I also hope it brings Sam’s upper canines, and fast. We had a brief break from the crappy sleep and drool over the holidays after the bottom two broke through, but the nasties came back with a vengeance after a week or so as the top ones starting making their presence known. Grr. All those sleep experts who claim teething doesn’t interfere with sleep should spend a night in our house... or a week. We have been alternating between Motrin and Tylenol (only because the Motrin label says not to use for more than 10 consecutive days). If we skip a night, as often as not, sleep goes to hell, so it does seem like he’s in pain (it’s not like Motrin has any narcotic effects, though come to think of it, maybe that would help). He also occasionally moans, "teeth hurt" or "mouth hurts," (as distinct from the belly-arching, screaming "tummy hurt" of gas, which he's also cried once). I still remember getting my last set of molars at 12 years (not including the wisdom teeth, which were removed before they got too troublesome), and remember the ache and the pressure and the feeling that I needed to gnaw on something to relieve the pain, and I distinctly remembering understanding why babies got so fussy when they were teething. It does hurt (duh). So, hopefully it will be over soon, and the last set of baby teeth (2-year molars) won't come knocking for a few months.
Another month between posts, another long post (and I’m saving 1/3 of the stuff for the next one!). And just one picture, because we forgot to bring the camera when we went to visit Omi and Opa for Christmas (just brought the videocamera—so we did get video of him opening gifts, just not still shots, and we did the same thing at Chanukah because, ahem, only one of us ever wants to be operating a camera). I have to figure out how to post video here.
Conversation of a recent bedtime:
Sam: Chinkaliddah.
me: Jack o lantern?
Sam, smiling, shaking head: Noo. Chinkaliddah! Chinkaliddah!
me: ?? Oh! Twinkle little star!
Sam, smiling: Eh (he never seems to say yes.)
I oblige while Sam lies down getting sleepy.
But as soon as I wind down, he starts again.
Sam: Om-donna-ha-fahm, e-i-e-i-o!
(at least the e-i-e-i-o gives it away)
me: Old Macdonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o
Sam: horse!
me: And on his farm he had a...
Sam (in key): horse
me: e-i-e-i-o. With a ne-e-igh here and a ne-e-i-igh there...
and so on through every animal on the farm and then some, all supplied by Sam, who also usually chimes in for the associated animal sound.
Sam is really into the sounds of things. He’ll stop what he’s doing, look up, and announce, “Hear dog! Hear big dog!” or “hear firetruck” or “hear he’copter” or “hear big truck.” Sometimes I’m fairly sure he’s making it up, as my hearing is pretty good—and we can be indoors in the middle of a quiet evening when he says “Hear big truck! hear firetruck!” so maybe it sometimes means he’s remembering or wanting to hear the thing he’s announcing. One of Sam’s favorite evening activities is to listen to animal sounds online—I have several pages with great ones bookmarked on my laptop.
Sam also loves looking at pictures of familiar people online. He’ll say “See D__. See pitcher Uncle D__.” Or “See Omi” or “See Gappa.” etc. through the various people he knows and has looked at pictures of (not people he knows but hasn’t seen pictures of at home, like friends from daycare). We spend a lot of time scrolling through our iPhoto libraries with him pointing out all his family members.
Another favorite Sam activity is playing hide and seek. As faithful readers will remember from the last post, he’s been a fan of hiding for a while. He’s also taken on the role of looking, but in the same pretend way we did when we were ‘looking’ for him when he was calling out “Hiding!” from the closet. So whether he’s hiding an object or himself, the exchange goes something like this:
Sam: Where he’copter go?
me: I don’t know, let’s find it.
Sam: undah chair? (makes a half-assed attempt to peer under a chair) Nope. Undah yight (light)? nope. Undah table? nope (looking around for more places it might be but patently isn’t) Unda Mommy? nope. Undah Daddy? (Daddy isn’t even in the apartment) nope. (runs into living room, where he hid it) Deah sa he’copter!
Sam can play this game forever. Half of the time he’s hiding the thing under his arm or his leg. Another large percentage of the time he himself is hiding, sometimes reasonably well (in a closet, sometimes even quietly), sometimes just crouching behind something 1/8 of his size, like the humidifer, and sometimes just hiding his face against the wall. “Where’s Sam? Where Sam go?”
We celebrated Chanukah here in mid-December, just lighting candles the first two nights. The first night we exchanged gifts ourselves, and Sam got a baskahbaw hoop (and after repeated games with J. he now says “Sammy’s on fire!” when he makes a basket) and a beanbag pouf for sitting on, as well as a tropical fish poster. The next night we celebrated with Uncle D and Aunt S, had latkes and brisket, and Sam got a huge tub of mega-blocks (toddler size lego-esque blocks) from them, which he loves to dump out on the floor and build towers with.
We then went to Omi and Opa’s house for a week and spent Christmas there. Sam had by this time totally figured out presents, and had a blast at our Christmas Eve gift-opening. He didn’t have a problem giving gifts to other people and was conscripted to hand out presents to the rest of us, and was so enchanted with the toys and books and teddy bear he got, and most especially with the tricycle, that it made the whole evening for everyone. Christmas gift exchanges with a bunch of adults get a little dull: even if one gets lovely things, there’s only so much excitement in “Oh, a sweater! it’s beautiful, thanks!” or “Thank you, this book/CD/calendar is great!” and after a few rounds of this it all seems a bit forced and/or anti-climactic. But the same exchange interspersed with “teddy bear, wow!” (Sam has been adding Wow to things he’s either wowed by or wants us to notice) and his awed/gleeful climbing onto the tricycle—well, it was totally great. He’s not yet old enough to want specific things and be disappointed by not getting them, so we’re in the gift-holiday golden zone. Sam spent the rest of the week riding his tricycle around and around my parents (fortunately one-story) house, not with his feet on the pedals, quite yet, but getting reasonably good at steering while straddling the seat and pushing off with his feet. He also enjoyed all the toys my mother has collected from the consignment shop and the neighborhood charity rummage sale. I got to go shopping with my friend D while Omi stayed with Sam (and D’s dad stayed with her 3 kids), J. got to write mostly uninterrupted for the whole week, and J. and I got our annual Xmas-gift massages while Omi watched Sam yet again. Good times were had by all.
One photo to end, the same theme as the photo ending the last post:
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