On Monday, as promised, we went to Drumlin Farm. There were sheep, including multiple black ones. We didn't get to touch them, though, so we're not actually sure if they're soft. (The rams were out in this pasture, the ewes/lambs were in a smaller field amongst barns with a sow+piglets ("Mommy pig nursing. Switch sides!"), a cow and calf, lots of goats with kids, and a bunch of chickens.)
The animals were totally eclipsed by the tractor, though, which pulled a wagon with hay bales. This was absolutely the highlight for Sam, though the strutting cock-a-doodle-dooing rooster was pretty cool too. We finished our visit with a picnic on the grass:
And here's an older pic, from Mother's Day on Boston Common:
Recent funny: It had gotten warm outside after a few days of cool rain, and after hearing it from us in the morning, Sam announced "it's hot outside" when we left for a barbecue in the evening. And then, after a bit of reflection, "Blow on it." (like we do to his too-hot food)
And he has taken to saying a very careful "Yesss" instead of "yah". With a wee bit of lisp and drawn-out final consonant, plus a falling tone (so not a rousing "Yess!"), it often sounds incongrously thoughtful ("Sam, do you want a waffle?" "yeesss") or even conspiratorial.
At the recent first birthday party of the child of a friend of ours, the father of said friend, an avid photographer, took lots of pictures of the kids there. They just sent us a couple of beautiful pictures of Sam... but his nose has just a wee blob of snot hanging out in every one. So last night I spent a Long Time doctoring the nicest photo. Check out my photoshop skillz:
For the past week or so, if he’s feeling mama-centric (i.e. wants only me, and wants me to himself), Sam has been telling Josh to go away in very specific terms: “Daddy go sleep again.” “Daddy go work again.” This morning as he was waking up as I was getting dressed in the room, J. came in, and Sam crankily ordered him “Daddy go pee on potty.” J., trying to be good-humored, asked, “Is there anything else you’d like Daddy to do?” Sam thought for a minute, then added “Daddy go poop on potty.”
On the other hand, last night when J. was wishing him goodnight and told him “I love you,” Sam replied “I love you.” Melting J’s heart, of course. When asked “Who do you love, Sam?” by J., Sam replies both “Mommy” and “Daddy”, but this was the first time we’ve heard the phrase, even if it was just repeating what he heard.
After his bedtime routine (bath, brushing teeth, clean diaper and pajamas in the big bed, reading books, nursing), when Sam rolls off of the big bed into his own bed with his sippy cup of water, we sometimes sing a song or two. Lately he’s been requesting “Baa, baa black sheep”, and as soon as I start singing, he interrupts. We've had this exact exchange 4 or 5 times now: me: Baa, baa... Sam: Wanna go see a sheep. me: OK, maybe some time soon we can go to a farm and see a sheep. Sam: A black one! me: Maybe there will be a black one. Sam: A soft one! me: Yup, I bet it will be soft. He seems satisfied with this and so we continue with the song. I think we’ll head to Drumlin Farm some time soon.
Sam got a pull-string wooden puzzle alligator from India, thereby increasing his pull-string wooden alligator collection to two. Which he spontaneously decided he should pull at the same time. He does this frequently these days, clothed or no...
(The soft focus is not me being artsy, it's me figuring out how to use different flash settings on the camera...)
Our (that is, J's and my) friend India visited us this past week, which was a lifesaver because J. was in full-on grant mode, and having another adult around-- especially one who really got Sam, how to communicate with him and entertain him and pacify him-- not to mention one with whom I really really enjoyed catching up on the 3.5 years since we last saw each other-- was very nice. She was preceded by Sam's Aunt L. and by our friend L., both of whom were similarly helpful and lovely to have around. Who could ask for more than guests who bring bottles of wine, cook for us, play with Sam, have ideas for collaborative experiments, do the dishes, help proofread/shorten J's grant, help paint a mural at the daycare, and keep me company? The past two weeks have made communal living seem, well, at least not as far-fetched as it might otherwise.
One of the nights when India was here, I had a bit of a sore throat, so we ordered pizza instead of cooking or going out for something more interesting. I was worrying aloud about the prospect of getting sick, so I. suggested soothingly that I go to bed early and nip it in the bud. Sam loved the sound of that and repeated several times, "Whip it in the bug!" I think I'm going to switch to that formulation from now on.
The next morning at breakfast, Sam was singing nonsense words to himself over his waffle. India: Is that a song by Sam? Sam: (pause) Bye, Sam! India: Bye, Sam! Sam: Bye, India!
In the week since I posted last, he seems to have gotten first vs. second-person pronouns mostly figured out.
More pics soon; in the humidity we've had recently, Sam's hair gets so curly that he really looks like his daddy.
First, some video of Sam playing mattar while singing happy birthday to himself. Let me know if this doesn't work for you (the whole video link, that is).
