Auntie Jane got Sam an egg cup for Christmas. I thought Sam might be more likely to eat some breakfast (he rarely does) if it was in the 'fun' cup. So I put some yogurt in there. The video shows what happened.
Here is another video from Christmas day of Sam playing on his new 'piano' that my dad and Jo got him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtnRm143fW0
Christmas '09
Although this Christmas was a little 'odd' as we had no family close by, just the three of us, we had a lovely day and Sam was totally spoiled. This will be the last Christmas for us as a family of 3 as next year the new baby will be here and Sam will have some competition!! He got lots of nice presents-mainly along the theme of trains and cars. He also got lots of books, DVD's, a 'garage' for his cars and and trainset and trainset table for his trains. He got the Peppa Pig characters, a 'piano' he can walk along and it plays the keys that he stands on, he got bath toys and chocolate..the list goes on. He was very lucky.
We had Christmas dinner at Nellies house which was nice for Sam as he was able to play with Lily and Michael. It was a very early bedtime as he hadnt had his normal mid-day sleep and was VERY emotional at the end of the day...infact the word 'hysterical' might be a better description of his state at 5pm.
Another mealtime related video. Here is Sam this morning having toast with a tractor. I tried to take it from him and he got very cross. He is really coming along with his words, I have no idea how many he actually knows but it must be over 50. He can also recognise and knows the 'sound' of letters 's', 'a', 't' & 'm'. He learns a few more each week.
Sam is still at the (developmental?) stage where he believes that if he closes his eyes, we can't see him. We often have to play this game for ages as he thinks that he disappears and reappears over and over again. I suppose we don't help matters by going along with it! Here he is last night at dinner time. I just managed to catch the end of his 'game' on camera.
Just another typical breakfast in the Brown household. Sam detests ANYTHING I give him and 99.9% of the time we have tears. I never force him to eat, or make a huge issue-but I have begun making him at least sit there until I'm finished. Who would have known that French Toast, syrup and strawberries could cause such trauma to my wonderful little bundle of joy!
Here he is 'before' covered in baked beans!
Sam has recently begun to HATE it when I try and feed him. Therefore his morning yogurt is now self-fed. It's interesting. He does manage to get 90% of it into his mouth but today he decided it would be more fun to tip the rest of it onto his table! He also LOVES blueberries- hence the purple face, hands, arms, vest and everything else! You will hear that he says 'too' this is Sam language for 'poo'. He now tells me when he has done a 'too' in his nappy (lovely!!) he obviously thinks that his poo bears a passing resemblance to yogurt-interesting!
Sam has an 'amazing' harmonica playing talent. Up until today he had no idea how to make it make a musical sound. Today he discovered how to blow into it. He was very pleased with himself. Excuse the messy living room that was in fact tidy until Sam wakes up and decided to dump out the toy box and pull all of the DVD's off of the shelf.
Here is my happy little boy who found it hilarious everytime Mummy 'kissed' the 'drumstick'!
What a slacker I've been!! SO much has been going on. We spent 2 weeks with Bryans family up in Ohio, which was beyond wonderful! Sam had the time of his life. He got to play in grass and see flowers and trees instead of stupid cactus. He got to see Grandma Cindis cows everyday and LOVED every second of it!
Then as soon as we got back we got the keys to our new house, and it was time to move (poor Bryan moved almost everything alone! it was a tough day!!) and then clean the old house, which took ages and because I had to do it during the day poor, poor Samuel had to be with me. An empty house and Mummy trying to get things done did not make for a happy boy! He had a very boring few days-poor child!
I'm trying to make it up to him though. Today I took him to 'Toddler Gym' which he absolutely LOVED. Tomorrow is playgroup and hopefully the weekend is the Pumpkin Patch -photos to follow!
Every evening Sam is so excited for Daddy to get home. We sometimes (like today) go outside to wait, every car that goes past Sam gets so excited.
Sam has a couple of new words recently: tree and hot. He seems to think anything plant-like is a 'tree' and almost anything is 'hot' (even if it's actually cold).
Here is the blueberry boy! He LOVES his blueberries! but as you can see, they do tend to make a big mess! We are dummy (binkie, paci -whatever lol) weaning at the moment, he no longer has it at all during the day. It stays in the bedroom, he has it for bed and naps and that is all. He was beginning to 'talk through his nose' as the the dummy was ALWAYS in his mouth, so we decided it was time for it to go! He will have it for sleeping for a few more months and then will have a ceremonious dummy burning in the back garden!
