Whatever that means

Tonight at the dinner table, Sam was agreeing to something and nodded and said, "as a matter of fact."

Then he paused and said, "Whatever that means."

Adventure Oasis

Sam and Kate had a BIG day today. They got up early, so we took doughnuts to Nanny, my 91-year-old grandmother. She really enjoys their visits, and I need to make more of an effort to get over there, so Tuesday morning we may start including her in donut day. She fell this weekend, and when we left, as I was putting Kate in her car seat, Sam said, "I hope you get to feeling better, Nanny. Maybe we can bring dinner over next time!" She thought it was so sweet that he said that unprovoked. He really has been asking how she's feeling a lot, so I'm glad he let her know he was concerned.

Then we met my aunt and her grandson for lunch and took the kids to Adventure Oasis, a water park in Independence. 12-year-old Alex was visiting from California and had requested some quality time with Sam, so we decided swimming would be good for everyone. I was so impressed with how kind and mature Alex was-- Sam is too short for the big slides, so he and I went down the lazy river for a bit while Alex was sliding. Later I mentioned that if Alex wanted to slide some more, I could take Sam to the playground area, but Alex said, "No, I'll just do whatever Sam wants to do. I've been down all of the slides, like, 4 times now, and I'll just stay with Sam." I was so impressed! I think they had a good time together. Afterwards, Sam said, "Thanks for coming with me to Adventure Oasis, Alex." And Alex said, "Thank you for taking me Sam." Such the polite guys!

Lest you think poor little Kate was abandoned, she played in her stroller with Aunt Carolyn while Sam and I ran around. Then I took her in the zero-entry to sit in just a little bit of water. She liked that so much that I decided to let her sit in the baby pool. It looked so deep-- 6 inches-- but she loved that too. She splashed a little and then put her hands right down and started crawling off. When she looked down, her face was in the water, but it didn't seem to bother her. She crawled all over the place. And at one point, she was flirting with a lifeguard and fell backwards into the water, totally immersed. I pulled her out and she just sputtered a bit and went right back to crawling. I think we have another water baby on our hands.

We also had swim lessons after all that, so it was quite the water-logged tuesday. They had fun, but we sure are tired!

From Jo

Jo sent me this report about Sam and Kate from today. (Jo is their daytime babysitter, mother of Megan, super nighttime babysitter, and friend):

We were playing “Our Favorites” game where I ask each child what are their favorites (color, food, favorite thing to do with dad, mom, sport, etc.) When I asked Sam what his favorite sport is, he said “Wii”!! I was thinking baseball, basketball, etc!! I also remembered that Sam’s favorite thing to do with his dad is playing trains. And as I mentioned to you, favorite thing to do with you is shopping!

He is such a great kid. I love his personality and it is nice to smile throughout the day because of him! Thank you for allowing me to care for Sam/Kate.

Jo

Fun Day

I guess I always update on Wednesdays, because Tuesday is so fun! Stuart injured his shoulder this weekend in the back yard, so he was here too. We went to the movies in the morning, and then to lunch. After naps, we decided to get into our swimsuits and play outside in the sprinklers. Sam had a great time running in and out of the water and Kate sat on a blanket and splashed in water I gave her in a bowl. Just goes to show you don't need a bunch of fancy toys to have a good time-- I even used the watering sprinklers instead of the fun cartoon-character kind! We had a blast.

The third picture, although not too good, shows Kate's new trick-- she's up on all fours and crawling around now. She's not always sure about it, but she can really get around. She also has two more teeth on top. She's really trying hard to catch up with big brother as quickly as possible.

My big helper

Sam is such a sweet boy. Most of the time. Yesterday, he said two really sweet things without prompting.

First, Sam was taking a bath after swim class. As usual, I was trying to pick up the house, put away laundry, clean, whatever, while he was in the tub. I walked by and he said, "Mommy, thank you for being my mommy. Thank you for being my mommy when daddy is out of town."

