The advent of Advent

Sam and Susan sat down and wrote out thank-yous for his birthday gifts. Sam is pictured here sitting at the little desk we got from Stu and Sue long ago, copying down the letters from the fridge.

I should stop there and not tell you that after adding several designs on the page he was unhappy with one of them which looked too porcine rather than canine, so he threw it away. After that, he decided it was too hard for him, so he tried tracing the letters, and when that failed, he went straight to his comfort zone and designed original works of art.

Here are Sam and Lexie watching tv during a play date. Lexie's mom Liz says she loves to photograph kids while they watch tv, since they seem so quiet and angelic. :-)

Sam was a real trooper at several point during our long weekend. He naturally came along when we went to buy a Christmas tree. This year we cut our own, which meant trudging through the fields in cold, windy weather under the failing sun, Sam repeating through chattering teeth, "I'm cold!" Then Sunday after going to a playground I took him out back with me while I raked the trees hiding under the bushes and along the house. The leaf pile was too wet to jump in, so he just entertained himself while I worked. After that, I had to work in the garage, and again Sam puttered.

Then, when it must have seemed to Sam that he would never do anything interesting again, Susan swooped in and painted ornaments with him! They both did a fine job.

For the first year we are putting lights outside. At Sam's urging we are using multicolored lights. ("Multicolor is my favorite color!") We've always been staid, elegant, white-light people, but this amounts to a religious dogma with Sam, so we are willing to be flexible and give it a shot. :-) Sam "helped" put the lights on the bushes, even.

So nice that it was warm enough to play outside more than once this weekend. Yesterday we went to a playground I've mentioned before, in East Rochester. Rochester is mired in a depressed job and housing market--has been for years. And East Rochester makes the rest of Rochester look like it's flourishing. It's like it has its own personal cloud hovering above it. BUT, it has a nice large park, so I am not deterred.

It was worth the time yesterday. Not only did Sam have a great time playing with other kids who were there (they pretended to bake hams and pies and pizza, before deciding they were vampires and chasing me around). But we also enjoying visiting the nativity scene they'd set up. (First day of Advent, and it was the second he'd seen, the first being at the tree farm, which has live animals roaming amongst the statues.) Sam loved exploring it, but was a little alarmed when one of the Oriental kings tried to take a nose dive as Sam walked by. As the friendly (!) Ukrainian (?) grandma explained (about the wise man), "He's tired--he's been walking for a long time."

Come to think of it, it can't be too bad a neighborhood--no one's stolen the baby Jesus. :-)

One last photo: I took Sam to a wooded area behind a local elementary-school playground and we were delighted to find a HUGE leaf pile, clearly assembled by front loader.

Happy Advent!

A little morning chattiness

This morning on the way to school Sam was very chatty. I managed to scribble some of his statements.

When Max asked if there were bad guys in the jungle (a wooded stretch of road on the way to school), he said,

There is such a thing as bad guys. But there's not so many in our world which is Rochester. That'd be a weird thing.

He told Max about birthday parties and then noticed a ghost lawn decoration, and told Max that Hallowe'en happens every day (??) and added something I couldn't quite understand about how trick-or-treaters who are old go up to heaven. I almost expected him to say they ask for candy from St. Peter, but he didn't get that explicit.

He got theological at one point:

Sam: That's a weird thing: how do you go up to heaven? Do you just rise or do you just lie on the ground?
Me, shooting from the hip: You lie on the ground til Jesus gathers everyone, then you rise.

He thought that sounded a little odd.

When he noticed I was writing down what he was saying, he said, Write this down: I love candy.

