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.