It was fun to watch how Sam approached walking.  He’s been cruising along walls and furniture for a few months now, so he was very stable on his feet.  However, he didn’t really practice walking on his own much until he felt very stable.  He really doesn’t fall very much, mostly because he’s very deliberate and intentional.  If he doesn’t feel like he can walk, then he won’t and when he feels a little shaky then he sits down rather than fall.  He’s also amazingly patient with it, not getting frustrated but rather brushing off his stumbles and trying again.  It’s been an interesting little window into how our boy’s mind works.

We have so many reasons to be thankful in 2012 – and we celebrated our thanks by going to Bend with my parents.  It was a weekend of food (lots of food), time with family, playing with the kids and relaxing.  Oh, and sickness… but we won’t dwell on that.

 

Have I mentioned how thankful I am for my parents?  Yep, they’re pretty great.  And not just because they own a beautiful house in Bend that they let us use… yep, pretty thankful for the house too. 



I had asked Clare what she wanted to do for Sam’s birthday and she told me that she wanted to make Sam a birthday cake.  So we enlisted the help of Auntie Carrie, who had recently taking a cake decorating class, and spent Saturday baking and decorating the cake.  It was wild… flour was spilled, sugar was sampled, food coloring was splattered, and we finally just gave Clare her own bowl of frosting to eat so she would stop eating the iced cake.  But the finished cake was made from pure love.

 

 

Then it was time for presents – which Sam heartily enjoyed.  Then, after presents, it was nap time for our precious little guy.  At the end of a day of celebration and enjoyment I felt remarkably calm and relaxed.  It was a perfect way to celebrate our Sam, active and busy but also with a feeling of peace, love and contentment that is the signature of our little guy.

Life with two young kids means lots of time spent playing.  Our house is full of pretend games, silly stories, art projects, songs and all around play.  It’s important to me as a mom that my kids look back on their childhoods with memories of happiness and laughter.  Besides I’m also a believer in the Maria Montessori quote that “play is the work of the child,” so that all time spent playing is my kids way of learning, developing and exploring. 

We do quite a bit of cooking, and we’re starting to involve Clare in some of it.  Her favorite toys, besides  books, are her play kitchen and food.  Every day she’s cooking some type of food in her kitchen and serving it up at her table.  The Kids’ Kitchen as we call it specializes in “delicious cookies,” “dog poop milk,” and “yummy soup.” 

Every now and then I get the idea from a parenting blog to do some kind of homemade preschool craft activity.  The one above was homemade moonsand – which was 4 cups flour mixed with 1/2 a cup of vegetable oil.  It was great fun, a great sensory experience for the kids and kept them occupied for a good 40 minutes.  By the end approximately 3 cups of moonsand was spread all over my kitchen floor and the remaining cup was rubbed into our clothes.  The clean up took another 40 minutes, so we probably won’t be recreating that until the weather is better and we can go outside.  Sometimes this “play is the work of children” thing is pretty messy.

When I’m home with the kids on weekends on Mondays and Tuesdays I try to do some type of art activity – even if it’s as simple coloring with crayons.  Sammy has started to get in on the painting action.  We listen to music and sing songs constantly.  Sam really likes Old McDonald Had a Farm – especially the animal noises.  Clare is moving beyond nursery rhyme songs and likes the Gaelic Storm song “Tell Me Ma.”  We listen to easy to sing songs by Carol King and James Taylor a lot, and Clare is still a Beatles fan.

Also during that doctor’s visit, Clare got a flu shot.  She was really upset by it crying out “the nurse huuuuurt me!”  I held her hand, sang to her during the shot, gave her a sticker afterwards, and told her what a brave girl she was.  Then it was my turn to get a flu shot, so Clare held my hand, sang Twinkle Little Star to me, and as we were leaving said “I’m so proud of you for not crying Mama.  You were so brave!”

Sammy is really starting to imitate our gestures and actions.  He’s so low-key that we forget sometimes how observant he is.  If he sees a hair brush he will brush his hair with it.  He stirs the little pots on the stove in the kids’ kitchen.  The cutest is when he finds a tissue he brings it to his nose and blows a raspberry into it – imitating when we blow our nose.

Sammy is, as I’ve mentioned, very busy and into EVERYTHING.  The bathroom is one of his favorite places to explore, and he gets into some trouble there.  I’ve discovered a new trick while I’m getting ready in there and that’s to put him in a dry bath tub.  He loves it and happily plays with his toys and the shampoo  bottles, and I love it because he can’t get out!  I only wish I had thought of this when Clare was a baby.

Clare spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa’s last weekend.  She loved it, of course,and Grandma sent me this picture of her in the morning “reading the paper.”  My favorite story of the weekend was when Clare was playing the little thumb harp and looked up at my mom saying “I’m a lady of music Grandma.”

This little bruiser got his first pair of shoes last weekend.  We originally went to Target but quickly found that the shoes didn’t fit onto his feet. We ended up at Stride Rite, measured his feet and discovered that he needs an Extra Wide shoe.  I may have referred to his feet as “blocks.”  As we left, $40 later, the sales lady said “see you next mont when you need the next size.”  Ha ha ha sales lady…

Dear Sam,

One year ago today you came into our lives – and our world has never been the same.  You arrived early the morning, screaming with indignation, and then sweetly settled into snuggling and eating.  In this whirlwind year there has been lots of sweet snuggling, a fair amount of eating and, fortunately, not much screaming.  You’ve brought such a joy to our lives and we can’t imagine the past year and the future years without you.