'Think about the carelessly discarded yesterdays-life moves on, kids grow up and if you don't know this already, believe me, it happens faster than you can ever imagine.' I Often nearly decline to play with my son, there is frequently something 'better' to do, jobs to be done, emails to check, friends to talk to but I need to remember, never again will he be 17 months and 1 day old so id better catch these moments while I can.
'Remember your sense of humor and, relish the toddler years, because like fingerprints on the wall, they will be gone before you know it'
Well, sorry for the long absence. We went to California - Catalina Island (it was beautiful!!) and our camera broke. So for the last two weeks we have been camera-less. We did get our money back and have a spangly new one. I thought id better post a video of Mr. Samuel. So here he is, not really up to anything exciting. I was trying to catch him pointing to the animals and making their associated sounds (he knows: cat, dog, tiger, snake and cow) but of course, would he do it for the camera?? that would be a resounding NO! grrr!!
Sam LOVES these building blocks that grandma Cindi got him. He plays with them daily (usually multiple times) and three guesses who gets to pick them up each time!! He has recently worked out how they click together and loves building really high towers. I caught him doing it today, he has no help from me so I was pretty impressed with my little smarty pants.
Here is Sam playing with Daddy and quite clearly signing 'more' (http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/m/more.htm) He is doing so well with his signing and can make signs for 'more', 'byebye', 'please' 'food' and we are working on 'drink'. If you listen carefully he can also say 'more' (he can also say: 'uh oh' 'Daddy' 'Hello' 'bye' 'cat' 'meow' and 'woof')
What can I say? My child is weird (he takes after his father in that respect) Here he is with a back massager in his mouth!?
Today Daddy looked after Sam for the afternoon while I went bowling with the girls, I came home to find Daddy in his boxers and Sam in the bath and toys all over the floor. Sam was as high as a kite and after his bath decided to spin around in circles (while Daddy danced-should have caught this sight on video really!!) I was also informed by Bryan that Sam had eaten 6, yes...6 fishfingers (fishsticks for the USA family ;)) and peas ....thats more than an adult portion!!
Here is Samuel today, minus clothes (its is 94 F!) although he IS in his wonderful, new-ish cloth nappy. I decided to make a concerted effort to cloth nappy Sam after I read about the hideous chemicals found in 'normal' nappies, and of course, to save some $$ and the environment! I have worked out that it will only take 4 months of using these cloth nappies to end up saving money. That is taking into account the cost of the new cloth ones AND the detergent etc used to clean them! I wish we would have made the decision to cloth nappy Sam much earlier, it really is SOOOO easy and they are so soft and look so sweet!! The next 'Brown baby' will be cloth nappied from birth :) Sam has all different colours! We LOVE them :)
Here is the update: we got back late on Thursday night, I was totally exhausted Sam on the other hand was not. The flight hadn't been as easy on the way back as it was a daytime flight and so Sam didn't sleep much at all. I cant complain too much though as he was still generally a good boy, even through our 4 our layover in Dallas. I have tried to add pictures here that are not on Facebook as I know people look at that too. The top one is of Sam and Nana at Great Grannies house. The whole family was so pleased to see us.
Grass!!! I never thought, as we broke through the clouds above London that I would be so, so grateful to see green fields and grass. I felt like I should kiss the ground or something as we got off the plane. Here is Grandad and Sam busily getting the bird food ready.
Sam actually got to wear a coat! Here is Az its shorts and t-shirts for 98% of the year, but in England we got to wrap up warm...it was lovely!
Sam and Grandad 'woof' during one of their many playing sessions.
Here is Sam this morning (early) 'reading' his book. He wasn't being very co-operative as he KNOWS what sound cats make (you can hear him 'woofing'!) he can (if you catch him at the right time) point to 'the fish' 'the cat' and 'the dog' he also can tell you that cats 'meeeow' and dogs 'woof' although he also thinks horses and ducks 'woof' too haha!! The trouble is catching all that on film as you never quite know when he is going to try and be co-operative! He loves books, I frequently think 'its too quiet-where is Sam?' and he is sitting on his bedroom floor 'reading' one of his books. ♥
It's so warm here already (we've reached up to 96 F so far this year) it's been in the 75-80 F region for the last few days and its the perfect weather for playing outside. Sam and I have been doing 'gardening'. We have lilies and snapdragons growing and we also planted some bulbs a few weeks ago and we have some sunflower seedlings too. I'm trying in vein to teach Sam not to pull the plants up and shove them in his mouth (as he did the other day with one of the sunflower seedlings!!) He loves to 'water' things (that is -play with the hose and try and drink from it!).
