post-Easter update

Here are some photos from the last several weeks, and a brief, funny conversation between Sam and Susan.

First photo: Susan and Sam in their Easter best, in our back porch.

Second: Grandad, Nana and Aunt Amy visited the week after Easter, and Amy was kind enough to bunk in the family room, pictured here.


















Here is Sam at a Montessori assembly. They were singing "Singing in the Rain", a song he still sings to himself from time to time.



















Last weekend was unseasonably warm and sunny, so we took a trip to a local park (Mendon) with Ed Hull and his son Gabriel. Here's Sam on the swings:




















And here's Gabriel with his disciple, Sam. Gabriel is about to launch a hydraulic rocket, and Sam is protecting his hearing.

Finally, on Monday Lexie came over for a play date. Again, it being unusually warm, Sam and Lexie played with his water table for the first time in the new house.

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And the promised conversation:

In the car on the way home from Montessori a couple of days ago, Sam was singing something about "the woman brings me snacks..."

Susan: "Who's the woman?"
Sam: "You are."
Susan, smiling: "I'm your MOTHER."
Sam: "You're my woman."
(Then Susan thinks he repeated it, simply because She was giving it attention.)
Susan: "I don't think I like that!"--but Sam could tell Susan thought it was funny.

Makes you wonder who's running the Montessori program...

This weekend was much like the others: Play Museum, library and work around the house.

We were the lucky recipients of a parenting windfall. Usually Sam goes down around 8:30-8:45 with little trouble, and Friday he'd missed his nap, so we expected an easy bedtime. Well, while we were out that evening, the babysitter was struggling to get Sam to go to sleep, for an hour and a half past his expected bedtime. Nothing terrible--he just kept calling for her to bring him more stuffed animals, or what have you. He was simply awake and bored, and she was patient with him in his boredom. Very unusual for Sam, and we secretly were very very glad that we had a sitter that night!

The weekend highlight for Susan and Sam was probably the scene shown, where they napped together unofficially after Sam's nap had officially ended. Pretty sure this is what heaven will be like.

The highlight for Sam and me was probably reading books together on the couch (the locus of highlights). And if I can include a Monday event, it would be this morning when I had to go get ready for work and Sam put his arms around my leg to keep me from going.

It's not so much being wanted by Sam--he wants many things with little ranking or distinction, from love to crayons to Whoppers. It's that he's at an age where he is eager to interact. I think about years to come when on a Sunday morning I will have more time to sit and read a paper with a cup of juice while he's off doing whatever it is older boys do before church on Sunday mornings. Yes, more time to read will be nice. I wouldn't even consider trading it for time with toddler Sam, though.

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Other photos: Sam at the Play Museum's "life-sized" chess set (looking suspiciously like he's posing for a 70s album cover); Sam dancing with Mrs. Berenstain of the Berenstain Bears. (May I never again see her dance the Macarena!)

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A final anecdote from Susan:

He wet his pants (maybe because he was watching scooby doo?) -- hasn't happened in a long time. So we were getting clean undies in the bathroom, and I offered him two pairs of Lightning McQueen undies: one had a small pattern repeated all over, the other had one big picture of LM on the butt. Sam chose that one and said derisively, "That other one's for babies. Those pictures are little, those are for babies. This picture is big. It's for big boys."

SOOOOOOO CUTE! I could've plotzed.