I said, "Thank you for being my big helper!"

Then, again during my cleaning frenzy, I was carrying dog food upstairs and tried to grab too many other things at the same time, so I dropped the container on it's open end. What a mess! I was about at the end of my rope, so I actually stopped everything for a minute and said a quick prayer: "Help me. Help me be calm in front of Sam."

Sam came over and said, "Can I help you mommy? It looks like you could use some help, and I'm your BIG HELPER."

I'm so lucky to have a big helper around!

Sam the Inquisitive

Tonight on the way to Kidz Street Live, Sam talked to Daddy on the phone. As I was driving, I overheard the conversation:

"Daddy, what town is your work in exactly?"

"You have to ride an airplane (hairplane) to get there, right"

"And how long does it take to get there?"

"Whoa."

"Well, sometime we will need to fly in an airplane and come to see you at your work."

I don't think he's registered KGB or anything, but Sam sure knows how to ask the important questions!


Below I've attached a picture of Sam at Kidz Street Live last week. He looks like he's doing the robot or something, but he's actually playing his pretend guitar.

Toes

We had a good day today. Tuesday is my day off, generally, so we always keep busy running errands and having fun. Today we went for a little bit to Paradise Park, a children's museum and play place. We have a family pass now, so we can go for just an hour or two and not feel like we need to stay all day. Sam has such a good imagination and he really enjoys the Pretend Village. Kate and I sat in the pretend pizza store and she ate cereal while Sam took our order. He is so thorough! He went to the grocery store and brought back cheese and bread and he made us a pizza. Then a smaller kid brought in some oranges, so he took those out and washed them to make more pizza. I asked about oranges on pizza and he thought a minute before saying, "It's a very special kind of pizza."

The other funny I remember from today was when I was putting Sam to bed. I was cutting his fingernails (I swear his and Kate's both grow at an incredible pace.), and I reached down to look at his toes and he snatched them away. "Let me just look at your toes while we're at it," I said.

"Okay," he mumbled.

As I reached down to cut just one offending toenail, Sam sighed, "I was afraid this was going to happen." :)

Paradise Park Pictures

A bad mom moment

I had to pick up Kate from grandma's today and realized I didn't have the base for her carrier carseat. But, I did have Sam's old convertible in the car, so I decided we could use that. Before you panic and call social services, you should know that Kate's well past the 20 pound limit anyway, but fails the one year mark, so we keep her backwards so far. Like Sam, her feet are about to touch the seat backwards, and then we can flip her around anyway. But, I decided to see how she'd like riding forward on the now quick trip home from grandma's (about 5 minutes!).

She seemed to like the ride, and I turned around and talked to her at stop lights. But then when I'd turn back to drive, she complained. I think she likes attention...

Sam's first swim lesson

Sam started swim lessons yesterday. He loved it. He had taken "lessons" as a baby, and swims every summer at our friend's house, but I wasn't sure how he'd do without his Nemo suit. No worries. He was grouped with 3 other kids-- he was the youngest, but just by a couple of months. He laughed and played and splashed the other kids. They started in the baby pool, but ended up putting on life jackets and jumping into the deep end. Naturally, Sam was the first to jump. "I got some water in my face, mom," he said.

On the way home, Sam talked and talked about swimming and how much fun it was and how we should definitely go back there a lot of times.

This morning he woke up and said, "Are we going to swim lessons today?" I think it's safe to say that swim lessons are a big hit.

Kate's Cup

We are trying to teach Kate to use a cup. She seems to do better when it's water, not formula. Mary got her to use it some Sunday night, but she's getting better every day!

In general, she's becoming less and less interested in baby food, and even formula, and more eager to eat what we're eating-- cut up green beans, bread, etc. She is good at chewing, even though she has only 2 teeth right now. She's really slowed down on the formula too. I don't think she's hurting for calories, though. She's still a pretty good sized girl!