Two Moments

7:30am and I already have two moments that I want to remember forever.

Just out of the shower and pulling on my clothes for the day, I said out loud how I wasn't sure a white shirt is the best choice for a pregnant woman. Sammy looked at me after I had pulled it on and said, "Cool, Mommy. Pretty white shirt."

In the car on the way in to town this morning I was listening to NPR and Sam announced from the back seat "Green baby in Sammy's tummy is jumping on me bladder." Evidence that the kid remembers everything I say.

Muse-gic and Chickens and Raspberries and Bubbles

In the car on the way home on Saturday night I didn't really pay much attention to my aching calves and the blisters on my feet. Sam was in the back seat reminding me of all that we had done during the day.

"I go up close, Mommy," he said. "Me and Geddy up close by muse-gic."

"I know," I told him. "You were so brave."

"I see guitar. And piano."

"You did, didn't you?"

"And shakers! Fun shakers."

He thought a moment and I fiddled with the water bottle to suck down the last of the water we'd carried on our long walk from Kate's to WSU and back.

"And horns. Funny horns."

Kate had invited us to join her and Gedion for an evening of music in the park, and since Sam is always telling me how much he likes "muse-gic" and how much he loves the outdoors, I knew it would be something he'd enjoy. After a quick picnic and some play at the Catholic Workers house on the west end of town (Kate knows EVERYBODY), we strapped the boys into their matching Maclaren umbrella strollers and walked to WSU.

"Drums!" Sam said from the back seat. "I like the drums!"

"You like music, don't you?"

"Yes! Be fun," he said.


It had been hot and humid all day, but we'd started our morning with homemade strawberry smoothies and scrambled eggs before Lucy and her Dad came for a visit. Sam and Lucy played music and emptied the toy box and ran around the yard and blew bubbles and picked raspberries and chased each other until Lucy had to get back for time with her new baby sister before her nap. Sam was sad when she left but I reminded him that we were going for a picnic with Gedion later.


"Geddy's house?" he said. "We go Geddy's house?"

I explained that we were going to a picnic and then on to see some music in the park. At the picnic we ate grilled chicken and peaches and edamame and avocado ("More cado. More cado, please!") and Sam fell in love with a 12-year-old girl named Beth who drew beautiful pictures with chalk. Just before we left he ran up to her and told her we were leaving. "We go muse-gic in park," he said.


When we were about halfway to the park Sam started insisting he be allowed to walk and we started the "we're almost there" game. He pointed out flowers and trucks and he and Gedion both kept saying a word that neither Kate nor I could interpret. Stop? Star? They both knew what they were saying, but Kate and I never figured it out.



At the park Kate laid out a canvas blanket and I got out the bubbles and the boys chased bubbles and each other and laughed until Gedion decided he wanted to see the music close-up. He ran up to the band and stood in front and then ran back. Kate told him to bring Sam, to hold his hand. And the two of them ran up and stood in front of the band holding hands, mesmerized by the horns and piano and drums and shakers.

"What was your favorite part?" I asked Sam.

"Shakers. Me like shakers!"

You can see more pictures of Sam's two-playdate day that he tells me was "the best ever" here.

Kelly and the Big Boys

The Beach, A Giant Wet Sandbox

I wanted to take the time to write some engaging narrative about the weekend Sam and I spent with Kelly and her boys, wanted to sit down and remember the moments and record everything, wanted to burn the images of Sammy following and copying "the big boys" into my brain, wanted to try to recreate the laughter and pure joy we all experienced when Sammy tried to wake Zack and Josh by yelling "Cock-a-doo" into their bedroom at 9am, wanted to savor the moments we shared with Kelly over delicious fresh food prepared by our gourmet chef friend, wanted to write about the sun and sand and water and play at the county park beach, wanted to try to capture the joy we all felt watching sammy learn to throw a frisbee with Zack or running in and out of the big boys bedroom to spy on them.

Sam likes to do whatever the big boys do, whether it makes sense or not.

But time has not been on my side this week. Blame it on my crazy work load. Blame it on Sammy's later-and-later bedtime. (Note I said "bedtime" and not "sleep time." There is an ever-increasing distance between these two things lately.) Blame it on my desire to collapse on the couch and get back to Nancy Botwin and her friends from Weeds, Season 3 every night after Sam is in bed.

