new stuff

Sorry, we've been a little busy over here.

As noted, Sam was sick for a whole week, and since then I've been scrambling to try to catch up on all the work I fell behind on. I think part of the nature of academia (and maybe other professions, I really only know this about academia) is that there is more work than one could ever really hope to get done, and so one ends up chronically feeling like one could and probably should be doing more.

While Sam was sick, he liked to sleep with his head on our bed, either resting on his knees with his cheek on our mattress, or else like this:



It looks pretty uncomfortable to me, and I tried to put a little pillow under his back to support him, but he'd move somewhere the pillow wasn't, so I guess it was working for him.

The week after Sam was sick was Thanksgiving, and J's parents and sister, and my brother, all came and stayed with us, and J's brother and sis-in-law came for the day on Thursday and also hung out with us on Saturday. A 20-lb turkey from Stillman's Turkey Farm was successfully roasted, and served with two stuffings (kale/dried fruit/hazelnut/whole wheat bread, and bread/pinenut/tarragon, both featured in the previous week's NY Times, and both tasty), sweet potatoes baked with ginger and maple syrup, the best gravy I have ever made and which I must remember to make in the future (from The Best Recipe, which is usually a tad boring, but reliable for stuff like roasting and gravy), and cranberry-orange-ginger sauce. Grandma and Aunt L. made the family-recipe broccoli-corn casserole, yum, and Grandma brought her justifiably famous pumpkin-cranberry bread. We started off the meal with squash-apple soup and the bread, followed by a nice salad that J. made. For dessert, a delish pumpkin pie that J. also made. Lots of orange-colored food, and much gluttony. Oooh-- and I discovered my old favorite blended table wine, which I found while working weekends at a gourmet food shop in the SF Bay Area, at the local Trader Joe's. Big House Red. It went very nicely with the turkey. I think I might have to pick up a case... it's that yummy (and so cheap!)

The rest of the time we hung out and talked, and ate leftovers, and went to a nice museum in town, and looked at ducks and geese by one pond, then the next day at another pond, and went shopping a bit (well, everyone else humored me by looking around while I bought these boots I'd been eyeing for a long long time and finally decided to buy... and boy do I love them. Mmmm. Comfy, no heel, but still styley.) and out to dinner. Sam totally thrived on all the attention, and a week later is _still_ asking for More (M., my bro) and More (L., J's sis). And points out Grandma and Grandpa in pictures. They're doing a family unit in daycare this month, and making family trees from photos we printed out and brought in, so that's great timing-- especially since we're going to see my parents later this month.

It was especially nice to see my brother, since he's moving to Japan to (finally!) join his wife later this month, so I will see him even less often than I currently do. But I'm very happy that they get to be together again-- they haven't lived together for, geez, I think a couple of years now.

The night after everyone left, we restarted Project Nightwean, which we'd initiated with some success a month prior, but then after two weeks (by the end of which Sam could be soothed back to sleep during his one usual 1-or-so AM wakeup with just a bit of talking and a pat on the back) he got sick, and in his stuffiness and screaming and dehydration I started nursing at night again, and wow, stopping again after that was HARD. There was a LOT of crying in the night last week; J. moved back into the bed in the guest room just so we weren't both totally exhausted, but by the third night of angry yelling-for-hours, I couldn't handle it alone any more either. Between that and the previous week of nightly nose-suctioning with accompanying screams and howls of protest, our neighbors surely think we torture our child regularly. But hey! now J. can put Sam back to sleep when he wakes up, as was demonstrated twice last night before midnight (yeah, we're still working on not having any wake-ups at all) and I'm not exaggerating at all when I say I danced in the living room as Sam eased quickly back into dreamland without me. Evening outings for me!!! Whee!!! Um... and at the least, some less-interrupted sleep. We are DEFINITELY doing this earlier with the next (gah! next!) kid.

In other Sam news, he's basically recovered from the nasty virus, but he now has conjunctivitis, which has been cycling round the daycare since he started there, it seems, so it was only a matter of time. It's viral, but they're allowed back after 3 applications (i.e. 24 hours' worth) of antibiotic eyedrops, so the ped. prescribed them over the phone this morning... but then cautioned that he's still totally contagious, because of course antibiotics don't touch viruses. So we have a dilemma: do we bring him to daycare knowing that he's contagious? or keep him home, thus losing even more work hours, when he (a) is totally perky and not much bothered by his slightly-red and gently-oozing eyes, and (b) clearly picked up the virus there, so it's not like he's bringing it in where it hasn't already been. I'm leaning towards bringing him in, clearly... Thoughts? Am I a bad daycare citizen? The ped. laid out the choice very clearly, and basically exactly as I put it here; she didn't say what she would have done, but she didn't tell me not to bring him in, either.

I have the same thing, though a milder version (and his isn't particularly bad, either); I do have to wear my glasses, though, which I really hate. I'm going to have to exacerbate the irritation by wearing contacts tomorrow-- I have my first haircut appointment in something like 9 months and I can't possibly show up at the Hip Salon wearing my Old Dorky Glasses.

In other meat news (other, in addition to the turkey discussion above, you see?): Stillman's Farm is starting a meat CSA, so we have a good source of pastured/sustainably-farmed/humanely-raised meat, finally, and our neighbors N. and M. picked up the 1/4-steer we'd ordered from River Rock Farm over Thanksgiving weekend, which they're splitting with us, so we now have nearly a quarter-cow, butchered and neatly wrapped in labeled paper packages, in our chest freezer in the basement. (I'm including all the links because we've been really happy with both the meat and the people raising/selling it at both places, and we feel really strongly about doing as much as we can to support local farmers who are growing food in sustainable, humane ways).

Speaking of food, here's a pic of Sam from about a month ago. He's enjoying a smoothie I whizzed up with juice and frozen blueberries and maybe a banana, I can't remember exactly-- he had some with a spoon, and then some in a cup, then he poured from the cup into the bowl, and back and forth, sampling and "mmm!"ing all the time.