The big oh-four

The big Sam news this week is Sam's fourth birthday, which occurred over the weekend. Susan did a bang-up job planning and executing it, and our great thanks go to Amy for all her hard work getting the place ready and watching Sam.
The party was a great success! Six of Sam's friends came over: Dan, a quiet boy with a great laugh and pleasant disposition; Isaac, the 2.5-yr-old son of friends Marvin and Nicole; Sam's good friends Lexie and Ian; and two girls from Montessori he really enjoys playing with, Alicia and Ariana. It was a very good group, and the kids all behaved well. Most notably, Sam behaved well, which I don't take for granted: that many kids, the excitement, are all a recipe for fussiness. Get this: his party was in the afternoon (2-4 pm) and we decided he would open his gifts from family after dinner. Well, after getting gifts at the afternoon party, he assumed that was it, and that he wouldn't be getting anything else, and he didn't make a peep. So when we whipped out the family presents later, he was overjoyed!
The simplicity of the four-year-old birthday is delightful: The children had a whale of a time playing Duck Duck Goose and London Bridge. Both games had some fun pathologies. For instance, at one point in London Bridge Ian decided to run the wrong way, eliciting loud warnings from the parents as he almost crashed into all the other kids. And many kids got so caught up running around in circles during Duck Duck Goose that they neglected to sit down! I think they would have happily run all day. That's the point, right?
Two other activities were planned. First, Susan procured a cardboard castle. She then strewed crayons and markers about and many of the kids spent quite some time coloring it, while others puttered around perusing Sam's toys.
The kids also played a fishing game in which they cast a line behind a corner desk and pulled out little prizes. The prize hysteria grew greater and greater until finally, when they had each had their turns, they swarmed forward, storming the desk. Only calm thinking on the part of Amy and Susan saved me!

Happily, the parents also had a pleasant time. I can only speak for the men. We did the next best thing to vanishing outside for cigars--we sat around talking about electronic gadgets. Both Marvin and Martin showed off their iPhone apps while I looked on enviously.

Thanks to all who sent gifts! And thanks also to Amy not only for her hard work, but for the multitude of great photographs.

A good game of "Pride"

First, the Hallowe'en report: I carved a pumpkin, with face designed by Sam. As previously mentioned, Sam dressed as a jaguar for the occasion proving that the free hand-me-down costume is better than the store-bought one, especially if it is more comfortable. Trick-or-treating was great: It was cold and gloomy, befitting the occasion, and everyone was hospitable.
In fact, even the kids who came to our door were well behaved and we have none of the teenagers dressed as teenagers (which I despise). Sam was in heaven for the whole experience. And thankfully, as he was just getting over what was likely h1n1, being outside in the cold for a little while didn't seem to exacerbate things.
Shown here is Sam organizing his loot. We did the usual: he collects candy, then we switch it (with his knowledge) for a peanut-safe batch we'd already bought. He did just fine in the trade and wasn't bothered at all. He's still plowing through it all, since we generally don't give him candy except early in the day, and if he's eaten well. And lately he's eaten like a bird.
Sam was helpful today in raking leaves, both during the bagging and in dragging bags the last dozen feet to the curb. And he had a great time jumping in the big piles. It hasn't rained for several days, so they were perfect for jumping. Shown is a typical three-picture tumble.
Unrelated to these activities: Sam announced yesterday that he wanted to play a game of "pride." What's that? You describe, and if possible demonstrate, what you are proud of. In his case: (a) choosing books (he chose a dinosaur encyclopedia at the library which he loves); (b) shooting (imaginary guns); (c) fighting (karate--his own personally invented version). We add to this things like coloring and painting. And he wants us to play as well. Always interesting to see what he comes up with.
On the subject of pride, he's just transitioned to pull-ups instead of diapers with his pjs at night. When Susan put them on him the other night, she tells me he looked shy and even ashamed, and said they didn't make him proud. She asked what would, and he said "underwear." She assured him that would come soon enough as he learned to go through the night without urinating. I know we're from the generation that tends to overpraise and artificially inflate egos, and we are always trying to counteract that tendency. And having read articles on emotional IQ, we try to praise him for hard work rather than innate ability.

Then he comes out with something like this. And we just want to hug him and tell him not to worry about his pull-ups or diapers or whatever, because we love him. So nice to be able to do that.

Our trip to Atlantis

Yes, Atlantis, or so Sam called it. Having heard about Atlantis in various cartoon shows, he was happy to hear he'd finally be visiting. He didn't seem too disappointed when it turned out to be above water.

