Tonight's RPOD comes as Reid's dad is grinning ear to ear about the performance of a certain politician in a certain nationally televised debate. Even Reid, in this photo, seems to be gloating about his candidate's performance. I'm also all a-twitter because we finally got to speak with Reid's mom today. She gave the RPOD's a glowing review, and I'm happy to hear that me and this little ham can continue to impress her day after day. She is safe and sound in her far-flung destination, and she may even be able to move her return-date closer by a day. All good news.

Today's Reid Picture of the Day comes from a session of tickling Reid and I engaged in while he was pitter-pattering around our house. The design of our home has finally paid off as the basic circular baby-route (living room, dining room, kitchen, hall, repeat) has become well-tread by the young man.

Often-times, K and I chase him around this circuit, (chasing isn't exactly how it goes, since his running, while sounding quite rapid, can't really outpace a full grown human), threatening him with grievous tickling if we catch him.

I caught him.

Today's RPOD is a bonus entry, comprised of three photos in one! This sequence depicts Reid in one of his trademark assaults on a lamp! First he notices the lamp as if for the first time. Then he moves in for the kill with a swift left jab to the electrical cord. Finally, he finesses the whole beautiful things with a big grin full of mischief and contrition and moves on to some other unsuspecting target.

Whew, this is getting to be a lot of work. This picture was so big that the little version above doesn't do it justice. Click on it for a full-size version.

Here's the Reid Photo of the Day. Reid's mom K, for whom this is essentially a "Reid on Wheels" plan, has successfully reached Dubai, but won't be able to leave the emirate paradise for a few days, because of regular travel snafus. So from her perch in an internet cafe in Dubai, she got her first taste of the Reid on the road.

It was a hit. Hopefully, she will be able to check on our progress each day, and I hope you feel welcome to do that as well.

Unfortunately, I don't have a ton of time right now, but I want to launch a little initiative here, exclusively for Reid's mom. She is travelling for work right now in a far away place (Afghanistan!) and Reid will miss her terribly. To make her feel more at home, Reid and I were hoping to give her a little taste of her son each day through the limited edition RPOD (Reid Photo of the Day). This is shamelessly boosted (without any of the special code used there) from Trixie Update, the widely acknowledged finest baby blog around.

So today brings us the first Reid Photo of the Day. K is currently in Dubai en route to Kabul and hopefully will get to check this out sometime today. The rest of you can enjoy this one and (take note football fans) see that Reid was not shaken in his support of the Crimson Tide despite their unimpressive performance Saturday against the hated Arkansas Razorbacks. He remains a Bamasaurus.

So many little items accruing in the Reid backlog, I felt it was time for a rundown:

1. As parents, we want to instill strong dental hygiene in Reid. That being said, we're still using the funny little finger-cuff toothbruth and have hidden indefinitely the baby "toothbruth" that Reid played with for 20-30 minutes the first and only time he got his hands on it.

2. Tremendous number of teeth. Essentially, the mouth of a three year old.

3. Reid's new favorite thing to do is enjoy the outdoors. Of course, he's 14 and a half months old, so what that means is running into the street (horrifying), eating rocks (similarly disturbing) and sweeping the porch.

4. About the sweeping. That's a new fascination, and one we're interested in cultivating. Well, not really, because he does a terrible job. But basically, he likes to push the broom around on the front porch, flashing those pearly whites and reorganizing the collection of fallen leaves, deceased flower petals and dead bugs that litters our porch.

5. I'm sure this is a developmental thing. Reid's outdoorsman routine is terrific. The other morning, he decided it was time we went outside. So, he made a very big show of getting from the NRPA (Normalized Reid Play Area) to the AOD (Area of Danger). This area includes the office where our beautiful but ill-advised "ladder" bookshelves present an incredibly high falling/being crushed by books risk. The AOD also includes our staircase and our front door, as well as where all the shoes like (we have a shoe-free house). Reid practically dragged me into the AOD and led me to a chair. This is the chair where Reid is usually perched on one of our knees while his shoes are put on.

Once I sat in the chair, he brought me all manner of shoes. Two of his, three or four of mine (and some insoles from some other shoes, sadly) and one of K's (for good measure) all came to the chair. I put on two of mine that matched and his two and hid the rest. Lacing up his shoes, I was wondering how this was going to play out. I put Reid down and he walked to the front door, reached for the knob, and came very close to turning it.

Yeesh. He's growing up.

Last night we tried something new. K and I have been brushing Reid's teeth with a little finger-covering piece of plastic with a fine brush-head. We squeeze a little clear "toothpaste" on the brush and play "don't bite me" with the 16 dazzling white teeth of our son.

Recently, K read about using a real brush, and having Reid help by putting his hand on the brush while you work it along his current and future teeth. There's a lot of talk about teaching your baby to brush, and we like this because right now, it hurts when he bites us. There is also a lot of talk about "future teeth," though Reid has plenty of "present teeth," so we don't need to worry about the future ones so much.

So the other day, K found a toothbrush for babies. It was designed with a longer handle so you can work it and your child can put his/her hand on the long end of the handle and understand the whole thing going on in the mouth there. Very smart.

I tried it last night. A little of the same so-called toothpaste (I think it's just a sweet-tasting bit of anti-gas medicine or something, to tell you the truth) on the new toothbrush, which is much more like a real grown-up toothbruth, and we're off.

At first, things are going swimmingly. Reid is attentive, wondering why, perhaps, our regular evening ritual of "bite the parent's finger" has been replaced with this much more businesslike arrangement. Then he gets into it, placing his hand, as the instructions indicate he should, on the long end of the brush to "feel" the brushing as it's happening.

Then we're done brushing out teeth. And I try to set the brush aside so we can go to sleep. That's when things go south.

Reid isn't done brushing. In fact, it appears he's angry and offended at the very idea that he was done brushing. He wants the toothbrush back and he's not going to take no for an answer. I return the bruth. He carefully inserts the bristled end in his mouth and happily brushes away. I'm amazed, boggled, and (of course) pleased with my spectacular son's development. One lesson! One lesson, and he's brushing his own teeth.

Minutes pass. The brushing devolves into sort of an absent-minded gum massage, or really teething, I guess. I'm carefully monitoring to ensure that Reid doesn't accidentally gag himself. I try several times to declare brushing-time over, to no avail. Every attempt to retrieve the brush ends in trauma and while normally we advocate a little toughness in this area, minutes before bedtime is not the moment to induce hysterical crying and red-faced peals of inconsolate shouting. I return the brush, and the tranquil, contemplative, tooth-brushing Reid returns.

I call K up to Reid's room to witness our genius son's toothbrushing skills gone-haywire. We're all laughing now, even Reid, though he has no idea why. K recommends just laying him down and waiting with him until the toothbrush is released. I'm nearly convinced of this after another ten minutes of oral noodling while bed-time fast recedes into memory.

Finally, Reid decides he's done. He hands me the toothbrush. He has been brushing for about a half-hour, though admittedly the final twenty minutes were mostly chewing on the thing and drooling. He rolls over in my lap, a sign he's ready to get into his crib. I rest him on the mattress, and grab the brush on the way out the door. I rinse the brush (it had quite a workout), and we decide maybe not to use it for a little while. Finger-biting not withstanding, there is such a thing as too much dental hygiene.