I know this video isn't very exciting, but I was impressed that Sam had the co-ordination to put the peg carefully in the hole. He had been doing it for a few minutes so by the time I grabbed the camera he wasn't that interested anymore, but I did manage to catch him doing one at least. He has had this toy since Christmas but I put it away as he seemed too young for it then.
Its SO hot here, Sams favourite thing to do is play outside-especially in the paddling pool. The water was so cold his teeth were chattering but he didnt want to get out! Lately he has mastered the use of a spoon and says something that resembles 'hello'.
It been a busy two weeks. Sam and I were in Las Vegas with Nellie and her children. We had a lovely time and Sam enjoyed himself very much. The top picture shows Sam after a painting session, during which he decided that purple paint was for eating. He didn't just lick it, he decided to try and bite mouthfuls of paint from the pot!!
We visited lots and lots of Casinos! This is Sam at Caesars Palace Casino, they have HUGE fish tanks with pretty fish inside, Sam was fascinated. He watched them for a long time often pointing with both pointy fingers haha
Here is Sam and Michael. We tried everything to keep them occupied at home as they both rather enjoyed dipping their hands into the dogs water bowl and Sam also decided just to tip all of the water out! He is such a little monkey!!
So Sam and I are in Las Vegas having a great time. I will post the pictures on the trip on Sunday when I return, but for now however, is a video of Sam getting SO messy with some chocolate pudding!!
Sam walks EVERYWHERE now. He walks more than he crawls. It's still somewhat wobbly but getting better daily! He can really pick up speed now too, and almost run!
The list of naughty adventures grows daily too, he has, in the last few days: jammed a DVD into the back of the DVD player (Bryan had to remove the top of the DVD player to get it out) Pulled my fake plants apart and shoved some of them into his mouth (he cried when I removed them!!) Got into the cupboard in the kitchen and tried to hide amongst the cans...I'm sure there is more but it's late and my brain function is slowing (Sam has slept from 7:15-10:36pm so far!!!!!!!)
So finally, a month after his 1st steps I managed to catch him on video doing some walking! He can walk much further than this now, but at least I am able to finally post a video of some steps!
He does seem like he is drunk while he walks haha...hopefully that weird wobbly walk wont last for long!
Sam has now discovered the joys of climbing. He decided, this morning, that he would climb up onto the table to smack Daddy's laptop!! Now that he has done it once, it's all he wants to do!!
He has been VERY naughty the last couple of days and has been terrible with his sleeping (or lack of!) last night he was up to 11pm and amongst other things: pushed the Wii off of the TV stand, used the Wii sensor to smack the TV, opened the oven to pull out crusty burnt pieces and eat them! (yuck!!) and pull apart the fridge! This is all when Im trying my best to get things done, like wash bottles, empty the dishwasher etc etc I neeeeeed Bryan to be put onto day shift before I have some kind of mental breakdown haha!!
Here is Sam in the car that Grandma Cindi got him for Christmas. He's a pro at going backwards, but hasn't quite mastered the going forwards thing yet!!
While he has no words yet, he is becoming quite the master at animal sounds. He can 'moo' like a cow, roar like a lion, hiss like a snake and make a noise like a monkey (its what we spend our days doing haha)
The sleeping issue is also generally improving, he slept for 10 hours in his cot- a definite first!! a very welcomed by Bryan and I. Just a few more like that and I may be able to make it through a day without constantly yawning!!
He is Sam showing his best dance moves (note the pointy fingers haha). It doesn't quite capture how wonderful they really are, but you can get the gist. He LOVES any music, the CD playing is a mix of Nursery Rhymes that he got for Christmas.
Wow! It was almost impossible to pick some photos to go on here. We've been SO busy. I have been too busy to update the blog but I am going to try now! We've been to Toombstone (twice) The Grand Canyon (see below) to malls and parks and San Xavier Mission Church (that's where the photo above was taken and also where Sam decided to take his 1st steps!!!) We went to Sabino Canyon (beautiful) and Reid Park zoo, the botanical gardens and Mt Lemmon, Colossal Caves and Trail Dust Town. We ate at SO many restaurants and saw so many sights.
