Yule Sam

We got maybe 6-8" of snow last night, and some snow earlier on this week. Of course we will try to get Sam outside to enjoy the snow. Susan made an effort to do this earlier this week. He resisted and resisted and finally went out. After a brief time throwing snow balls in the creek he asked to come back in. It reminded me of my childhood--my Mom would always drag us out sledding, and we would whine and complain and seize the first opportunity to come back inside. Sam's a real chip off the old block. :-)

This week we got the tree up.

Sam was eager to help with the decorating. We also put up the nativity scene, which Sam was very interested in. It stuck with him--we were at the grocery store later and he spotted a display with an elf in a sled and Sam excitedly said, "Daddy! It's a nativity!" No, it doesn't have Jesus, so it's not a nativity. Soon we saw another display of presents and trees. "Daddy, a nativity!" Nope, no Jesus in this one either! Little by little he's catching on.

Susan was explaining to him that Christmas is Jesus' birthday, and (do all kids do this?) he eagerly asked if Jesus would be there. I'm glad I wasn't the one to explain. Jesus is sort of here with us but not really because he'll come back later and make everything right. Long story short--we'll celebrate his birthday without him being there in person. Who wouldn't find that confusing?

Sam's tired today. We had small group at our house, and he was keyed up enough that didn't fall asleep til long after his bedtime.

He wasn't being naughty--he really just couldn't sleep. At one point I was taking a turn trying to get him down. I told him to close his eyes and think about how we could throw snowballs in the creek the next day. Seemed like a good idea.

When Sam was still awake a little later, Susan went in to try again. Sam said "Dad told me to think about something to go to sleep." Susan asked if he'd tried it. He replied in disgust, "No, it made me wake up!"

Fun moment of the week: Susan needed to do some Christmas shopping, so we all went to the mall, and I watched Sam. I took Sam to a candle store--want to get something to replace the "no one's lived here for a year" smell. Anyway, they have racks of tea candles with a range of scents, and Sam had a whale of a time smelling all of them, eagerly picking his favorite. I bought three of these little guys and Sam had been carrying them around happily ever since. I even let him choose one of them and--maybe not a surprise--he chose a scent called "chocolate cupcake".

A final photo: Sam playing with buttons from Aunt Amy's button box. They became loot for the pirates to hoard and fight over. Thank goodness for little distractions!

Quality Cinema

Sam has, much to my delight, recently developed a real interest in The Incredibles. This is a Pixar film about a family of super-heroes. Frankly, it's an excellent movie. Lots of humor, tremendous creativity, and superb animation. It's got the look and feel of a 60s James Bond film, but is better than any of them. Tongue-in-cheek yet with real plot and characterization. It's been great to watch it with him. :-) (I know this irrevocably places me in the "lowbrow" category, but I don't care.)

Which has brought to mind a list I work on from time to time of movies I want to show Sam one day.

What would you add?

TV & Documentaries

• Ken Burns' Civil War series
• Jeeves & Wooster
• Foyle's War
• Band of Brothers
• A&E's P&P
• HBO's From the Earth to the Moon
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: "Manos, Hands of Fate", "Teenage Crime Wave" and "Cave Dwellers". Classics, all.
• Planet Earth
• ST:TOS
• Firefly
  

Movies

• Pursuit of Happyness
• Shawshank Redemption
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Star Wars
• Seabiscuit
• Chinatown
• L. A. Confidential
• X-Men
• The Apostle
• Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn
• Ferris Beuler's Day Off
• The Maltese Falcon
• Jaws
• Cape Fear (old version)
• Swingtime (but perhaps not the "bojangles" scene. Creepy.)
• Rear Window
• Big Country
• The Trouble with Harry
• Rio Bravo
• Princess Bride
• The Third Man
• Touch of Evil
• Gone With the Wind
• Twelve Angry Men
• Dr. No?
• Princess Bride
  

Sammy the Duck

Susan here... This morning over breakfast I was telling Sam the story of Jesus' birth: Mary and Joseph, no room in the inn, shepherds and the angel (had to make the angel sound a little scary to keep him interested!), wise men.

I thought it was neat that Sam could be so interested in the nativity story, but as soon as I paused, Sam said, "But tell me a story about Sammy the Duck climbing a lamp post."

Oh well!

Hallowe'en through Thanksgiving: Photos

It's been a long time! We are moving in two weeks, I spent a week at a conference in Dallas (where I got to see good friend Lars and his family!), and I am writing this from Columbus, where we went for Thanksgiving. Below are simply some photos from the last month, with captions. From Susan and Sam and Tim, happy Thanksgiving!













Aunt Amy visited in November; here she is with Sam at the Play Museum.















And here Sam is, exploring a plasma tube he'd never really noticed before. (Facing the other way is a documentary on the horrors of war, set to Stravinsky--I was glad to distract him with this!) He also played with a "connect four" game, which in his case is more of a "stack chips and then watch them plunge to the table while you giggle" game. At one point while we were playing a boy a few years older came over and stood very still behind us in the little alcove. He said nothing for a long while (except "bless you" when I sneezed). Finally I shot him a questioning look and explained that he was playing hide-and-seek. A real pro, by the look of it.



















Here is Sam with Uncle Stu at a playground called "Planet Westerville". It's a large wooden castle-like structure, and a huge amount of fun for a toddler to run around in.













And here's Sam with Cousin Emily, looking appropriately put-upon by being photographed!













Here's the Collins clan at Thanksgiving. The high point of Thanksgiving was perhaps the final evening before our departure. One thing led to another, and we found ourselves gathered in the living room shooting the breeze and watching Stu check the charge of nine-volt batteries with his tongue. Amy claims she was just joking when she suggested doing this to a fresh one.

No medical personnel were needed.

Oh, and there was the giant glowing inflatable turkey across the street which Sam, without prompting and repeatedly, referred to as a "love chicken". When asked why, he explained that it was "sweet".














And here's Sam with "Aunt" Carolyn, a long-time close friend of the family. She visited with us over the holiday and gave Sam another (different but compatible) marble racer, which has already been a tremendous amount of fun! Thanks, Aunt Carolyn!

No, Really

This evening we were at a potluck at Sam's Montessori school. The school is located in a public elementary school in Brighton, a classy suburb. Near the end I gave Susan a little time to eat some cake while I took Sam wandering around the hallways. While doing so we ran across a couple of middle-aged adults playing violin in a hallway. They were playing Bach's double violin concerto, even, and doing a very nice job of it!

Sam was very interested, and wanted me to carry him close by to listen. This alone is noteworthy, given the cloud of frenetic children he'd just been surrounded by. He wasn't alone: there were about four other toddlers sitting there for the impromptu concert. (Sam sat next to a little girl with chubby cheeks and curly brown hair who smiled and flirted with him.)

For a long time the two violins played simultaneously, but at one point, as dictated by the music, one violin was playing while the other was silent. It was at this point Sam looked over at me and said, excitedly, "he won!"

* * *

We've noticed that Sam has a good ear for music. The other night the three of us were listening to Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time on the radio. Being influenced by experiences in a Nazi POW camp, it's a little more existentialist and modern than I am used to, but we were interested to hear it. Sam referred to it as "spooky."

Well, at one point Sam and I went down to the basement to play a little, and you could only faintly hear the music in the distance. Sam, at one point, was trying to figure out what the noise was in the distance and asked me. I said, What noise? He replied by singing half a dozen notes of the melody, nailing the pitches!

Another time he identified Vivaldi's Gloria when we were driving someplace, because I had a tendency to listen to it when taking him to the zoo. After his third birthday we will be taking to a weekly music class at his school. I suspect, it being Montessori, this will involve wandering around and playing various "ethinic" instruments. Maybe it will help him develop rhythmic skills? Almost certainly he'll have fun.

Sam the Ghost

...or maybe Sam the Seraph, it really could be either.

Sam loves to scare himself. We went to a small local library tonight and when we came home, on the way in from the car to the house, he exclaimed, "OH NO THERE'S A GHOST IN THE STREET!" and we rushed in to avoid it. (Turned out there was a ghost inside as well, but these stories always have good endings.)

From Susan:

I tried to convince Sam to be a pirate for Halloween, but I knew he really wanted to be a ghost. I was worried about adapting a pillowcase for the cause: too easy for him to look like a KKK member! Finally I bought a very cheap ghost-type costume, and when he put it on, he was thrilled. (See pic at left.) I'm not letting him wear the headpiece, which is way too creepy; he'll wear a white hooded sweatshirt under the costume. That'll have to be ghost enough. When wearing the costume, he ran around the room flapping his arms in delight.

Back to Tim:

In other news, I asked Sam if he knew how much I love him, and when he said no, I told him I love him up to the moon and back. Then he replied, "Daddy, I love you to Sara's house!" (That's Sara Dill, beloved babysitter.) Then he looked up, thought about it a little, and realized that wasn't very far, and amended it, "way way far to the Play Museum cause that's far away."