Sam is all about combining words these days, which makes him seem more and more like a Kid, and not a Baby. Everything is "big" (as in "big truck!" "big bear!") even if it's not really big, or else modified by its owner ("Mommy boots" "Daddy swippers" "Sammy hat") or a color ("owange tayon"). And he announces his actions-- whenever he's angry, or just feels a lack of attention, he says "hit mommy" or "hit daddy" or even "hit car" or "hit book", sometimes but not always accompanying his announcement with the act (always reprimanded, of course), and requests specific actions like "Mommy readdabook". When he enters his daycare classroom, he calls out happily, "Hi, Sam!" , and when he leaves, or pretends to leave, he says "Bye, Sam!" but he does say to the fish, "Hi, Fish" and says "bye, (name)" whenever he's saying bye to anyone. [Added later: right now Sam and J. are building another arch. While orchestrating the delicate brick balance, J. sometimes asks Sam to hand him a brick of a certain color, and Sam complies, calling out "Tenkyu Sam!" (Thank you, Sam) as he helps out.] He also repeats the end of about anything we say, multi-syllabic words especially ("capable!"), with a little smartypants grin, so our carefree gossiping/snarking days are just about over. He is a big fan, already, of "no", which he says whenever asked a question by someone he's anxious about (i.e. anyone new), and in some moods when asked any question by anyone at all. And he loves to hide-- he slides into one of two favorite hiding places, and then calls out "Hiding!" or "Where's Sam?" until one of us starts "looking" for him, narrating our search as we go: "Where's Sam? Is he under the bed? Is he outside the window? Is he in the bathtub? Is he in Daddy's closet? Is he in Mommy's closet? Hey! Here he is!" whereupon he immediately says, "More hiding!" meaning he stays there, and we begin the "search" process again.

Whew! What a novel! Next time I'll post more pics; our recent ones haven't come out very well, not sure why, so I'm scrambling to find November and December pics to put into a new Sam calendar...

Sam and J. reading Sam's latest library-borrowed obsession, the Hanukkah Bugs pop-up book. The library version, predictably, is missing some pop-up features, so we may have to acquire our own copy:

virusland

Oof, what a week. Those eye boogers? viral, not very contagious, but just the advance signs of a Very Bad Cold that's had Sam feverish, snotty, coughing, cranky, and out-of-sorts all week. So, no daycare, no birthday parties, and no sleep for any of us-- he'd wake hourly, choking on mucus, and our efforts to help him breathe (propped on pillows and even, when we got desperate, in his carseat in the crib; humidifier running all night every night; Motrin, with or without decongestant; lots of fluids; warm baths; sitting on the edge of the tub with a hot shower steaming up the bathroom at 3AM; suctioning his nose; saline drops) weren't doing much. He'd nurse back to sleep then wake again an hour or less later, screaming in frustration. I haven't been this tired since he was a brand newborn. J. retired to the guest room because Sam just wanted to nurse when he woke, so there wasn't much J. could help with, and at least that way we weren't both psychotic with exhaustion. Last night was moderately better after an extended flush-and-suck session with the bulb syringe (the sight of which now makes Sam yell then bury his face somewhere out of reach, like his hands or my leg).

Snot is fascinating, eh? It's like the poop stories of the first few months.

Anyway, his fever is finally gone, but we're finishing up a course of antibiotics prescribed when Sam's lungs sounded a bit fluid-y on Thursday, and since he hasn't been eating or drinking well all weekend, I'm going to keep him home again tomorrow so he can get fortified before picking up the next nastybug at daycare. (Work? who needs to work? Grrr...) Fortunately, he doesn't have any clue that he missed two birthday parties this weekend.

Now I just have to figure out how to not get sick myself. At least when I have to flush out my own sinuses, I won't need someone to hold down my arms while a second person stabilizes my head with one arm while wielding the bulb with the other... I'm awaiting a call from CPS any day now when our (childless) upstairs neighbor can't take the howls of protest any more.

In non-bodily-fluid news, we picked up our locally-grown, pastured turkey today (from Stillman Farm), as well as groceries for our Thanksgiving meal. Sam's Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt L. are flying up, and Aunt S. and Uncle D. are driving over on Thursday; my bro (Sam's Uncle M.) is coming up too.

eye boogers

Sam's long-running cold has morphed into a more aggressive upper resp infection; I was called to pick him up from daycare on Monday afternoon because his eye boogers (spreading up from infected sinuses) looked too much like conjunctivitis for them to risk contagion, and then last night he had a fever. So I'm home today; J. gave my exam to my class this morning while Sam and I saw his ped. (confirmed it's a likely viral infection, take it easy and warm compresses for the eyes); we then hung out and read books and watched Fantasia while I sorted 5 months worth of credit card receipts and did other general filing. Ugh. I love the feeling of having all my paper organized and neatly put away, but filing stuff like credit card statements and car insurance paperwork never seems high enough priority to make it to the top of the to-do list and it's too easy to let piles build up instead of staying on top of it, which would of course be more efficient. But I can't really work while hanging out with Sam when he's in a cuddly/cranky state, so whee, the piles are gone.

This is the second ped visit in as many weeks; last week he had a rash that showed up a day after I slathered him with a buttermilk-based 'sensitive skin' lotion. Though it might just be the (mild) fragrance he's allergic to, it might also confirm his suspected dairy allergy; in any case, we needed a note stating that _that_ wasn't contagious.

Between the goopy eyes and the rash, we have no new pics, but here's an old one from the new camera, from about a month ago when Sam was still in his hat-obsession phase (he still likes hats, but no longer puts anything on his head and announces "hat" the way he's doing in this pic):



Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt L. visited last weekend for Uncle D's surprise birthday party and are coming again next week for Thanksgiving. I'm so, so glad that Sam is really getting to know his grandparents and aunts and uncles. I only know one grandmother out of all my grandparents, and though I know all my uncles and aunts, all of them live an ocean away in one direction or another, and so we very rarely get to share holidays and birthdays.

