Our Baby Size Life!

Archive for July, 2009

A beautiful summer day is a rare commodity around here, so when one of them reared it’s little head, we took advantage of it. Time for some slip and slide baby!

He seemed excited at the prospect of the slip and slide: it’s thirty foot long, banana yellow runway glistening invitingly in the summer sun, with tiny jets of sparkling water jutting up through the length of the slide.  All of which ends in a marooned boat’s hull with large shark teeth looming over the end of the slide.  Looks like fun! He’s was dancing in the grass just watching me set up the thing. His little feet stamping and his arms waving all about.  Why is it, people of the internets, that when ever there is a big summer toy to inflate, the job automatically lands on the father to blow it up? I demand we rewrite this rule of etiquette as we are long past the macho days of summer, strutting our stuff on the beach and blowing up some ladies inner tube in one breath.  Out on the mother-in-laws hot, baking, frying pan of a lawn, I was seeing spots trying to get this stupid shark mouth inflated! Sigh…

I finally set everything up just like it should be: the landing strip is flat and bump-less, the shark and sprinklers are spitting water at just the right strength to land on the landing strip, and the shark and boat hull are inflated nicely to cushion the impact of sliding kiddies.  We are ready to go!

Continue reading here to see how Sam does…

Sam and I were alone together in the house last week, which might be cause for alarm as we do some pretty cooky things when Mom’s out.    While feeding Sammy-boy his supper, I noticed he was in a giggling mood. Everything I did, he would giggle.  So, naturally, like any concerned parent, I checked his milk and food for any traces of wacky tabacky, but no, it was clean. I guess he was just in a funny mood, which is not odd for him, just surprising at that time because when he’s eating, it’s usually all business until he’s full.

The setup is pretty simple, Sam’s in his high-chair and I’m jumping out from behind a wall while making funny faces and noises I don’t do when Mom’s around Enjoy! Oh and pardon my big arse at the end of the clip.

Keep laughing people! Blog ya soon!

Hey Mr. Gainey! I’ve got your big, hard-checking center right here!!! At 2 feet, 7 inches and 25 lbs, he’s the real deal! He’s part Canadian and part Irish, so you know he’ll bust some teeth and apologize for it after!!  He’s already a mean drinker: 25 ounces of 3.25% a day!!!  He will win you your Cup!

So pay up!!!  Seven or eight million should do it…

Witness his mad skills!!!! Click the pics below!

Our friends Dan and Anna Maria invited us over to their house on a nice hot sunny day to get in a little pool action and, more importantly, to celebrate the birthdays of their two children, which are relatively close together.  We had some great fun and Sammy got a chance to mingle with friends in a non-day care setting. Instead of a dozen little energizer kiddies running around, he’d have to watch out for only two.   As our gift to the birthdays kids, we brought them the inflated pool/shower/slide/basketball hoop/ring toss/bright orange thing in the pics below.  Dan brought out his compressor and blew the thing up in a matter of seconds, which was nice, because I was passing out just getting the stupid basketball inflated.  The kids had a great time and so did we, watching them throw themselves around in this thing.  Sam also got to live out a life long dream of mine: he rode a dolphin! Lucky kid!

You’ll also notice in the pictures, Sam was wearing a bright red body suit with build in flotation devices.  He looked like a mini super hero, all buffed up from the padding! Alas, he didn’t behave like one, as the older kids were a little too rambunctious for him when he tried to get into the kiddie pool.  So explains the pic of Sam hugging his Mom.  But fun was yet to be had as I swept him up and took him into the big pool where he had his faithful encounter with the dolphin.

Continue reading and check out the dolphin here!

Two-Face!

Funny times these last two months, Sam’s 15th and 16th among us.  Now more than ever, he’s a little boy, growing into this world all the while showing us, as he grows, just who he is.  I realize he’s still figuring most of his habits, talents, likes and dislikes on the fly, but what a wild ride it is to behold.  Now he’s not a total basket case, he just has moments.    Especially when he’s tired, but I won’t blame him for that!  He’s actually pretty funny to watch as he runs over to his teddy bear to give it a big hug, then throw it on the ground and storm off crying because he can`t play with the blender anymore.  Or we can get him to giggle so much he drools, only to have him do the bacon dance eight seconds later if we walk away to answer the phone or something.

Heh, kids.

In case your wondering, the bacon dance is when Sam does these little convulsing fits all the while waving his hands and stomping his feet… It kind of reminds us of a bacon slice frying in a pan, bubbling and jumping… Yeah, well I’ll try to get some video of that, but I’m not sure Mom will let me

“John! Put down the freakin’ camera and give Sam his cookie back!!!”

Hehehe, yeah, that’s not going to happen folks! I do exaggerate a teeny, weensy bit when writing posts of course.  Sam’s is by no means troublesome as he actually quite smart and funny for his age.  We certainly can’t complain about a little, grumpy-gus face now and again, can we? Well, yes, I just did, but you get the idea.