And one last Piaget moment: A few days ago Sam told me that a duck is a type of bird. You can see the wrinkles forming on his cranium.

Monsters and incarcerated cookie cutters

Today Sam received in the mail a precious surprise from his Aunt Ruth, a set of new cookie cutters. You may note from earlier posts that Sam's been "helping" Susan make frosted sugar cookies. Well, Ruth heard of this and send along shapes including a pig, moon, heart, and various others, including Sam's favorite, an airplane.

Sam played with them constantly this evening. Even when he was allowed to watch Winnie the Pooh he requested that they watch with him.

When, after dinner, he went to play by himself, he came back, saying he was scared of monsters. (He had gone all of three feet from the table.) Then he said something we never expected to hear:

I'm scared maybe a monster will take my cookie cutters and put them in jail.

Hard to know exactly how to respond to that one! Feel free to add your suggestions in the comments...

Morning at the Raptor Rehab Center

Cold day today, but that didn't stop us from a trip to Mendon Ponds. They have a little center for injured birds of prey, which Sam and I visited for the first time. Saw several red-tailed hawks, a snowy owl, a bald eagle, a barn owl and a horned owl. Would have seen a bobcat if he hadn't been hiding.

I know, it's not a bird. They didn't explain why they made an exception for him. I suppose if you are the kind of society who keeps injured birds you don't pass up a bobcat when offered. Apparently his injury is that he was front-declawed to be kept as a pet. Also worth noting that their enclosures were all significantly smaller than those used by the local zoo.

Despite being non-profit they had a very well stocked gift shop. It was manned by a grouchy old woman who seemed very suspicious that we would "enjoy" their birds without giving a proper donation. We did end up giving $2, but not in the typical denomination. They give visitors the option of, for $1, buying a mouse. They then name the mouse after you and feed it to one of the birds! If you are there at the right time, you can even watch. I bought two on the condition that they not name either mouse after me.

After that, we were wandering around outside the nature center when a man in running shorts jogged by, towards a network of paths they have in the park. Sam was so intrigued that he wanted to follow to see where the guy was going. (Sam is getting more interested in automotive transportation too. Today he asked me more than once to follow one car or another, and he's still trying to work out why, sometimes, when the light is green, I still don't go.) So we followed running guy who was quickly out of sight, and just enjoyed walking down the trails.

In other Sam news, "Little Max"--the hand puppet Max as done by Sam--made another appearance. I looked over at one point tonight to see Sam's two hands engaged in a lively discussion. Couldn't make out what they were saying, exactly. I'm unsure if this is a sign that he is an intelligent boy with a strong imagination, or just a little loopy. As I understand it, that ambiguity remains until they head off for college.

So, to prove that he really does have some non-imaginary friends, I'm posting two photos of them: First, with Lexie, and then with Ethan and Elliot. Good friends, all.

I should mention we made a trip to the Play Museum and visited Sam's friend, Mouse Trap. I was amazed a day or two ago when, having not seen it for weeks, and then only once, he remembered how the marble moves through the trap well enough to correct me on it. Really, we don't sit around and drill him on this. I think he has a really good memory for important things like where marbles go under the power of gravity.

Brief period of fooling

Last night Sam, sitting at the dinner table while Susan and I were getting things ready, said, "I'm sad I'm not sad I fooled you!"


I deliberately left out punctuation because the statement sounded just like that. Our period of concern over his being sad was very short!

In other Sam news, he's become very interested in drawing paths. He calls them mazes, but really they are just curvy paths. He'll even draw them in the nap of the rug, and then ask us to trace through them from start to finish.

So, he's fascinated by paths through space--2D or 3D. (I think he has this in common with his cousin Kevin.) So much so that daily he'll bring me a particular catalog which has a particular "marble race"-type toy (very much like the one in the photo), and ask me to tell him again how the marble rolls down, and where it goes. I love that his imagination's strong enough that he's happy even picturing in his mind where the ball goes. It's unfortunate that these guys run from $80 for the smaller ones to over $100 for the larger! (At least, the wooden ones do.) We're thinking about affordable alternatives to get him for his birthday. Like more catalogs to look at.

[Photo credit: Amy took that great shot of sneaky Sam.]