This past weekend we were uncharacteristically social: J. and I had a date on Saturday night, an early movie (Borat, our first dose of pop culture-while-it's-still-pop in years) and quick dinner while Sam played happily with his new babysitter. On Sunday we had our neighbors and another family over for brunch and lingered most enjoyably into the rainy afternoon talking with them. Then that evening we met another family with a toddler at a nearby restaurant which caters to the family-with-young-kid crowd with a stocked play area and kids' menu, but also has good food and a wine list. This coming weekend is Sam's social weekend, assuming he's all better by then: he's got the birthday party of one classmate on Saturday, and another on Sunday; he's also spending some time on Saturday morning with his babysitter while I participate in the semi-annual "parent work weekend," painting and renovating his daycare classroom.

Sammy Spider

Kind of hard to make out the details, but here's Sam in spider mode last night. We didn't go trick-or-treating, but visited our friends in the house next door. Sam totally got the idea of the costume, too, somewhat surprisingly ("Sam, what are you? What's Sammy?" "Pider. Sam pider.") I brought it to Costume Day at daycare today (they don't do holidays, but the kids could bring in costumes today for a parade and some trading-costumes dress-up time).

punkinhead

Just a few recent pics.

We decorated a Sukkah at Sam's Aunt N and Uncle J’s house (where he got to meet his third? cousin Nate. Aunt N is Grandma’s first cousin, and Nate is her grandkid, so Sam and Nate are the same generation, 3 cousinships removed.

And his pumpkin hat from M. still fits! yay! and his chickens sweater from D. and family, which they gave us when he was born, fits perfectly now! He kept going 'bok bok bok' all day, and also no longer yanks hats off his head instantly, so we were able to get this cute pic:



Sam really likes the program AlphaBaby (and it’s freeware for Macs!) It prints whatever letter key he hits in colorful caps while cuing the computer voice to say the letter out loud. If he hits non-letter keys, shapes come up with a random mac noise.

(And no, we don’t as a rule let him play with the laptop on his own, I just backed up to take the pic.)

He's still a fan of kneebouncers , too, and requests "tains!" frequently when he sees one of us at our laptop (which, um, he sees a LOT. The glowing Apple logo is probably the most recognizable brand in his world, right now...)


What is it with the stuffing-the-mouth-too-full-to-chew thing? Sam does this at least once a meal, and then gets frustrated and spits out the entire contents onto his tray. It’s like he’s so excited to be consuming food that he loses track of the mechanics of it—food into mouth, chew, swallow, repeat- and gets stuck at the first step: food into mouth, food into mouth, food into mouth...




Omi is visiting, cooking us tons of yummy food and watching Sam so his parents can get more work done. This morning we went to the pool together (though it was a bit cold—it took Sam a while to stop clinging to me and shivering—and parking by the university athletic center? nonexistent. So irritating. But I digress...) then ran a couple of errands in pouring rain while Sam conked out in his carseat. Then Sam and Omi played all afternoon, building towers and tunnels with his blocks, coloring, cutting playdough shapes with the cookie cutters, reading books, eating strawberry Pockys (treat from Omi, which he looooves). Then while Omi and I were making dinner, J was inspired by the block tunnel to go one better than his big towers of late—he made an arch. (And Sam ran around afterwards announcing, “arch! arch!” which had to have been gratifying.)

Here's Sam dancing (to "Cows", of course) with his monkey, in front of the arch:

sniff

Sam's overall-clad behind was wet when I took him out of his booster seat after dinner tonight, and I wasn't sure if it was leaked pee (it had been, upon reflection, fairly long since his last change), spilled apple cider that had missed his bib pocket, or something else. J. remembered having sat him on the edge of the sink to wash hands before dinner. So I asked J. to smell it and see if it smelled like pee, cider, or nothing, and J. obligingly got down on hands and knees and sniffed Sam's behind. Sam found this very amusing: "Dog!" he announced, giggling.

We had a beautiful weekend with lovely sunny crisp-air fall weather. I decided I needed a bit of a break, so had resolved not to do research-work or teaching-work, or at least not much, so we just crossed domestic items off the list. It was our turn to clean the Toddler Room at Sam's daycare (it's a coop, which means not only weekly help shifts, but also a cleaning weekend which rotates through all the families-- it works out to roughly once a semester, which feels totally doable), so we did that yesterday. We went to the Farmer's Market, did laundry, had dinner at the home of a colleague. Today J. worked all day and Sam and I went for a bike ride and ran errands. He seems to be comfortable in the bike seat, and the area around our home is very bikeable, so I think we'll be doing that a lot until it starts snowing. We had lunch at home-- Sam's been eating like a horse, protein especially ("chit-ten! meat! more!"). I think he must be growing. Then this afternoon, he slept for an astonishing 2.5 hours, during which time I started-- and finished!-- the novel I got at the library yesterday morning. (I've taken to reading young adult fiction when I have a fiction craving, because it lets me do just this-- finish a novel in, if not a single nap, a nap + an evening. There are some fantastic writers targeting books towards 'young adults'. I loved Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy last year, and just found another couple of his books. Yum.)

