Hi

In his stroller somewhere between my house and Steve’s house, Elijah figured out that if he shouts “Hi” loud enough, people on the street will respond. It became a cultural experiment for both of us. How people react if a baby shouts, “Hi!”

The drunken woman stumbling outside the liquor store shouted, “HI!” back so loudly, I thought Eli was going to cry.

The cute 20 something practically dragged her boyfriend across the street to say “hi” back. Her boyfriend looked as if Eli was pointing a rifle at him.

The woman with the Obama sticker on her SUV rolled down her window and shouted, “Hey baby!” I like to think she was hitting on me. But she most definitely was not.

The dude moving stuff out of a U-Haul said “hi” to me and ignored Eli. I said, “It wasn’t me who said ‘hi,’ it was my son.” The guy couldn’t look at Eli for fear that contact with a baby would suddenly force him to be a father.

Finn, Steve’s son, said “hi” right back to Eli, who said “hi” back to him, who said “hi” back to Eli. And so on and so forth until Steve and I wished neither one of our sons learned the word in the first place.

We don’t have a lot of new photos, so please enjoy another one from our baby’s first soul patch series.