Sam and Josh play keepaway with the koosh ball

And so, before we enter into another weekend in which I'm sure we'll create more moments I'll want to remember, I share these pictures and Sammy's statement about the weekend as we headed home on Monday morning:

"I like Kelly. I sad. I miss Kelly. When go Kelly's house?"

Kelly's yummy mango daiquiris

TT's House Now!

TT and Sam share their special place with me for the first time

Yesterday I picked Sam up from daycare and strapped him into his car seat and he asked where we were going.

"Home," I said as I lowered myself into my seat. "Our house."

"Nooooooooooo!" he said. "I want TT's house."

"We're going to our house. Mommy's house. Sammy's house."

"I want TT's house. I miss TT," he said, kicking the back of the passenger seat.

"TT lives far away. It would take us all night to get there."

"Then drive faster Mommy. I want TT's house NOW!"

Sam and TT laugh while making apple pies.

It's really no surprise that his first day back to his routine after a weekend with TT might be a little disappointing. After all, during his two days with TT he fed ducks and geese at the Wildlife Santuary, rode a train and a merry-go-round with Mommy at Bay Beach Amusement park, drove a racecar and a purple train and a green boat, flew up and down in an airplane with a fantastic gun at the front, took a trip to Wal-mart (and came home to tell Mommy about the big mess the diggers had made in the parking lot. "Bad, messy diggers!"), ate steak and blueberries and lime popsicles, played guitar and danced to his new Wiggles CD, blew big bubbles in the backyard, picked flowers from the neighbors garden, made an apple pie with TT and helped Mommy and TT vacuum and dust. (Yes, we let him hold and spray the windex bottle.)

It rained almost all weekend, but none of us cared. We all had a great time. As we were getting ready to leave on Sunday TT sighed and pointed out that she hadn't planted her basil in pots yet, and I said that I didn't dig up any of the perennials I had planned to. "Well we didn't accomplish much this weekend, did we?" she said. And I told her that we all had a lot of fun together, and that was all that was important.

Sam is an old pro at feeding the geese at the Wildlife Sanctuary.

All done!

Riding the train at Bay Beach

DRIVING a train at Bay Beach

Mommy wasn't sure he would like the up and down of the airplane, but Sam saw the guns and insisted.

Driving a boat

"I want orange ladybug, Mommy!"

Sam puts the finishing touches on his little apple pie.

Houses and Zacharies

Yes, he has another ponytail from daycare.

Last night on the way to Sarah's house, I told Sam he was going to have fun.

"She has horses, and Zack and Nathaniel have all kinds of big boy toys for you to play with."

"No Sarah's house," he said. "TT's house!"

"We're going to TT's house in 4 days. One two three four."

"Kelly's house?"

"We're going to Kelly's house in two weeks."

"Kelly's house be presents?"

"Do you remember Kelly's house?"

"Kelly's house be cars?"

"Yes. You remember the cars at Kelly's house?"

"Kelly's house be bubbles?"

"I don't know. Maybe we'll do bubbles at Kelly's house. Tonight we're going to Sarah's house and you can play with Zachary and Nathaniel's toys."

"Zachie Josh cars?"

"No this is a different Zachary. You will see Zack and Josh at Kelly's house in two weeks. THIS Zachary is Sarah's little boy. There is Zachary and Nathaniel."

"Kelly's house cars? Zackie Josh cars?"

Nathaniel and Sam play with diggers in the sand

As we followed the winding driveway through the trees towards Sarah's house, Sam got very excited. "Hide trees? "

"Yes. Aren't these trees nice? It's pretty in here, isn't it?"

"We hide trees," he said. "Shhhhhhh." He put his finger to his lips and we drove the rest of the way in silence.

We were greeted by a very anxious and excited Zachary who immediately brought Sam over to show him his new apple trees. "See the baby apples?" Sam seemed less impressed with the apples than he was with having a big boy to follow around.

Zachary eventually tired of being Sam's tourguide, and Sam found a perfect playmate in Sarah's younger son Nathaniel.

"Lookit, Mommy!" Sam was awed by the size of the pool.

Despite his initial reluctance, Sam had a great time. We saw bunnies and deer and kitties and horses, and he got to splash the water in a big pool and build intricate train sets and master the art of climbing the playground wall. He danced on the deck and ran in the grass and dug in the sand. When I told him he needed to wash his hands before he sat down to eat his grilled chicken, he smiled and shook his hands and said, "Shake it off, Mommy. I shake it off." I hardly had time to wipe off the sand before he dug in and devoured three times as much chicken as he ever eats at home.