Sam's newest library favorite: Leo Lionni's Let's Play . I also got out Tomie de Paola's Strega Nona, which I remember loving, but Sam wasn't so into it-- too many words. And also a Babar book, but every time I read Babar now, it strikes me as oppressively colonialist and patriarchal. I have no problem with elephants wearing clothes in, say, Richard Scarry, or dressed up animals in so many other books (Toot and Puddle!) but in the first Babar book, Babar the King doles out clothing to all his previously clothes-free subjects, a set of work clothes and a set of fancy clothes, and it marks the occasion of the incorporation of the elephant town. For some reason this creeps me out. Maybe I'm just hypersensitive after reading this amazing article about the unintended consequences of human attempts to manage elephant populations.

tay-onz

We survived Sam's bout of fever with much coloring and some videos. I got some closets organized during my enforced at-home time, and we took some walks and ran some errands, and he's all better now. Sam really, really likes drawing. They do a lot of art at daycare, and most days there are pages of painting and stuff-glued-on-paper and occasionally Sam's careful pen scribbles to take home. He has progressed from mostly ordering us to draw stuff to mostly drawing stuff himself, though he still does request specific things a lot: buses, suns, owls, walruses, horses, Daddy, Sam (never Mommy, for some reason), various letters, and always the old favorite, fans. Here he is after I was called to pick him up from daycare last Tuesday, his fever having returned after being down for most of Monday (fortunately, the call came just after I was finishing my back-to-back lecture and talk). We hung out at home for the rest of the afternoon and spent much of Wednesday, during which he felt totally fine and fever-free but couldn't return to daycare because of their 24-hour post-fever rule, enjoying the gorgeous fall weather. (Mind you, I'm not complaining about the 24-hour rule. If it saves us Sam catching just one virus from another kid, I'll happily keep him home an extra day when he's sick himself.)



The past few weeks, Sam has been starting to get into pretend play. He's been putting random things on his head and declaring "hat!" (which is cute when it's a bucket, or a ball, or a mixing bowl, but less cute when it's a fork full of saucy pasta). And he's been playing this game in the bath: he takes his turtle (squeezy bath toy) and sticks it under his thigh, announcing "house!" Then he'll pull the turtle back out, and say "There it is!" (Daydis!) Then back under his leg, "house" or, sometimes, "chair." Then Daydis! He can do this 30 times in a row and not get bored, but it's far better if I'm playing along, of course.

I also realized that Sam doesn't necessarily recognize himself when he's saying "Sam!" in the mirror. He must recognize himself to some extent because he points himself out in pictures, but correctly names the pictures of the other kids at daycare. But occasionally, he'll point to an unfamiliar picture of a baby or little kid and say "Ham!" And on another one of our post-fever Wednesday excursions, to get sweet potato fries at a burger shop after running some errands, Sam spied a bust of Elvis and cried out with excited recognition, "Ham!"

2 things, 2 pics

GEB posted eloquently a couple of days ago about the recent Senate display of cowardice (or whatever it is called when people utterly fail at their jobs in order to continue to hold their jobs). Ugh.

In snudge-related news, though, I have two cute things to report.

When Sam says words that begin with an "S" sound, he pronounces them as though they begin with "H". He has no trouble saying word-final S's, or S's in the middle of words, but he'll sit on a step or stool and say "heat!", or will call loudly "huck!" when he's trying to get somewhere and can't make it through. (That's "stuck" for you not fluent in toddler-ese.) You can probably see where this is going... just this week, he's started looking in the mirror, or at his image in photos or on J's laptop background, pointing, and exclaiming, "Ham!" Hee.

This morning, J. was shaving, and Sam wandered into the bathroom holding his baby doll*. J. asked if he wanted to dance with the doll. We've both, especially J., been dancing while holding Sam since he was mere weeks old, to lots of different kinds of music, but often (and beloved by S.) to Boynton's "Cows" song from the Philadelphia Chickens album. Aaaanyway, Sam promptly started bouncing while holding the doll up, going "doo doo doo" just like his Daddy does when he sings "Cows, du-doo doo doo, We're remarkable cows..."

* Yes, we are the kind of parents who buy our male child a baby doll. It's blue, though, not pink. But duh, we want him to develop his nurturing side. And it's working, see?

We had more than 40 people over, not including babes-in-carriers/arms, for a housewarming party today. It was a good way to make ourselves finish setting the place up, and to sort-of acknowledge all of the dinner-invitation debts we've managed to accrue already. But Sam seemed more cranky and clingy than usual, even given the crowd (and had been whiny all morning before a long nap), and sure enough by half-way through the party, he was feeling distinctly warm. Another kid at his daycare was out with a fever Thursday and Friday, and it looks like the virus found another home. Grr... J's traveling all week, and I have to give two lectures and a talk... should be interesting.

In a happier vein, here are two recent pics. More coming when I figure out how to download pics from my new camera.

Spunky in overalls:


Last night after his bath, Sam spontaneously decided that doing splits (he can't quite manage one, but comes close) is fun. (Not the greatest pic, but I hope you can figure out what he's doing here.)

daycare

After 2 weeks, Sam seems to have really settled into daycare. We started gradually: the first day I stayed for about an hour then just left him for a half-day, and the rest of that week I stayed about a half-hour each morning then left him for about 6 hours (9:30-3:30) before picking him up. He still sobbed each time I left, but when he did, one of the teachers would hold him and comfort him, and when I returned he would be playing and have napped/eaten/etc., but he'd be clingy as soon as I got there and very ready to leave. I resolved to give it two weeks to see if he started liking it more. The second week he still cried 'mum mum mum' each time I left, but again was being comforted by a teacher, so I'd stay 15 minutes or so, and they reported that he cried less than 5 minutes after I left. He would be playing actively and happily when I got there to pick him up at the end of the day (5-ish). Well, this week, he's stopped crying altogether. One of the teachers, I., figured out last week that bubbles in the morning really helps distract the kids who have separation anxiety-- so much so that by Thursday or Friday of last week, Sam was saying "bubbles" in anticipation on the stroller ride to daycare in the morning. On Monday, Sam happily ran up the stairs of the slide as soon as we got there, and gave me a hug goodbye when I left then ran back to the slide. Yesterday he was dancing in bubbles when I headed out the door, and today he barely looked up when I gave him a kiss. Yay!

