white sugar, and apply a thin layer so that it dissolves into the butter, and you store a shaker full of this mix in the cupboard at all times so that you can have cinnamon toast whenever it strikes your fancy. So we got into a heated debate about the merits of both kinds of cinnamon toast, and whose recipe was better, and the advantages of one kind over the other. And I pointed out that one of the benefits of the Robinson way of doing things is that with a shaker full of mix in the cupboard, anyone can make some toast on a whim, even Liam (someday, people, someday). Because that's how we did it when I was a kid.

There's a long list of reasons why people have children, I think. Some just fall into it because it's the next step after getting married. Some people do it so they won't be lonely in their old age. I think all the reasons apply to all of us from time to time, but one of the reasons that Chad and I have been most conscious of in having Liam has been the opportunity to relive our childhoods. There are a lot of things that we haven't done in far too long, because we're supposedly too old to do them (or to want to do them) - but now that Liam is here, he gives us the perfect excuse to get back into them. We don't want to be the parents watching the kids from the sidelines - we want to be the ones (just one example here) bouncing on the trampoline with them, and showing them how much fun it can be. That's why I enjoy wandering the toy aisles at the store to see what's out there. That's why I buy the holiday issues of magazines now, and dogear the pages that have cute crafts or activities or cupcakes that look like spiders. There are a lot of fun things in life that we used to do and that I want to do again - and I am so excited to have Liam along for the ride. Yes, there is now a shaker full of cinnamon sugar in the cupboard. I'm sure I will need to replenish it many, many times before Liam even gets to it, but that's OK - I'm excited that this little slice of the past has made its way (back) into our home.