Dirty Dishes and Squeals of Laughter

Everyone and everything in my household (and probably my breezeway) is being affected by Rudy's and my struggle to establish real physical independance from eachother. Check out my poor kitchen:

And that's even after I stubbornly cleaned it yesterday while Rudy tantrumed like the world was ending. Sigh. Nothing worth having is easy to get, right? The irony in all this is that one of my key motivators for finally facing this struggle is that Jason and I have decided to start trying for a second child, and we want to increase our chances of getting me pregnant by having me stop nursing. I have to admit, there have been a few times in the last week that I have thought to myself, "And I want TWO of these?" Luckily, Rudy always pulls through with some adorable thing to remind me that being a mom (even a weaning mom) is great, and my excitement to meet our next child returns.
Today, he was so cute with Owen, our downstairs neighbor and friend. Owen came over to play for about an hour and the first thing Rudy did was bring him is most favorite book from the library (its all about trucks). When Owen wasn't interested in that Rudy tried all sorts of other things to get Owen excited about being at our house. It was like he was showing him how cool it is up here. Finally, he stumbled upon Owen's activity of choice: a tickle fest. Rudy was pointing out Owens buttons on his shirt when he accidentally tickled him. Owen gave a squeal of delight, and with that great response, Rudy went back for more. Soon the two of them were hooting and hollering with laughter. It's the first time I've seen Rudy tickle someone-so cute!