Sam pretty much loves whatever Clare does.  If Clare’s in the room, Sam is watching her, waiting on her every word and action, trying to imitate her sounds, giggling when she does something remotely silly, and generally just adoring her.  Anything she does is just fine with him, especially if she’s doing it to him.  She climbs all over him, rolls him over, pulls him up, pushs him down, drags him across the room, and he just laughs and laughs.  In the picture above he’s just laughing and laughing as she lays on him “nose to nose.”

They’re beginning to play very simple games together – shrieking together, waving arms together, playing peekaboo.  The games are instigated by Clare but Sam’s an enthusiastic partner.  Today they were fake-coughing back and forth in the back seat of the car, and then moved onto shrieking back and forth.  In that moment I realized that, when I’m by myself, I’m outnumbered.  They can gang up on me!

 As much as Sam adores Clare, and is so far a willing participant in her lead, she’d better watch out.  He’s a tough little dude.  In the picture at the top she’s actually pinning his arms down, because if she doesn’t he will grab her hair and pull it out by the handful.  Of course it’s not malicious (yet) but it’s wicked.  He’s also getting pretty good at grabbing any toys she might have in his reach and can win a tug-of-war game between the two of them.  Yessir, these two will keep us on our toes.

I somehow forgot what a messy situation introducing food is.  How did I forget this?  Learning to eat solid foods isn’t just about the food, the flavor, avoiding allergens, balanced nutrition etc. but also letting the baby explore the textures and tactile experience of food.  So Sammy spends lots of time playing with a spoon, mashing banana into his tray, dragging his fingers through lentils, crushing cheerios into his hands, working meat in his mouth, and rubbing avocado between his palms.

I spend lots of time cleaning his fingers and face, picking spoons and cheerios off the floor, and doing laundry.

Lil’ guy is still working on his pincher grasp, so he gets pretty frustrated that he can’t feed himself the way he wants to.  Fortunately for him we give him lots of time to practice.

I would write about Sam’s favorite foods, but if he’s in the mood to eat (and most of the time he is) then he loves everything we give him.  He is always happy to have bananas, peaches and peas but he pretty much eats everything.

Clare has been a binky-kid since about birth.  I blame us, since we obviously introduced it to her.  But it’s served us well and has been a source of comfort for her in times of stress.  Last summer, about the time she turned 2, we started working pretty hard to make sure that “binky is for sleeping.”  I hate the look of toddlers running around with binkies in their mouths.  It stayed in her bed pretty much all the time, except when she conned us into keeping it out (see picture below) or when we were traveling on long car or airplane trips.  I’ve periodically raised the issue that one day she won’t have a binky, and we’ve even watched the “Bye-Bye Binky” Sesame Street episode about a dozen times, but Clare had firmly declared that she loves her binky and won’t give it up.  Ever.  Thank you very much.

Unfortunately for Clare, her dentist has other recommendations and it’s my job as a parent to ensure that her health and safety come before her happiness.  It’s a crappy part of the parent-job sometimes and I’ve been dreading the day when I have to take away the binky.  Fortunately for me, sort of, things came to a head this last week and we actually lost Clare’s binky one day.  We looked for it all over the house, texted Adam to see if he knew where it as, and ultimately had to break the news to Clare that the binky was gone.

It was a sad night, and there was some wailing and mourning, but I held her in the chair, rubbed her back, sang my lullaby repertoire, and she went to sleep that night for the first time without her beloved binky.  At one point during the binky-mourning she looked up at me with tears running down her little face and said “did you take it because binky’s are for babies?”  I assured her that I hadn’t taken her binky and after that she seemed to relax.  Since then she’s asked for the binky a few times, but no more tears.  She still has her beloved blanky and teddy bear, so it’s not like we’ve thrown her out into the cold, cruel world without any comfort.

So, good-bye old Binky-friend.  You’ve seen Clare through some hard times but now she’s ready to move on.  Thank you for all of your support.

*So we actually did find the binky, but it wasn’t until Clare was starting to wind down and go to sleep so J and I made the executive decision to stay with the program.  Someday Clare will read this and find out that, yes, Mom and Dad lied to her about the binky.  Sorry kiddo.  We’ll deal with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy in another post.

This sweet little fella is seven months old today!  Happy Birthday Buddy!

In honor of Sam’s seventh month I’m going to try to to capture the joy and sunshine of this little guy.  Sure he has the occasional cranky moment or two (usually around food or sleep) but his default mode is one of happiness and contentment.  Sam is alright with the world and often finds things just delightful.  His happiness and ease are infectious and he’s so pleasant to have around.  I spend most of my days with him toted on my hip just snuggling and absorbing his Sam-ness.  Adam and I joke that holding Sammy lowers your blood pressure.

Forgive some out-of-order blog posting since I’m finally getting around to writing about the rest of our Bend vacation last week.  Sigh… we just got home a few days ago but it seems so long ago already.

Anyway, here’s to some reminiscing of a really nice week away with the family.  Since we’ve had kids vacations have been fun but not really all that… relaxing.  Our week in Bend was actually relaxing, which was a lovely, lovely change of pace.

So what did we do?  We went for a lot of hikes/walks/strolls and a couple of bike rides.  I loved the bike ride – the kids, well… not so much.  Poor little Sam had a hard time with his helmet so we ultimately took it off.  By the time we got back to the house he had fallen asleep with a little pout on his face.  We were able to bribe Clare through the trip with snacks.  Note to self: next time we take a bike ride load up on pita chips and grapes to pacify the troops.

Yes, if you are counting we have 6 adults, 2 children and 4 dogs.  I’m pretty sure it took us twice as long to actually get  here than we spent hiking.

Clare’s favorite part of hiking was walking Pat and Dave’s little dog Chloe.  She was the perfect speed for our little dog walker.

Mostly there was a lot of playing.  Clare and Sam playing on the floor, wrestling with kids, posing them in cute places (exhibit a: baby in a laundry basket), and just generally enjoying each other in a way that seems harder when there is work to do, emails to reply to, bathrooms to clean, and lawns to mow.  It was, exactly, what a relaxing vacation should be.  (I’m missing it a little – can you tell?)