Sorry for the long silence-- it's been a busy few weeks. We went to a Seder, painted some Easter eggs, went to a couple of 2nd birthday parties (daycare classmates) and a couple of first birthday parties, got a mortgage. J. and I are mostly finished with our teaching for the semester, though there are still term papers to grade, and finals to write, give, and grade. And J. has a grant due later this month and has been working on it during most of his waking hours, which means I pick up just about everything else, Sam and home-wise (so it's a good thing I put off submitting my next grant til the fall). So it's been a bit crazy. But it's finally getting warm enough to spend long days outside, and Sam and I, at least, have been doing a lot of that.
Recent trip to the arboretum:
(Not sure why these are so blurry; I obviously have to read the manual to figure out my new-ish camera.)
Sam likes to point out all the blooming trees and flowers that he knows the names of (Forsythia! Daffodils! Magnolia!). We take lots of walks around the neighborhood, but he's not a big fan of riding on his new tricycle. This is a combination of not being quite able to work the pedals, and apparently not liking the passivity of being pushed on it (so much for the pricy pushbar features; hopefully he'll change his mind). So he can often be seen pushing his trike down the sidewalk, stretching up to reach the handle of the pushbar.
Alligator! Two weekends ago we went to our town's Science Festival, where most of the displays and activities were a bit over Sam's comprehension level, but petting a baby alligator was definitely not (the poor thing had electric tape around its snout, but otherwise toddlers wouldn't have been allowed near it!): (You can see he's being photographed; he may have been in a local paper, but I couldn't find a copy anywhere. Oh well.)
Chatty boy Sam's all about sentences these days, often catching us by surprise with phrases he seems to have absorbed whole (and is often using correctly) from who-knows-where. Example: tonight after I put him to bed but had forgotten to bring a cup of water, so was filling one for him in the kitchen, Sam calls to me "I'm waiting for you!"
This stuck in my mind because he's still very clearly figuring out pronouns. He asks, "Carry you!" when he wants up, but seems aware that there's something tricky going on with "me" and "you"; in cases where it really matters, he uses third-person (Carry Sam! or Need help Sam!). The other night in the bath, Sam was pouring water between bowls, cooking. "Making pancakes," he announced, and I said, "Mmm, can I have some?" And he said, "For me!" so I repeated, "Can I have some too?" And he smiled big and pointed at me (Mommy, that is), and said "For me!" -- he was making them for me, but using "me" to mean, well, me, and not himself.
He's still working on courtesy words, too. He knows, but usually forgets, to include "please" with requests, and when prompted for a thank-you, he often says "please" instead. When he's very motivated, he'll sometimes come out with combinations like "please, thank-you, welcome, sorry!"
Sam's also fond of jokes these days; one of his teachers reports that Sam specifically asks him for jokes. Sam's thought the words "pickle" and "bagel" were hilarious all by themselves for a while now, possibly due to a couple of silly pickle or bagel-focused books at daycare. More recently, his jokes usually take the form of word play; he and J. somehow latched onto a few nonsense words that they play with, like "bedeezle", which becomes "besnoozle" etc. in many back-and-forths, and Sam will randomly burst out "bedoozer!" when he's feeling silly. He also likes to substitute consonants; he cracked himself up for about five minutes while we were walking home the other night, having called out "Daxi dab!" for a taxi cab, and then repeating to himself over and over (and over and over and over again), "daxi dab" and cackling. And recently he's begun pointing and announcing something he seems to see ("(gasp)! Bobcat!"), making me ask where ("A Bobcat? where? I don't see it!") and then grinning and shaking his head, saying "nooo".
This is after a few weeks of picking up the sounds of words he liked and repeating them over and over, interspersed with "funny word!" For example, once I thought he had diarrhea (falsely, it turned out), and asked him if he did, and on and off for the rest of the day he repeated the word to himself: "Diarrhea! funny word."
Wandering snudge At home, now and then, he'll pick up a bag, sling it over his shoulder, and announce, "g'bye!" while walking off across the living room. He'll announce it again and again, with the same inflection each time, looking back over his shoulder, until someone says, "Bye Sam! Where are you going?" He always gives one of 5 answers: "To Boston!" or "To the museum!" or "Punjabi Dhaba!" (nearby Indian restaurant) or "going to a restaurant!" or, if he's spoken to Grandma and Grandpa recently, "Going Florida!"
Table manners Sam's getting pretty good at using a "big cup" (i.e. non-sippy), though away from the table we stick to the kinds with the tops.
And he still loves to eat. Here he is shoveling in some beef saag (successful recent foray back into Indian cooking on my part, and part of a recent experiment in prepping a week's worth of meals on Sunday; note the yogurt! he's not allergic to dairy-- or soy or eggs-- after all, we recently confirmed):
And to close... Sam enthroned in a carved stump near our apt:
