Mistake

I handed Sam an enormous pump bottle of moisturizer today and then turned my back. Big mistake. Well, at least we are both well moisturized now.

Sam vs. the pronoun

Sam has started to speak in small phrases, but the idea of the proper designation of pronouns is still a mystery to him. He reaches for me and asks, "Carry you?" or points to my food at dinner and says, "Eat mine?" THis makes perfect sense if you think about the questions I ask him - "Oh, would you like me to carry you?" "Do you want my food?" It'll be interesting to see when it clicks that the pronouns I use are different for him.

We actually get to go out tonight! A (very nice) co-worker of Mark's offered to babysit for us for FREE. She came over for dinner with her boyfriend, and Sam and she got along smashingly - he even wanted to kiss and hug her. It probably helped that she brought him a Superman car. We're going to let Sam just stay up unless he falls asleep, since I know he'll just motor around anyway until he absolutely has to go to bed, and I don't want her to deal with needing to get him to sleep. We're going to rent "Cars" for them to watch together, and if he falls asleep, great. If not, we'll have a very wired and tired toddler on our hands when we get home around 10. Yeah, I know, party on.

Drool

Yup, it's teething. Plus a cold. Yuck. Sam keeps two fingers in his mouth all day and drools like it's his job. I've heard that these molars are the worst, so we're bracing ourselves.

In other news, he got a new haircut! Super cute.

My favorite time of day

This morning, Sam actually slept in without me! There are two amazing things about this. First, it means that I was well-rested enough to get out of bed before I had to. Second, it means that Sam nursed this morning, turned over, and went back to sleep without me! I didn't have the guts to get in the shower, but I did leisurely go about other morning routine things, threw some laundry in the machine, tidied up...heaven.

And when Sam did wake up, he was delightfully fun. He sat up with his sleepy stick-up hair, and started telling me about the room. Everything he says right now ends in a question mark. (Pointing to the closet)"Clothes?" (Pointing at toy chest) "Animals?" We chat about the room, then, "Mama new glasses?" Pointing at my face. "Why yes, I did pick up my new glasses yesterday, Sam, thank you for noticing!" "Daddy truck work?" "Yeah, Sam, it's Monday so Daddy went to work in the truck." We look out the window to confirm, and the sun is shining brightly on the frosty ground - looks like it will be a beautiful day.

Then, we had a shower experience that was pretty much the opposite of my previous post, with Sam peacefully playing with his truck on the landing while I stood in the scalding water much longer than usual.

After we got dressed, Sam zeroed in on a recent favorite activity. He has this big cube toy that has something like a turntable on the top that goes aroud when you press a button, and it comes with about 6 plastic blocks. He tries to stack the blocks as high as he can before they fall, and if he makes it, he presses the button to see if the stack will go around on the turntable without tumbling. This usually has resulted in fits of frustration, but this morning he got it up to five, and it stayed steady! He was so proud that he came over and got my attention, and pointed to it, and I duly applauded and cheered. He looked so pleased with himself!

However...he's been sticking his hand into the back of his mouth, and a friend suggested that it might be the onset of new molars. This peace may be short-lived.

Mr. Independent

Sam has gotten more and more particular about how things are done around here - namely, that he do them. If I'm sitting in the wrong place to nurse, standing in his way, or (God forbid) pushing something with wheels for him, I am told in no uncertain terms to "Move!" This streak developed in a whole new and surprising direction yesterday.

Nap time arrived, and Sam was having none of it. I was holding him in his bed hoping that he's stop moving long enough to realize that he was tired when it happened.

"Go 'way, mommy! Go 'way!" he cried, pushing at my chest. I was kind of tired of him, too, at this point, so I thought, "Fine! We'll just see how he likes THIS." And I got up and left the room.

Not quite the result I thought. I left the door open a crack so I could spy on him, and he happily sat on his bed and looked at a few books, climbed up on our bed, found a few cars to look at...no crying, no tantrum, no nothing! I couldn't believe it. I pushed the door open a bit more, and rather than the tears and arm reaching upon my appearance, Sam smiled and called to me like it was time to come in for dinner: "MOOOO-meeee!" Still a little dumbstruck, I didn't come running. So he tried something else: "KAAA-ate!" Where did he learn that??

I told Mark the story later (mostly to get him to laugh at Sam calling me Kate), and I got as far as the "Go 'way, Mommy" when Mark said, "Wow, that must have been really hard for you." At which point I welled up. Yeah, yeah it was.

The littlest campaigner

Sam, Mark and I went to the 6th Avenue Bar and Grill before my performance last night to meet and greet a few other McCain supporters. We got this cute pictureof the president of Babies for McCain with his mother.

Reading

Sam finally lets me read to him! We can lay on his bed after a nap with both of our heads on the pillow, touching slightly. I hold the book up above us and read, he turns the pages. I ask him to point ot the cat, the train, the car. "Read a book," he begs when I stop. "Gus and Sam. Read Ham. Read Oops," he requests when I ask which one. Such a sweet time.

He also reads on his own, which kills me with cuteness. He climbs up on the couch or bed and says "Blanket? Animal?" and I tuck him under a blanket and put his stuffed bear next to him, then supply him with a pile of books. He'll sit there for as long as 15 minutes turning pages and "reading" to himself. I've asked him to read to me and he'll point ot things on the page and tell me what they are. "Car. Boat. Baby." I love that for him, reading means describing what he sees. Some day, the words will tell him what to see in his imagination.