Pegging the Needle on the Autumnal Meter

Today Susan was more like Ruth than I've ever seen her. This morning I walked in on her and Sam, and she said, "Look! Look at the tricks Sam can do!" She then proceeded to tell Sam to sit and roll over and jump up and down, and after each trick she threw him imaginary dog biscuits. He was having a great time. And that's what I mean by her being like Ruth: No one else has the ability Ruth has of inducing people to do what she wants them to, and somehow making them like it! Okay, maybe this is just a sign that Susan did a lot of babysitting as a kid (and was never overburdened with scruples about others' dignity). I prefer to believe the genetic link is showing itself.

That's not a particularly autumnal pleasure--more year-round. Today's wallowing-in-Fall experience was a long visit to Mendon Pond. Sam and I went, giving Susan time to get other things done. We wandered around the little sensory garden (not a euphemism for anything), marveled at the horses, threw things in the water, played in the playground, watched the geese get alarmed by other small people, rolled down a couple of hills, examined a grasshopper without killing him, got spooked by ghosts which turned out to just be pedestrians, tossed cat-tail fluff in the air for Sam to run through while giggling wildly, and sat serenely watching a family of seven deer graze nearby. This was the kind of afternoon which makes you think, "If Sam dies tragically, I will look back on this with unbearable heartache." That is, if you are a nutcase.

This morning we also went to the Public Market and got a heap of veggies and fine cheese. What a green day! Where are my berkenstocks? Where's my hemp sweater? Why is my hair so short?

The colors must be close to peak. Whenever I think of Fall I think of the movie The Trouble with Harry, since more than most it takes advantage of a Fall New England setting. It's also a hilarious movie. (Shirley MacLaine in a role which won't disturb you!) If you haven't seen it, you orta. Here's a conversation starter: What is inextricably tied to Fall for you?

[And Juli or Andy, if you're reading this: What's Fall like in Blighty? I can't remember! In the absence of sugar maples, do they have any color change to speak of? Do people still eschew the cities for fear of Spring-Heel Jack?]

Western New York's Dolce Vita

More autumnal fun! Susan took Sam along with Sam's friend Ian and Ian's mom Barb to a local apple farm yesterday. (Ian also goes to Montessori's Children's House--or, as we call it, Zeroth Form.) Surely this is the high point of being a part-time at-home parent: getting to wander around in the open fall air during a weekday afternoon! And not on vacation time, either.

I think the picture of Sam and Ian in the cornfield could well be a movie poster. It looks like they are about to enter some sort of Kansas entry into Narnia. (Where all the sows and mares and hens talk about the evil Witch who's running the slaughterhouse.)

Interestingly, Ian and Sam are about the same age--Sam's ab0ve typical height and Ian's below. It says something that I didn't even notice. You get used to that difference when you are 6'5", I guess.

The house of sticks was one of three -- straw, sticks and faux bricks. We liked what we saw but haven't made an offer yet.

Oh, for those following the Max saga, this morning Sam made a hand puppet out of his own hand, calling him "little Max". When asked what Little Max had to say, Sam had him answer "da da da", which I think is the toddler equivalent of "yada yada yada".

Gingerbread Carnage

Almost forgot! Sam's had a couple of books is his rotation where the Gingerbread Man gets chased and eaten. One is a retelling of the classic fairy tale in a Western motif, the other a story in which the Big Bad Wolf manages to sweet-talk the librarian and ends up winning not only her confidence but also a bag of terrified little gingerbread men. (I really hadn't realized until recently that we are supposed to be glad that the Gingerbread Man, fugitive that he is, is caught and eaten. I always thought it was meant to be a sad story.)

So he requested to bake some dough-people himself and Susan obliged, baking some sugar cookies with him, in the shape of people and hearts. He was thrilled to be able to participate in their decoration, and I understand today they will put icing on the cookies.

Ooh, too other unrelated notes:

• Sam was coughing a lot yesterday so I had him use the inhaler. To get him to focus I grabbed the first thing I could find on the internet, an 80s music video for the song Take on Me by the Norwegian rock group A-ha. It has its moments, and Sam was riveted. In fact, he keeps asking to see it again, and asking about plot points in the tiny little plot of the video. Susan's disturbed by this, and if you image Sam with big hair and a Members-Only jacket, you might be too.
  
• I've mentioned the sock puppet Max which Susan made to pass the time with Sam. And I've mentioned that Sam would often rather talk to Max rather than either of us, even when there's no sock present and Sam is just a talking hand. I haven't mentioned that last night Sam, at one point, wanted to talk to Max, and put his own hand up to his face to make Max! It was short-lived. I think the excitement of talking to Max is less when he has to also answer. If this all sounds like the seeds of neuroses, I suppose I ought to mention that Susan, who has grown sick of Max (and Sam's constant demands to speak to Max), is thinking seriously of faking Max's death.

