Our Baby Size Life!

Posts Tagged ‘Samuel’

My little Xmas Elf!

Well we are now in December and the season is upon us and so far, Sam has not disappointed.  Melissa and I really get into the spirit of things, as you can see on the left, and we love the goodwill that flows this time of year… Too bad it’s not year round eh? Now I realize that this isn’t the first Christmas we’ve had with Sam, but this year he is much more aware and active than his younger self was last year. This is a huge difference for us, not only the way it brings us back to our own childhoods and the innocent wonder of the season, but also on a level of parent alertness that was previously, seemingly, dormant. Take for instance, the Christmas tree…  Continue reading here…

Last Saturday morning, we took Sam to his first “official” swimming lesson. It was official because we don’t count those times last summer that we threw him around in the various pools we’ve visited. Sam loves the water, so much so it’s a little scary.  He doesn’t yet recognize the danger water could have, so we are happy, yet weary, of his enthusiasm around large bodies of water: he has no fear.  Melissa saw this and suggested we sign him up at the local college pool center for some lessons. I thought this was a pretty neat idea, and folks, Melissa is full of them!

Now, saying that we went and had a good time would be summarizing things up from Sam’s point of view, not from an adults point of view…  Sam gets a fun car ride, wears a funky-cool body glove like bathing suit, plays with Dad in the pool and gets all the attention of the cute life guards… Nice work if you can get it.

Continue reading about how Dad fared here…

As you may or may not know (read the story here), Sam is now out of his crib.  He took a swan dive during a faithful night in October that sealed the deal on the crib, and made us hastily introduce him to the world of ‘Big Boy Beds’. Well actually, his new kiddy bed is on order and we should get it next week.  Meanwhile, the little stinker is camping it out in the backyard shed.  Now I know you may be freaking out a little over this, but trust me, we thought of everything… Right down to the kerosene lamp… Taught him to light it too! My boy, sniff sniff, already a man

In reality folks, he’s just camping out on his crib mattress on the floor of his room and therein lies the problem: It’s too much freedom!

Continue reading here to witness the sleepless…

A sure fire staple of toddler entertainment for summer has got to be the neighborhood park.  Hands down, the easiest, cheapest and quickest of the available activities with which to keep your youngsters happy.  Parents love them for the previously mentioned reasons, and kiddies love them for the slides, swings, monkey bars and the sand! Bloody sand that gets everywhere! Being rookie parents, our first visit to the park was end capped by us arriving at home, hauling an exhausted Sam inside, sitting him on the couch and removing his sandals… that were full of sand!

Continue Reading about Sam’s sand smuggling!

Snoring...

Over our summer vacation, we did a great many things that were all pretty sweet since they were all a first for Sam.  One of the highlights was going to a local area zoo!  I’ve never seen Sam whip out the pointing finger fast, and as often as he did that day.  Every thirty seconds, Sam’s mouth would gape and his hand would fly up dishing out the point towards some beast of nature.  It was, to say the least and exhausting day for the whole family.  The crowds weren’t too bad, as we had gone on a Wednesday, but all the same, common sense and polite manners were rarer than an albino rhino! <Rant starts here>It’s enough that their ignorant arses  and over-sized, triple-decker baby carriages take up all the room, but when they start nudging kids out of the way to get that perfect view… Well that just grinds my gears folks!<Rant ends here> Despite the unavoidables of the day, we had a great time and the day just flew, F-L-E-W I TELLS YA, by.  As you can see from the pic, Sam was out cold eight seconds after we strapped him into his car seat for the forty minute ride home. Once home, we unpacked him and brought him up to his bed without hearing a peep from him, and he slept for another 2 hours afterward

Continue reading to see what pooped out Sam!

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!

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.