HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIG BOY

Its a busy day around here, so no time for a full post of the big day. But today Sam is 2 years old...a baby no more.


At about 9:50 this morning Chris was getting him dressed - he got away and came running to me in his "birthday suit." It was a bit surreal to realize that two years ago to the minute they handed me a tiny baby in his birthday suit for the first time.

Thomas the Train is exploding all over our house for the "Happy Sam Par-y" in a few hours. Lots of pictures soon!

Easter

I think that Easter 2011 will go on record as the first holiday that Sam really "got." Now to be fair, he certainly does not understand that Christ died and rose again to save us from our sins, but he does understand that there is candy to be had if you can get to those eggs!

Several weeks ago we received an invitation to a toddler Easter Egg Hunt. I wanted Sam to have some clue what was going on, so we checked out "Spot's First Easter" from the local library and read it a lot. It was a cute book, but I really think all he needed was to be told that all of the eggs needed to be collected and that would be that. We gave instructions and set him free, and he was a man on a mission. Much like when he works hard to scoop up ALL the sand on the beach, he wouldn't stop until all the eggs were gone.

And then he figured out that there were prizes inside. Some of them had candy, some had bouncy balls, some little animals, some stickers. All treasures to an almost-two-year-old. He spent the rest of the day asking to "see eggs?"

And yes, my son collected Easter Eggs in a reusable shopping bag, because Mommy left his cute little blue gingham basket next to the front door. Oops.

Saturday night it was time to prepare for our own visit from the Easter Bunny. To my surprise, he was very into the egg-dying process. He watched me do one, and that was it. "Sam do it!" was all I heard for the rest of the project. With each egg he took a moment to tap it on the edge of the cup, just like Mommy does when she is baking. Then he plopped them in the die and immediately went in to retrieve them. Patience is not his gift...no idea where he gets that. He was SO SAD when they were all done. "More gye! More gye!"

We had a wonderful worship on Easter morning, but don't go looking for any pictures of us all fancied up in our Easter finest - we forgot to take one. This was our first holiday that we celebrated as a nuclear family. No friends, no family, no brunch buffet. Just the three of us and a Honeybaked Ham. It was laid back and lovely. After nap we did Sam's personal egg hunt - this time he was more focused on the treats inside than collecting them all as fast as possible.

Don't judge me when I tell you that my son ate candy for both breakfast and dinner on Easter.

It was really fun to see him enjoy the holiday so much. It made me even more aware of how much he has grown up even in just the last few months - he was still pretty much clueless at Christmas. I can't wait to teach him more about the real reason for all the celebration as he continues to grow.

My Little Chatterbox

Over the past several weeks Chris and I have had the joy of listening to Sam's communication skills grow by leaps and bounds. Not only is he picking up lots of new words, he's using them more intently and, most of the time, properly. We can get him to repeat almost any word we say, and sometimes he repeats words we don't intend for him to say. Last night he spent five minutes repeating "Oh. My. Gosh." at the dinner table. Oops.

Most of the time things are still coming out as one word, which I can interpret as an entire sentance. A mother's gift. We are encouraging him to put two and three words together, especially when it comes to attaching a descriptive word to "please." Three words is still pretty hard, perhaps because its most often encourage during discipline. You see, I make him repeat the offense he is NOT supposed to commit so I know that HE knows why we are in time out. "No Throw Cup" usually comes out "no no ... cup ... no frow ... no cup."

Its precious, though, because you can see how hard he is concentrating. He is working so hard to get it right. I feel like I can actually see the wheels turning. At lunch today he tried 6 times to pronounce a word right, without my even asking him to. He knew it wasn't right, and wasn't going to stop until he got the right combination of sounds. He has always been one that is only able to really focus on improving one skill at a time, and right now that skill is speaking!

Not only is it fun to hear him talk more, its helpful. Recently amidst a fit of hysterical, inconsolable tears he was able to utter the word daw-per (diaper). Yup, raging diaper rash, but no poop in there. Would have taken us a while to find that one. Or at least it would have felt like a while with all of the hysterical, inconsolable tears.

Of course, it also adds a new challenge to parenting. I can no longer give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to disobedience. He understands, there is no question. And the word "no" tests the limits of my patience, endurance and faith.

But I guess I'll take all the no's, as long as they keep coming with requests to "carry you" (carry me), praises of "ni kick" (nice kick!) and recaps of an entire day is 10 words or less, that really only he and I can understand :-)

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

It appears that the "he's all boy" theme to Sam's life is continuing right on track. Of latest note: his obsession with big, loud things that move.

When we bought this house 4 years ago, we had no idea how the corner lot would serve as such a particular blessing to our future offspring. You see, on Thursdays the trash trucks come. Yes, truckS. The city of Houston uses the kind that only require one driver and have a mechanical arm that grabs the can, lifts, dumps, and places/drops the can back on the ground. The mechanical arm is only on one side of the truck, so it must make two passes down every street. We live on 2 streets, so on any given Thursday we can see the trash truck 4 times from our own yard. Once a month a recycling truck comes too...those days its up to 6 times. We spend the whole morning with our ears tuned for the sound. When one of us hears it, we announce to the other and both RUN outside as fast as possible (you can't imagine the disappointment if we are too slow and miss it!). I have now run out of my house in various stages of "ready for the day" in order to properly greet the truck. And there is one driver who looks for us now and is sure to honk his horn for Sam every week. Its really sweet.

The other unmistakable sound that Sam always has his ears tuned for is that of a train. We live a few miles from 2 sets of tracks and at certain times a day we can hear some train horns. Honestly, Sam hears them way more than I do. But he'll make sure I don't miss them. "train. Train. TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN." You must acknowledge the train to be able to move forward in life. One set of these tracks runs right behind our YMCA. And you know what? You can see the tracks from the window of the childcare room. Its like the Lord loves my son, or something. He now asks to go to the gyms so he can look for trains. Yesterday he heard the whistle in the parking lot and started panicking. We ran into the building and burst into the room lest the train be gone before he could see it. Good times.

He knows the sound of airplanes, too. Early on I started to respond to his announcement of "ah-peen" by saying "I see it!" or "I hear it!" Now he declares "Ah-Peen, I see it!" even if he cannot. Not sure he really knows what that phrase means. We also talk about Gammy a lot when we see the planes. "Gammy ah-peen" means that My grandma went home to her house on an airplane.

Its really cute to watch him get so excited. And I am thankful that I can use "do you want to get in the car and look for trucks?" as a bribe to get him into his carseat without a fight. But what will we do for our after-lunch entertainment when the finish the construction next door?