He's been steadily learning words, including ones that I'm pretty sure he picked up at daycare. But yesterday we got the first concrete evidence of Good Habits he's learning there: after getting home, nursing on the couch, and reading a book, Sam was wanting to read more books but I needed to start making dinner. He'd been running around with a book he was wanting me to read, but when I offered him a snack, he abruptly turned around and headed for the bookshelf, put the book back on the shelf with absolutely no urging or even suggestion from me while saying eagerly "cacka!" (cracker), and then ran into the kitchen to receive some cackas. I've noticed that the daycare gently but consistently enforces cleaning up before mealtimes or before going outside, and it was so nice to see that he's internalized that habit. We'll have to enforce it at home to keep it up.

In less desirable things learned at daycare, Sam seems to have learned to hit (from another kid there who's been hitting everyone since the first day). I think these things are epidemic in group-care settings, and hitting is at this point less worrisome than biting (just because less harm can be done by an uncoordinated slap than by a sharp set of little teeth), another common epidemic, but it isn't fun, and it's hard to enforce consequences at home when the consequences at daycare are different. (I'd been leaving the room for a few moments each time he slapped me before, but with other kids that doesn't make any sense-- if they're slapping in competition over a toy or over slide-access, for example, then removing the victim only helps the aggressor.) They do teach "gentle", and I'm sure the slap-happiness will fade eventually.

No pics to post today, but I finally bought myself a three-months-late birthday present of a tiny pocket-size digital camera, because our very nice digital SLR is just too cumbersome to bring to the park every time I go. My new camera was surprisingly inexpensive and did I mention it's tiny? So I'm hoping to have a lot more snapshots to share from now on.

no tusks, thank goodness

This morning J. was getting dressed and Sam was wandering around in his dinosaur jammies. Sam looked up at J. at a key moment, pointed, and said what we first thought was "balls" (leading us to wonder where he learned that), then repeated himself more clearly, at which point we understood him to be saying "walrus".

some things

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, and was inspired to finally get our list in order by that posted by a friend and fellow mama-blogger (hi, G!). Um... cause you want to know what words Sam knows, right? And I feel the need to prove that Sam is following in his parents’ verbose footsteps. So, here is our best estimate of his current spoken word list. It’s a moving target, not only because he keeps learning new ones, but also because some of the ones that he was saying reliably for a while, like “ppps” for poops, he hasn’t said in months (I took a couple of items like that off the list). There are also some sounds he makes many times in a row with some urgency but which we haven’t been able to tie to English words yet so, clearly, I haven’t included those.


A
all done (ahdun)
baa (refers to sheep, but answers this too when asked what they say)
ball (baw)
bath
beach
bear (beah)
bed
bee
bike
bird (burr)
boat
book
boot
bottle (boh)
bowl
bread
bug
bus
buzz (as in what a bee does)
bye
car (dah)
cat (dah-- vowel shorter than for car)
Cock-a-doodle-doo (doodledoo)
cold
corn (torn or norn)
cup
D
Da
deer
dog (doh)
door (doah; also says this when referring to someone arriving or leaving)
drink (dink)
duck
dust
Erin (ein)
fan
fire (fah)
fish (fff)
flower (oh)
frog (fah)
gears (deas)
Giulio (Gi-oh)
hat (dat)
hot (hoh hoh, from my “hot hot”)
juice (duis)
keys (tees)
Liz (iss)
M (mum)
Mama (or lately, Mom)
mm (for cow saying moo)
mmm (when eating, to denote tastiness)
moon
more (moa)
mouse
mouth
nurse (erss; except at night, then nuurrrs)
O
octopus (pus)
Opa (Pa)
owl (wol)
pen
penguin (peng)
phone (hone)
pig
please (pees)
quack (cak or dak)
rabbit (rah)
ribbit (frog sound)
rice
S
shoes (doos)
snort (pig noise)
soap (ohps)
stairs (deahs)
star (dah)
tea
this (is)
toe
train
tree
truck
uh-oh
up (bababa, from up up up, which is what I say when picking him up)
walrus (!!)
water (wah)
whale (weah)


In other news, we just got back from our four-day family vacation in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, with our buds G. and A. We had a lovely time, enjoyed the beach one day (note “beach” above) and a beautiful dune-winding bike ride (note “bike” above) followed by a bit of time on the bayside beach (see below), and shopping and people-watching in between.






On the rainy middle day we were saved by the discovery of a fantastic children’s area in the public library, where we spent many hours lounging on beanbags talking to other parents and letting Sam enjoy the toy-filled zone (which included the best stocked play puppet theater I’ve ever seen). On the rainy end day we went for a walk. Sam spent a lot of time in the ergo on this trip. He likes the ergo-- when I ask him, as we head out for a walk/errands, whether he would rather go in the stroller or the ergo, he usually picks the ergo. It's easier to deal with stairs/narrow store aisles for me, too, and it's keeping my quads and glutes in decent shape...



We ate well, and also found that the best way to keep Sam entertained in restaurants while awaiting food is to draw/write with a pen on any piece or scrap of paper. He alternates between grabbing the pen and rendering stuff himself (“ff!” “baw!” he’ll announce as he completes a scribble) and holding it out demanding specific things to be drawn (fan! duck! walrus!) and letters to be written (A! S!).

Sam is also obsessed with going up and down stairs, which he prefers to do one at a time the way big people do, not step-level-step-level like someone whose knee barely reaches the next stair would be expected to. (And yes, he needs to hold someone’s hands in order to do this. There was much holding of Sam’s hands up and down stairs in P-town.) The trip was too short, but it’s nice to know that it’s so close—just 90 minutes by ferry. I’m sure we’ll be back. And in the meantime, we may be in the market for a bike trailer (in any case, we’re getting a bike seat for him on the back of my back, to facilitate getting to and from daycare, starting next week).