"Come on! She said dinner time."

Although he was still a little confused and wanted to say goodbye to his new friend "Josh" as we pulled out of the driveway, I have no doubt that the next time we head to Sarah's he'll be saying "Sarah's house eat chicken? Sarah's house play trains? Sarah's house play pool?"

Sam was in heaven at the train table.

"Mommy, lookit! Mommy, lookit! I made it!"

Fun in the Sun

Kicking back by the pool

Best Memorial Day weekend ever.

Ever.

Sunshine and strawberries and bubbles and waterballoons and wet clothes and plastic pools filled with water and barefeet and hair slicked with sunscreen and the scent of allysum and dripping sweaty water glasses filled with ice and laughter and running and joy. Pure joy.

It's not always obvious that Sam can hear when I ask him to do something, but it's obvious he can hear whenever there is an airplane within 10 miles of our house.

Sam discovers that the hose fits perfectly through the holes in the slide.

Filling the pool

Water balloons


Homemade Strawberry-Kiwi Popsicles


An outdoor bath

Sam explains how to make popsicles:



Sam gives himself an outdoor bubble bath:



Sam rocks:

More This!

Sam takes a bite of a homemade strawberry-kiwi popsicle

Because I see them together so frequently, it’s easy to speculate what genes Sam got from my mother (the eyes, the love of fruit and reading), but whenever he eats there is no doubting that Sam is genetically related to my father. Sammy may not have that same one-bite-of-each-food-around-the-plate method that we all teased Jimmy Joe about, but Sam definitely loves food and he consumes it with a passion. Today while I cut up the ingredients for salsa he insisted on taking a bite of the onion.

“You won’t like it sammy. It’s hot.”

“I want it.”

“I don’t think you will like it.”

“I want it!”

He chewed on the chunk of raw white onion and swallowed and smiled even though his eyes were watering.

“I tried it, Mommy!” he said with pride.

Same with the lime from which he sucked every last fiber of pulp.

And the peppers.

But the big surprise of the day was when the hot turkey sausage that turned out to be hotter than I thought went down with hardly a pause between bites. I needed to follow each bite I took with a chip or a drink of milk, but not Sam.

“More this,” he said over and over again pointing to the empty place on his plate where the previous serving of hot turkey sausage had been. He inhaled two entire bratwurst-sized sausages before Mommy made the executive decision that his tummy might not be able to handle more than that. And he was not pleased when I told him he could eat as many strawberries and grapes as he liked but there was no more hot sausage.

Unbelievable. Jimmy Joe’s stomach reincarnated.

Bubbles, Cupcakes, and Christmas

Two unrelated things in one post today. If I were a better writer, I'd figure out a way to weave these two things things together, but I'm dealing with pregnancy brain (Is the next month June or July?) and interrupted sleep (how did I make the mistake of letting Sam train me to get up with him at 3am every night?) so I just give you the two things separately...


One
Another fabulous weekend with TT. The moist, muggy air didn't arrive until Sunday morning, but before that we had Friday and Saturday to enjoy more perfect spring weather. Friday night we hung out on the deck and listened to the birds and chased bubbles through the wet grass. Saturday Sam and TT went on another of their adventures while I planted tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers and squash and surrounded them with fragrant white alyssum and yellow marigolds. TT and Sam came home from the farmer's market with 5 of the most delicious lemon cupcakes I have ever tasted, and we spent the rest of the day outside in the sunshine picnicking and blowing bubbles, racing bigwheels and tracing each other's feet with sidewalk chalk, watering the gardens and pouring water from little buckets into big buckets and back again. Just before sunset we had burgers on the grill and fresh organic veggies soaked in butter, and the cupcakes did not last the evening.






Two
I preface this story with two facts that are worth considering: Sam is not yet 2 and a 1/2 years old, and Christmas was almost 6 months ago.

Yesterday Sam and I came upon a blue Rubbermaid container unexpectedly. I did not touch it. I did not open it. I did not say anything about it. Sam pointed to it and said, "Mama, Christmas." The container is a box that I use to store all our Christmas ornaments. The box has not been opened or touched since we dismantled the tree during the first week of January.
"You're right Sammy. How did you know that?"
"Mommy, I want play christmas. Play Christmas?"
Sometimes I don't even know where I've stored my Christmas stuff. I guess from now on I will just ask Sam.

TT's Boy