Tim

The Goat Hotel

If you don't live in Rochester, you might not know about the Goat Hotel pictured here. It's at a local gardening-ish store. There are all sorts of other things for the kids, such as a maze of hay bales. Very country, and an awful lot of fun for Sam! And here's a trick--show up half an hour before they close, and you get in for free. :-)

Mouse Trap

Sunday Sam and I went to the Strong Museum of Play. This time he was eager to go to the museum's collections upstairs, to show them to Max (the literal hand puppet--see earlier posts). This collection is row upon row of glass cases, and we ended up lingering in the row which had Twister, Atari game machines, Rock-em Sock-em Robots, and many other games... including Mouse Trap.

Now, Sam loves anything that involves balls rolling down chutes or tubes or what have you. We have a "marble racer" which he has spent a huge amount of time with (though mostly we build and he plays). So he was immediately fascinated by Mouse Trap. The curators have the game set up just as is shown in this photo. We spent a good 15-20 minutes just sitting in front of this glass case, until the museum closed, Sammy asking me how it all worked and getting me to describe where the ball goes and what happens next. He was fascinated. He also wanted to know whether we could play it and why it was locked behind glass!

His fascination didn't diminish after we left. Until we saw mommy, whom he just had to tell all about this, he kept asking me for the name of that game, so he would get it right.

That evening as I was reading to him preparatory to putting him in his bed, he asked me if the Play Museum was still open, and then asked--I think he asked--if the people who work there play Mouse Trap at night! Now, I think he's a little young to appreciate the game, so I am not going to scour eBay for a 30-yr-old copy. But I love the idea that he is drifting off to sleep picturing those museum workers huddled around Mouse Trap watching that ball roll down the stairs, knock the bowling ball through the tub and onto the see-saw, etc...

Sam the Menace

For a personal, toilet-related victory, Sam was given two foam swords as a reward. This is a very big deal, since he's immersed himself in Disney's Peter Pan, where swordplay is central.

So perhaps it was inevitable for him to calmly ask yesterday, "Can I kill Alex?"

Alex is one of our cats (shown here), Zoe being the other. They get along fine with Sam by virtue of their willingness to leave the room when things look dicey. They have coexisted reasonably well, occasionally even venturing into positive territory when Sam manages to pet one of them in a non-violent fashion.

The answer, in case you are wondering, was No, you may not kill the cat. I mumbled something about stewardship of nature, but I don't that that sank in any more than the other things I say!

Tim

Driving on air

We are into the "why, Daddy?" phase of Sam's life, and it's taking an interesting form of late. Occasionally he will ask us why we don't drive on X. X can be anything. So he started asking Susan why we don't drive on air, or on rocks, or on food, or on light. Susan handled them pretty well til the last, which was a little too esoteric!

Now he asks these questions to make conversation. Why don't we drive on cars? Fine question. Why don't we drive on people? He's asking because it's fun to ask, now.

Sort of the way he's always made conversation by asking "what happened", often at the funniest times. So, for instance,
he will throw a tantrum and then ask us what happened. Well, Sam, you threw a tantrum! It's like it's all a blur to him and he needs us to help him figure out how he got from the land of At Peace With Parents to exile in Frowny Parent Land.

Tim

The launching of "sammy notes"

This blog is for the purpose of recording the occasional saying of Sam, as well as posting the occasional photo.

This is for the Friends of Sam(uel Stuart Steve Collins). Feel free to post your own notes, comments and photos as well!

The first Sammy quote:

Susan's recently made a sock puppet, Max, to play with Sam. This has been a lot of fun, though it's sometimes exhausting maintaining an alter ego for Sam to interact with. But he absolutely loves having someone to tell things to, someone who (a) doesn't already know everything he knows, and (b) doesn't make him do things he doesn't want to.

Once recently he wanted Max but I didn't have the sock puppet along, so I suggested I just talk to him with my hand as the sock puppet. He was fine with that.

So we've gotten in happen of occasionally using a hand sock puppet to interact with Sam. Which is what we were doing yesterday when driving to the Play Museum. Sam was talking happily to Max (my hand), when he was quiet for a minute and then ask Max if he had a sister who was driving the steering wheel--by which he meant my other hand!

I informed him the other hand was actually a brother, and the Susan jumped in and started introducing her hands, cousins of Max, but then they became kissing cousins and it started to get a little strange.

Anyway, thought you might be amused!

Tim