And one more pic: as promised earlier, here's Sam dancing at Aunt S. and Uncle D.'s wedding in May. We don't have video (and I haven't yet figured out how to link video here), which is a pity, because he was a wild dancing party animal for an hour and a half.

Japan pics 2

After the wedding, we went with Aunt R's family to the nearby harbor town of Otaru for a day, then drove across Hokkaido to the hot spring resort town of Noboribetsu. Japanese baths, including those at hot springs, are deep and hot, like hot tubs. One washes completely first outside the tub (at a spigot or now, with a hand-held shower, sitting on a little stool), then gets in to the tub for a nice long soak. The baths are usually communal-- at home, the whole family soaks one after another (thus the washing beforehand-- the water stays pretty clean); at resorts, all the guests, separated by gender, enjoy the same tub or few tubs. Sam was a big fan, and at the hot spring resort, he got to really indulge. Omi took him in while I got to relax a bit, and as she dipped his feet into one of the less-hot tubs, he demanded "moa!" again and again until he was standing on the bottom (and in up to his neck), at which point he grinned happily. There were lots of other naked kids running around and enjoying the bath amongst all the women soaking, and Sam got over wanting to nurse every time he saw my boobs. For my part, there is nothing that rids one of self-consciousness quite like seeing 50 other naked women, aged 3 through 93, with a life's worth of scars, stretch-marks, and sagging, all relaxing together in the water. Then we padded back to our rooms in the resort-provided cotton kimonos that everyone wears at resorts. Here's Sam in his:


We also spent some time wandering around the touristy little town in a drizzling rain, buying souvenirs. There was a big statue of an oni (demon/god) of the nearby volcano, which became animated every hour on the hour for a few minutes of flashing eyes, scowling face, and swinging arms. Here's oni-Sam:


Sam also enjoyed Japanese kids' meals, which are served on cute melamine trays and usually have either spaghetti or fried rice, along with some protein and fruit (and almost never vegetables). Sam can take or leave fruit (actually, usually leave-- he will rarely eat it, except in smoothies), generally eats but doesn't exclaim about veggies, likes meat, and loooves noodles and/or rice. Here he is enjoying some spaghetti (and of course, we had forgotten to bring a bib):




(Why yes, that is is a hot dog cut to resemble an octopus-- how did you know?)

We spent two days enjoying the baths and the town and taking short hikes nearby, then Tante G. and Onkel S. flew back to Germany, and we flew back to Tokyo and rejoined Obaachan (nickname for my grandmother) in Chiba. We spent a few more days at her house, doing a bit of shopping and relaxing and watching soccer, and a lot of playing with Sam’s soccer ‘baw’ outside in her garden. Then we flew back to Omi and Opa’s house in Minnesota. I packed the Benadryl in the wrong bag, though, so was very glad when Sam fell asleep 6 hours into the (12-hour) flight.

After an afternoon and a night in MN, it was time to see Daddy again and to move into our new home in Massachusetts! J. had met the movers at our new apartment while Sam and I were flying back to the States, and was going to spend the day unpacking while we traveled from MN via Philly to MA. But Philly was having such bad weather that all flights in and out of the city were grounded for half of the day. So we spent 4 hours in the plane on the tarmac in MN, and then another 2 in the airport late at night in Philly, with a bit more luggage than I could comfortably handle, after very little sleep, and with Sam jet-lagged, cranky, and needing to run around. We finally got into Boston at 2AM and were both very happy to see J. again after two weeks away! Sam burst into tears when his Daddy (Dah! Dah!) left to go get the car after meeting us at baggage claim. We were all exhausted, and Sam and I were pretty jetlagged (and also hungry) and going home to a new place in this state was less than appealing. Fortunately, J. had set up our beds, the new apartment is beautiful, and after a bite to eat and a hot shower we gratefully went to sleep.

The next day we began exploring our neighborhood, which is lovely, full of great kid parks and with some nice restaurants within easy walking distance. It’s also a short walk and even shorter bikeride to our offices.

Some pics of the new place and neighborhood soon to come, along with Sam’s burgeoning word list, in case anyone is interested what he’s saying these days.

Japan pics 1

So much to catch up on! Here are some pictures of Japan; pics of the new apartment (and also a couple of older ones of Sam at his Uncle D and Aunt S's wedding in May) to come shortly.

Sam and I traveled to Japan in June with his Omi and Opa, and visited my Obaachan (grandmother) and aunt. We traveled to Sapporo to attend my brother M's wedding. Sapporo is a beautiful city, laid out in a much more Western (i.e., grid-like) fashion than most large Japanese cities and thus much easier for me, at least, to navigate. Traveling there from Obaachan's house in Chiba took a whole day, of walking to the train station near her house (in pouring rain, with lots of bags), taking two trains to Haneda airport in Tokyo, flying from Haneda to Sapporo, taking another train into the city, and then walking (in more pouring rain) from the train station in Sapporo to our hotel. We had a very nice dinner at Aunt R's father's apartment, which Sam slept through in the shinkansen (cartoon character based on the bullet train) sleeping bag that R's mom bought as a gift for Sam. The next day was clear, and we spent the morning at the Botanical Gardens enjoying not being inside a vehicle of any kind:



Sam was so pleased to be running around amongst all the green that he had to do a little dance, and a few other visitors to the garden were charmed enough to take pics:



That afternoon, Opa went to get his sister (my Tante G.) and her husband (my Onkel S.) from the airport, Omi practiced violin for her performance at the reception, and Sam and I took a walk through Omori park, which runs through the middle of Sapporo. There were a couple of really cool play sculptures designed by the famous Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi-- aesthetically pleasing, large-scale slides, essentially. Sam and I shared an ear of roasted corn (a lot of corn is grown on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, where Sapporo is located, and vendors roasting ears of it line the park). Sam ran around the broad walkways, pausing to munch on corn, smiling at everyone he passed. Here he is looking serious (J. thinks this looks like an album cover):




The following day was the wedding, in a Shinto shrine on the grounds of a park where Aunt R. spent a lot of time walking her dogs while she was growing up. The shrine was beautiful, and the ceremony was a lovely pageant. Here's a picture of Aunt R entering the shrine in her spectacular wedding kimono, flanked by her mom and by Uncle M.



