We’re in the final countdown of Sam’s 1’s now. We’re celebrated his birthday today, but his actual birthday is on Monday (in two days).  I’m savoring the final days of being able to pretend that he’s still my baby.  It’s all pretend though because if you ask him if he’s a baby he says “No.  I boy.”  {Pause while I wipe my eyes.}

A few things I want to remember about one-year-old Sammy.

– He is figuring out boys and girls – and pretty much has it right though he likes to pretend he doesn’t sometimes to mess with us.  He’ll go through the members of the family “Clare a girl.  Daddy a boy.  Grandma a girl.  Maddy a girl” then he’ll get a gleam in his eye and say “Mama a boy” and then wait for me to correct him. 

– He continues to love dinosaurs, but his new love is baseball.  He spent quite a bit of time watching the World Series on his Daddy’s lap and was never without his Red Sox cap.  He has a little T-ball set in the backyard and will hit and throw with the best of them – that is the best of the four-and-under-set.  J was trying to teach him to say “Go Sox!” and Sam frowned and yelled back “No Socks!” and lifted up his bare foot.

– He identifies several of his letters using the word that he associates with them.  He walks through the house pointing to “T for Grandma T!” and “S for Sam!” and “M for Mama!” among others.  He seems to be really enjoying recognizing letters as he sees them in the world, it’s sort of like he’s decoding a pattern.

– He’s really getting into playing with little toys and figures, setting up little scenes and moving them around.  I don’t think he’s quite to the point of pretend play, but he loves to stack the little people and animals up, move them around and carry them with him.  He also cooks many meals in the kid kitchen and takes care of the doll babies in the house.  He’s also started acting as animals – hopping around and saying “ribbit,” crawling on all fours while meowing, etc.  It’s so fun to see his creative imagination develop.

– All of a sudden (really in the last week) his language has exploded.  He walked into the kitchen and says “How about we watch Super Why?”  He told J “stop that dancing Daddy!”  Tonight when I was putting him to bed he asked me to sing him a “doggie song.”  I told him that I didn’t know a doggie song and asked him to sing me one.  He sang “doggie song/doggie song/doggie song/woof woof woof.”  It’s also a little easier to understand him, though he certainly has his own unique words for things.  He calls elephants “Fanties” which sounds a lot like “froggies.”  When I tell him “I love you” he always responds with “Alloboo.”  Alloboo too Little Boy.