Today we celebrated your first birthday in a way that’s fitting your personality.  Rather then a big party with lots of people, we did one of your favorite activities with some of the people you love the most.  We went for a hike at Tryon Creek State Park with your grandparents, Grandma T, and our dear friends Robin, Ryan, G, baby M, Adam, Chan and Carrie, and dogs Sadie and Kirby.  The sun was shining through golden leaves and it felt like the forest was celebrating your birthday along with us.   You didn’t know which smiling face to look at next.  We came back home for lunch, singing, cake and presents.  You loved it and we loved seeing you so happy.

You are such a sweet little boy with a gentle way about you.  You love a good cuddle and can be a bit demanding until you get one.  For such a gentle little boy, you aren’t a peaceful one.  You are bound and determine to explore the world and experience all it has to offer.  With arms and eyes open you touch, taste, rub, throw, and roll everything you can reach. Your appetite for food and excitement are unending and we struggle to keep up with you.  I hope to show you the world and watch you wonder in it.  I know that you will make it your own.

Before you were born, I felt a nagging feeling that someone was missing.  Your presence has completed us in a way that I could never have imagined.  It was Sam we were missing, and we thank every day that you’re here now.

You adore your big sister and do your darnest to keep up with her.  You giggle together every day, which warms my heart more than you will ever know.  Daddy is your favorite jungle gym and no one can tickle you like Daddy can.  If you see him laying on the floor you crawl over to him and throw yourself on him with gusto, knowing that he will catch you. As for me, well, you and I have something special.  When you are upset you only want Mom, and I only want to make you happy.  Somehow, when you grew in my tummy, our hearts also grew together in a special way.  They continue to be connected even as you have been out in the world this year.

You are the light to our day my love and I look forward to what the next year brings.

All my love,
Mama

He’s started giving us toys, putting them back on the shelves (hooray!), and putting toys into bins/drawers and other containers.  We spend a lot of time passing toys back and forth.  His favorite game right now is peekaboo.  He loves to cover himself with a piece of fabric and then giggles as he pulls it off his head.  On our drive to Bend last weekend he spent a good 20 minutes playing peekaboo with his reflection in the car mirror.  It may have been the cutest moment I’ve ever seen.

Our busy little dude has a sensitive side, and it sometimes takes us by surprise.  On Wednesday morning Sammy woke up while J and I were taking showers.  It was a few minutes before we could get to him, and when J got to Sam’s room the poor little guy was hysterically screaming.  J settled him down, but when Sam saw me he threw himself into my arms and clung to me for several minutes.  Now Sam has waited a few minutes for us to come and get him before, but for some reason on this morning he got scared about something and it left a mark.  We have to remember that our precious little guy has a special heart and it’s our job to protect it as he goes out into the world.

Alternately titled ‘The year that Mom bought two costumes for each kid.’  Or ‘You want to dress as a what?’  Also known as ‘Missed Photo Ops.’

I’m still figuring out this Halloween Mom thing – and once again this Halloween felt a little bit by-the-seat-of-our-pants, disorganized, rush around, yet somehow still fun.  It began about a month ago when I asked Clare what she wanted to be for Halloween.  I was shamelessly plugging for her to be a cowgirl, based entirely on the boots, but she had other ideas.  She wanted to be a tiger.  Yep, a tiger.  And she wanted Sammy to be a lion.  I let my cowgirl dreams go (until next year) and ordered lion and tiger costumes online.

Well, besides just trick-or-treating, we attended the preschool-fest Monster Mash at the local community center a few weeks ago.  Unfortunately there was a delay in the costumes arriving and two days before the Mash we were costumeless.  I asked Clare what she would like to be instead of a Tiger.  She thought about it, tilted her head and said “ummmm… I would like to be a fly.”

Huh?  Come again?

“Yep, a fly.”

Then J jumped in and said “yeah, you could be a fly caught in a spiders web!”  About this point I was kicking J under the table.

So then I was tasked with finding a fly costume and somehow getting it caught in a spiders web.  Amazingly, and truly it felt amazing, I found a fly costume being sold on craigslist.  Even more amazingly the nice family was also selling a caterpillar costume so I nabbed two bug costumes for a small price.  A quick stop at the consignment store got me a baby bee costume and I had an assortment of insect costumes for my little Bugs.

So away we went to the Monster Mash, which was fun, though Clare was disappointed not to see any Monsters.  Sammy wasn’t all that impressed with his bee costume but  he was a sport about it.  Clare, on the other hand, was the happiest little fly you’ve ever seen.

But, if you’re paying attention to this caper, you’ll notice that we still have a lion and tiger costume on order.  They arrived a few days ago, just in time for trick-or-treating.  So tonight we dressed our kiddos in Costumes #2 and headed out with our neighbors to do some candy nabbing.  I barely got pictures of them in their costumes before Clare drug us out the door.  She took her trick-or-treating very seriously – running ahead of the group, banging on front doors, and chanting “get candy get candy get candy” under her breath like some kind of internal pep talk.