Sam fell asleep in his stroller, but woke up halfway through the ceremony at the sounds of loud drums being struck, and while my Tante G. rushed him out (so I could stay), I could hear him crying in the shrine grounds outside, so I left and went out to soothe him. Not long after, the ceremony was over. We all posed for photos, then went to a fancy wedding reception site. Sam enjoyed playing in the fountain. Here he is in the pants and vest Omi made for him, and the red bowtie she found:



More soon to come...

Eek!

Oh my goodness.. somehow it's been a month since I posted here.

And I don't even have any new pictures to share.

It's been a busy month: Sam's Uncle D. and Aunt S. got married in CT. I'm hoping we get pics back soon, as we didn't take any at the actual event, and Sam danced like a wild thing from about 11PM (when I'd given up trying to put him to sleep, and let the babysitter go home) until after midnight. We figured we'd pay for it later, but he was cheerful (and punch-drunk) and having a great time. He did get a cold a couple of days later, which may or may not be related, but there are only so many times in life one gets to go to one's uncle's wedding.

That said, heh, we're headed to Sam's Uncle M. and Aunt R.'s wedding in Japan in a few days. I'm flying alone with him to MN, then the next day flying to Japan with my parents (Sam's Opa and Omi) and spending 2 weeks there visiting my grandmother, attending the wedding, and traveling a bit. When we get back, we're going directly to Boston, because J. will have moved us in the meantime. (Well, the movers will move us, strictly speaking, but J. will be coordinating all that and meeting them up there the day before we get there.)

So, as you can imagine, it's a somewhat chaotic time, what with saying goodbye to everyone and finishing up work and packing for the trip and packing up our apartment. We've also said bye to all of the semester's babysitters, 2 of whom started babysitting Sam 9 months ago in September! We have been very very lucky to have a wonderful crew of Penn students watching Sam by turns; they have all been responsible, affectionate, attentive individuals. We're going to miss them a lot... they have made going to work much easier than it might have been.

I promise to update more regularly once we settle into the new place (and to post pics of the new apartment!) Sam dancing pics hopefully also to follow...

toddlerhood

Recent evidence that Sam is most definitely a toddler comes not from his toddling (though there is plenty of that). Instead, it comes from his increasingly definite opinions. We never really had the impression that Sam was lacking in opinions before now, but the past couple of weeks have seen a distinct increase in how emphatically he expresses them, and a corresponding decrease in how willing he is to be distracted from something he wants. Two examples:

Though he's been quite adept at getting off the bed or the couch by turning around and sliding down feet-first for a while now, he doesn't get many chances to practice going down stairs. So a couple of days ago, I tried to give him some chances, first inside the apartment on the three stairs going from the bathroom down to the hallway, and then outside, on the four stairs from the front door to the front yard. However, he wasn't having any of this going-down-backwards stuff; he wanted to go down standing up, facing forward, like an adult. I would tell him "feet first", and he would smile at me slightly, stand there, and dip his foot off the edge of the top step. I would pick him up, turn him around, put him down on his hands and knees, then coax his foot down to the next step-- and he would crawl forward, stand up, turn around, look right at me, and dip his foot off the edge again. For about ten minutes. So finally, I held both his hands and helped him take the huge steps down facing forward. Um-- he won't be left alone around any steps any time soon.

He also had a brief but heartfelt crying fit later that same day when I wouldn't let him play with the straw in my smoothie cup. We'd been sharing a smoothie, me offering him sips from his own little cup (to repeated demands of "moh!"), but he spied my red straw and grabbed for it. I tried offering him a drink, but he hasn't figured out how to drink from straws yet, and he just wanted to paly with it. I realized this too late, and he sprayed an arc of raspberry smoothie across himself and the stroller before I grabbed it back, stuck it back in my cup, and kept it well out of reach. When he realized he couldn't have it, he pitched a fit. At the park. With plenty of lovely distractions to look at and run to, all around him, and as much moh lovely smoothie as he wanted in his own cup. I have the feeling this is going to get worse before it gets better.

On the brighter side: his stranger anxiety is at a general low, and his separation anxiety also doesn't seem too bad (then again, when I leave him, it's always with familiar people like his babysitters)-- despite a predicted increase in both of these things around this age. So hopefully his upcoming new-babysitter experiences-- our May-only babysitter starting next week, and Aunt S. and Uncle D.'s wedding later this month-- will go smoothly.

Some new things Sam can do: use a spoon (it's a messy endeavor, and half the time the bowl of the spoon is facing down, but he keeps determinedly dipping then maneuvering to his mouth, and ate some baby food green beans all by himself-- an extra bonus, because he's been pretty uncooperative on the spoon-feeding front for a few months, so he's been getting all his veggies finger-food style); use a fork (though with a bit less success); take bites of something (specifically, a soft taco that I was holding for him); scribble with crayons; spin the salad spinner:




New words in the past couple of weeks: bear (which he has used both to refer to his teddy bear, and to request a reading of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", one of his favorite books); bird (another stuffed animal); baby; bye (including as a command, yesterday, when he wanted our babysitter to leave so I would nurse him); "oof" for woof (when he sees a dog while we're walking, he will often announce, "Dah! oof! dah! oof!"); "moh" for more; "wah" for water.