The last week we three went to Atlanta for the annual American Physical Society's Division of Plasma Physics meeting. It was a real treat being able to go as a family. And we feel blessed it worked out--after all, Sam's doctor thinks he came down with H1N1 last week, and got over it quickly because he received the vaccine 1.5 weeks before.

Unfortunately, Susan came down with something shortly after our arrival. She's taken it like a trooper, though.
Some highlights of the trip:

• The hotel, a Hyatt, is built around a huge, light, 22-story atrium: The rooms all circle the atrium off of balcony-corridors and look out over the huge interior. And, to quote Susan,
  

  One of the cool things about having a little boy is you can ride the super-cool glass elevator to the top floor, then all the way down again, and act excited the whole time, and people just think you're being a good mom.

• Atlanta is home to the Georgia Aquarium which bills itself as the largest in the world. It has a huge tank containing two huge manta rays (the only in captivity in the U.S.), and four gigantic whale sharks, in addition to numerous other large fish, such as several hammer-head sharks. Susan asked whether they all eat one another, and was told they are kept well fed to avoid this; but as is only natural, the bigger ones do snack on others from time to time. The colorful and aptly named "porkfish" are considered the snacks of the tank! In fact, the docent said she had recently seen a hammerhead shark swim by with a fin sticking out of its mouth, not looking at all guilty.
• The Aquarium, however, was not free. It cost over $100 for all three of us (ugh). This included a 15-minute movie with 3-D glasses (the polarized-light kind, not the blue-red kind) in which cute fish preached about the importance of not killing the oceans, etc. etc. We were delighted to see they nonetheless sold tuna fish sandwiches in the cafeteria. The movie, in an attempt to drive home the 3-D effects, even sprayed the audience with water and blew puffs of air at us when appropriate, and dropped streamers on our heads at the end. Shown here is Sam standing with Domino the Whale Shark. Sam was truly delighted to hug Domino, and confided in me afterwards that Domino had stepped on his foot. I said, At least it was a soft foot, right? Nope. A valuable lesson learned: sharks are dangerous. (Btw, only grainy photos from this trip: forgot the real camera. So this is what it's like to be "in the moment" and not see the world through the view-finder!)
  
• A legacy of the Atlanta Olympics is the pleasantly sculpted Centennial Park in the center of town, just a few blocks away. We made several trips there to avail ourselves of the play equipment, run through the programmed water jets (stayed mostly dry!) and enjoy the stream and waterfalls. Sam also made some new playmates. Tonight it was a pair of Hispanic kids and their family. Sam asked them if he could play with them and they ended up chasing one another around pretending to be tigers. At one point Sam changed into a T-Rex and the other boy happily told him about T-Rex's "talons" and how they can sink into you.
  
• Also within a few blocks is a little children's "museum" (i.e. creative indoor play area) called Imagine It! It was, again, quite expensive. More expensive, in fact, than Rochester's Museum of Play, and a tiny fraction of the size. Susan wants to raise money to fly school groups from Atlanta up to Rochester's PM. Her goal is to forever spoil them for their own children's museum. Once you've tasted the real thing, you can never go back.
• We didn't go to the Coke Museum--not enough time, I suppose--but did enjoy the tower-sized coke bottle with the spectrally shifting lights. Maybe next time. Seemed cruel to take him there and not just let him chug caffeinated liquid, which I think might not have been the best idea.
• Even more than the aquarium and the other sights, Sam enjoyed a game of his own invention called "vomit" (we used parental discretion to change it to "bomb"). In this game two opponents try to toss a repurposed suction cup at each other. (There are more rules--you can't be too close, etc.). Yes, Sam's a three-year-old boy.
  
• The weather. While it was rainy/snowy/40s/cold/cloudy (i.e. "seasonable") in Rochester, we were enjoying mid 60s and sunny. Ahh...
  

This evening while taking the elevator up to the room, a plasma physicist remarked that we need more energy like Sam's in plasma physics. (I added that his is a non-thermal energy source. Ha! Ha! I should take it on the road--literally.)

Next year, Chicago.