I can’t believe that we are fast approaching Sammy’s first birthday.  In a few short days he’s going to be 11 months old (eleven!) and the developmental milestones are coming thick and fast.  The picture above is blurry and the color is off, but it showcases how Sammy spends his days – on the move!  Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, in the house is safe from Señor Sam.  He can race down the hall in a flash heading straight towards whatever mischief we try to keep him from.  His usual destinations are the dog’s food and water, the toilet, the floor lamp, and the open back door.

When he’s not crawling, he’s pulling up.  Sam wants to be upright – reaching, climbing, and exploring at a higher level.  His favorite, favorite, activity is destruction.  No toy or book left on a shelf, no puzzle left with pieces in it, no food or dishes left in the child’s kitchen – everything methodically, intentionally, and, preferably, noisily is thrown onto the ground.  I spend lots of time cleaning up toys… and wondering why on earth we have so many darn toys.

Besides moving, and moving, Sammy is talking up a storm.  He’s only said “jump” the one time, but he’s pointed at a picture of a dog in a book and said “dog” the other day.  He also will “woof” in response to when we say it.  He sings little “doh doh doh” songs when he’s happy.  The cutest moment was last week when he woke up from his nap and started crawling around the house looking for something.  He crawled down the hall towards Clare’s room, where she was still napping, and started yelling babytalk variations of “Clare.”

Sammy is still a big boy.  At his 9 month check-up he was 25 pounds, and I bet he’s 27 pounds now.  He’s pretty much outgrown his 18 month clothes and is fitting comfortably in 18-24 and 24 month size outfits.  I put him in a 2T sleeper last night and it fit.  Sheesh.

I know this blog is becoming just one giant dump of my iPhone photos, but it’s a kind of an easy way to keep up with the precious daily events around here.

Parenting in the digital age also allows us to stay in constant contact during the day.  I had my first overnight work trip since Sammy’s birth last week.  It was… actually kind of nice to get an uninterrupted night of sleep, but I woke up just craving snuggles with my babies.  J kept me involved in the activities I missed including Clare falling asleep with a bedfull of books and the usual morning activities of Clare watching Dora with peanut butter toast and Sammy begging for some of her food.  But just look at those precious little bed-head, sleepy-eyed snuggle bugs!

So we had family movie night and Clare and J were snuggling, her head tucked into his chest, as they shared pop corn and red vines, so I grabbed my phone to snap a sneaky candid photo.  Uhhhh, yeah.  The downside of the iPhone as a camera is that it has a bright, nasty auto-flash.  Well, you can see how my sneaky photo skills turned out.

Race for the Cure 2012!!  This has become a big deal family tradition for us.  We started doing it nine years ago in Phoenix.  I think our first Race for the Cure was the same weekend that my family met J for the first time.  We’ve missed a few years here and there since then, but the past four years have found us “racing” through downtown Portland.

We’ve assembled a bit of a consistent crew over the years, usually with Carrie and Leah, often with Glenn and Beth, and this year Grandma T joined us too.  I look forward to creating the memory for the kiddos.  It’s always a fun, powerful, humorous, emotional, overwhelming morning – and then we all get brunch and continue on with our day.  It serves as an annual reminder to be thankful for our health and each other (not to mention my beautiful MOTHER), and also a reminder now to dwell on illness but to look to life and the future.  And, as Carrie reminded us, brunch.

We’re celebrating a family milestone this week – it’s the first time in eight years (and only the second time in his career) that J has been unemployed.  Of course, we wouldn’t be celebrating if he wasn’t “unemployed” by way of starting a new and exciting job next week!  We’re taking a long weekend in Bend, playing and relaxing before the busy-ness of the rest of September.

Grandma and Grampa joined us for the weekend, and we went up to a lake to celebrate the beautiful last-of-summer day.  J, Grandpa and Clare took the canoe out on the lake.  Clare loved it, but made sure that Daddy and Grandpa didn’t “go to fast!”  

 

 After Grandma and Grampa left, we settled into some quiet family time.  We took the kids swimming on Monday to the Bend kiddie pool. The big event at the pool was Clare putting her face in the water for the first time!  We’ve been swimming a lot this summer and have talked a lot about putting our faces in the water, but Clare has been firm that she won’t put her face in the water.  But yesterday she closed her eyes, held her nose, blew bubbles, and put her face into the water several times in a row.  We were so proud of her for conquering her fear!

 Today we went out for a little family hike by the river.  It ended up being 3 miles, but we broke it up with rest stops for short legs.  J ended up getting his workout in by carrying both kids for a portion of the hike but he claimed it wasn’t that bad.  

 We’re headed home tomorrow, and I’m back to work on Thursday, but this has been some nice relaxed family time for us to reconnect.

• He likes to hum/sing himself to sleep.  I rock him to sleep every night (one of my favorite parts of the day) and he usually wiggles/hums himself down to relax.

• He’s been signing “all done” and “milk” for quite a while now.  He loves to eat, but when he’s done eating he is DONE.  It’s nice that he has a sign now to get down, as opposed to just screaming.

• He said his first word tonight!  While he was watching Clare bounce around he said “Jump” clear as day.  He said it again, while trying to jump his little legs.  How appropriate.

These videos will speak for themselves as to what’s going on around here.  The first one shows the biggest news – Sammy is full-on crawling now!  No more para-military scoot, he’s advanced to the crawl.  And he’s hell on hands-and-knees and getting into everything.  He’s also mastered pulling up (see video #2) so nothing lower than 3 feet is safe from Sammy destruction inspection.  You can’t see it in these videos but he’s pretty good at cruising along the furniture now too.  God help us all – he’ll be walking before we know it.