Final note: we googled snudge to see if this blog comes up (it doesn't, at least not in the first couple of pages of links). And we found, to our surprise, that it exists already as a word. There are a couple of old definitions (e.g., "n., a thief who hides under a bed in order to rob a house"; "v., to lie snug or quiet"), neither of which really apply to Sam. There are also some modern and, shall we say, not-family-friendly ones (google them yourself, if you're curious-- hi, Grandma!), which, ahem, don't really apply to Sam either. For the record, J. made up the name, as he has most of the nicknames Sam has had since birth; it was probably from a combination of snuggly and fudgie. Sam is snuggly only occasionally, usually first thing in the morning, but he's fudgie most all the time, though he seems to be stretching out and getting taller and less chunkalicious (but not any less delicious) every day.

Sam and I were playing on the floor today after I got home from work, and I'd given him a little cup of cheerios as a snack to tide him over til dinner. Having seen me help myself to a handful at the same time, Sam picked up a cheerio and fed it to me. I think that's the closest to an empathetic act he's gotten-- very sweet.

FL for Pesach

A couple of weeks ago we had a baby shower for Sam's first babysitter, who's become a friend (and is expecting her first baby next month). The friend who hosted the shower has a dog, and Sam was fascinated with her water bowl. Since the food bowl was empty, and the dog remarkably well-trained and tolerant, Sam was allowed to play in the water bowl while we cleaned up after brunch:



He spent a good half hour enthralled, scooping water out of the water bowl with a tupperware lid and dumping it into the food bowl.

A couple of days after the shower we went to visit Sam's paternal grandparents in Florida. Sam experienced his first Passover seder, though he didn't quite manage the 4 questions, and went to sleep before it was time to look for the afikomen. He was a big fan of matzoh balls, though. He also enjoyed daily swims in Grandma and Grandpa's pool, especially playing with the waterfall from the hot tub into the pool:



We went to the beach on our last morning in Florida and 'swam' a bit there. The water was warm and the waves barely lapped at the shore, and unlike his previous beach trip-- to Delaware last September-- he wasn't a bit scared of the water, and didn't try to eat sand at all. I'm guessing we'll be spending a lot more time at the beach in future FL visits. The only downside was that playing in the waves so exhausted him that he conked out afterwards for a good 2 hours, so wasn't the slightest bit tired for the flight home. He's slept on almost every one of the flights we've taken him on-- yes, we've been very lucky-- but this time he was wide awake, cheerful, and wanting to be mobile for all three hours of the flight. We'd brought a new book, and both of us read it at least 5 times, complete with many doggie noises. The nice lady sitting next to J. also helped entertain him. But we were still exhausted by the time we got home. This made me consider Benadryl for the upcoming flight to Japan much more seriously.

A final bit of good news: We found an apartment! It gets tons of light from all sides, has a nice little balcony and a great little shared yard with a patio and a garden. Hardwood floors throughout, in great shape, de-leaded, usable kitchen, plenty of space. It's about a fifteen minute walk to our future offices (and thus to Sam's future daycare). And there's a guest bedroom, so we're looking forward to hosting friends and family. It's funny to think that this will be the first place Sam remembers living...

one year pics

Now that I've got a bit of content up here, I'm going to send out the address for this site. Hi, folks!

We finally got around to taking some official one-year-old portraits yesterday. Any votes for the most-frameable? (Note: You can click on any of these for a full-size version.)





Then we came inside and did some finger-painting. Well, I did some finger-painting. You can see what Sam did. Good thing I thought to strip him down beforehand. He still doesn't seem to get the 'intentional making of marks on paper' aspect of painting, so I think we'll wait a bit before trying it again.



Tonight we had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, with salad. Sam had meatballs, and some steamed carrots (he had had a snack of raisin bread and O's about an hour before). Sam looooooves meatballs. We lost count, but he had either 6 or 7. These aren't huge meatballs, mind you, but for comparison, that's about the number that I ate. (And I didn't have any raisin bread or O's beforehand, either.)

In other news, Sam's definitely developing a sense of humor, though his humor tends to the physical: A couple of nights ago, he lost his balance while walking and sat down. This happens about once every two or three minutes these days, but since I was paying attention at that moment, I said "boom!" and Sam thought that was funny. He stood up again, then squatted down suddenly and very intentionally, and looked at me expectantly. When I said "boom!" again, he cracked up, and spent the next five minutes sticking his bum out or squatting, each time saying "oom!" or waiting for me to do so, then giggling like he'd just made the best joke ever. He remembers it, too: Every time I've said "boom!" since then, he's smiled, done the sudden squat, and said "oom!"

Some good news to close on: We found out today that Sam got a spot at the daycare we were most hoping to get into. We have been on the waiting list for this daycare since LAST JANUARY, when J. first got his job offer. Before he accepted it, mind you: we knew this would be a tough thing, but we didn't realize just how tough. We got on two wait lists then, and several more this winter when we realized that despite the 18-or-so months lead time, we might not still make it into our first choice. Getting in isn't a matter of passing any fancy tests, like those New York City pre-schools you've been reading about; it's just that demand is so high that spots almost never free up, and when they do, siblings of kids already in the daycare are given first priority. We really liked the way this one felt when we visited, and also, it's so close to our offices that we can literally see it from our respective office windows. And also, it's a co-op, meaning that one of us (i.e., me) will spend 2 hours a week helping out there. While this is a nontrivial time commitment, we both liked the idea that we'll have a really good sense of what goes on there during the day, and that the other parents will as well. So, a big sigh of relief; we were starting to think we'd be looking for a nanny next year, though we really didn't want to have to do that for a number of reasons.

hey there, cupcake

Sam had a cold on his birthday, and wasn't at all interested in the cupcake he was offered that day, or the day after. So about ten days after his birthday, we tried again. He still wasn't interested in eating it, but he had a lot of fun with it nonetheless:

one year old

Is there anything sweeter than sleeping snudge? He's propped up on the boppy because he had a cold on his birthday, poor guy.

test

test