Today, we went for a nice long bike ride with Sam jacked up in his bike seat on the rear of my bike. That stupid seat took me a full two hours longer to install than what the “super helpful and clear” instructions told me it would take, but I digress as that’s a rant for another time.  We risked the thirty minute ride under the threat of rain and went down to our local river to play on a little park-like inlet that sticks out into the river.  The road to this inlet, and half the inlet itself, is made from crushed stone… Like on most unpaved bike paths.  Sam has never walked on this type of stuff and of course, five steps into his rushed discovery of the area, he slips and falls.  Now I’d like to say he fell on his padded bum, but alas, it was more of a baseball-like, head-first dive into the gravelly dust.  Not only did Sam walk on the stuff for the first time, but he also tasted it too.

But that was the least of his problems.

Happy Scrappy Sammy!

As a head-first dive implies, his face first made contact with the ground and then proceeded to slide forward and undetermined distance.  Yeah, on his face. Poor kid. Mom picked the red faced, gavel encrusted Sammy up, dusted him off and picked what gravel she could out of his mouth.  He had scratched up the left side of his cheek and was bleeding. Crying some big tears, he reached for Mom and just wanted to be held… Heartbreaking stuff folks.  I swabbed the wound clean with some wet tissues and we decided to head back; because, on top of the fun we’d just had, rain clouds were headed our way. Perfect.

Luckily, we did get home nice and dry.  Mom cleaned Sam’s face up and he was fine the rest of the day, except for a big red blotch on his cheek.  My little Sam is now a cutie version of Harvey Dent, complete with the mood swings! This isn’t the last of his little bobos to be sure.  Sam’s a rambunctious little explorer in which bumps and scrapes are the norm of his daily job.  In addition to the cheek thing, yesterday Sam was climbing the stairs (with me following him, a lot of good that did!) and mistook the last step, smacking his upper lip on the wooden nosing of the 2nd floor. Ouch. A little bit of tears, a little bit of blood, a little Mom and Dad check up (all eight teeth present and accounted for!) and he was back out there conquering the house in no time!

Tough little kid. Nervous freakin’ parents!

Take care folks, and remember to watch your step!

The chair...

During the week, our routine is pretty standard: get home from work, get in the house, get some food in our bellies, get Sam in a bath and get him into bed.  It’s not always that straight forward, we do throw in some good old on-the-floor playin’ around time, but that’s the gist of it. And while we go through this daily grind, Sam has pretty much been nice enough to play on his own and let us prepare supper undisturbed… unless we forget to give him his cheese!  This kids loves the mozzarella and he knows when it’s time for it.  We have barely all shuffled through the front door and Sammy-pants B lines right for the kitchen to stand at the counter where we cut his cheese.  He also has a little plastic bowl that he goes and fishes out of his toy pile and gives it to the cheese-cutter. Then an impatient finger points into the bowl expecting his snack. Naturally, to keep the peace with his grumbling belly, we comply and drop in about a dozen little cubes for him to munch on. Sam likes a quiet meal, so he used to look around for someplace to sit while eating, usually in front of the sink or fridge, because he has to see what we are doing in the kitchen. But sitting in front of the sink or fridge is a recipe for toddler trouble.  So, the we bought him the chair.

Sam likes his chair.

We place it near us in the kitchen and when he gets his dairy payment to leave us alone for a bit, he grabs his bowl and heads for the chair. At first,

Just sittin', eatin' cheese...

we needed to pick him up and sit him down on it.  But Sam wasn’t going to take this pampering any longer; he wanted to do it himself!  Now I don’t have a video of this yet, but when I do I’ll throw it up here.  It’s the funniest thing to see.  He walks up to the chair, stops about two feet away, turns around so his back is to the chair and slowly walks backwards until his heels hit the chair.   Now, his reversing isn’t very good yet because he doesn’t look back at where his going; he looks up at you with a smile like he’s saying “Hey, check me out! I’m backing up man!” When his heels hit a part of the chair, his butt drops… And so does the bowl of cheese cubes! He’s missed the chair and cheese goes flying! We still find these little, hard and dried up cheese cubes under sofas and furniture across the house! He does manage to wedge his cheeks on the chair properly after a couple of tries. He then sits down with a smile and a new bowlful of cheese to watch us get his supper ready.

Hey! Get off my Dads grass!!!

On some evenings, maybe it’s the food were preparing or the pre-dinner conversation that bores him, he picks up his chair and puts it at the front door of the house!  Our front door has a big glass window inset, so he just loves looking out onto the world while scarfing his mozza.  He’s our very own little old man, guard person.  He yelps when he sees a dog or cat, and talks out loud when people walk by. He’s even knocked on the glass to get people’s attention, and when he does, they usually wave to him which is all he needs to flash back his cute little smile.  It’s pretty neat as a parent to see your child grow up and be so aware of his surroundings.  While Sam can only speak about five words, he understands a whole lot more!  And yet, when he does something an adult would do, we are surprised. Not through doubt that he’d never do the things he does, just astonishment at the fact that this little guy, only a year before, couldn’t even roll over.  Now he’s yelling at people to get off my grass!   Clearly, he’s letting us get to know him a little more every day, quirks and all, which is great! He makes us laugh cause not only does he do funny things like this, but he knows they are funny and laughs with us. My kind of guy!

Don’t forget to laugh folks! Have a great weekend… cause Sam may be watching YOU!

Checkin' out the neighborhood.