Sammy-Sam will be 14 months old in a few days… which blows my mind.  While I haven’t been as good about cataloging his development, we’ve definitely been noticing new milestones daily.  Here are a few things that I want to remember about 14-month-old Sam.

• He’s absolutely fascinated with the toilet.  I don’t know what it is – whether it’s because we don’t let him near it, or because it has water, or if it’s the flushing, but he has an obsession with the toilets in the house.  He’s gone past the stage where he wants to play in the water (thank goodness!) but now he’s started throwing things in there.  A few days ago we couldn’t find his mittens (and we had JUST seen them) and eventually J found them in the toilet. 

• His favorite word is “Up,” as in “pick me up.”  He likes to be picked up and cuddled several times a day, often several times an hour, usually by me.  Over Christmas he walked past me and over to Grandma and insisted “Up!  Up!”  It’s the first time I could remember that I wasn’t his first snuggle choice.  I guess my boy is getting more independent.

• Besides Up, Sammy doesn’t have a very big vocabulary.  He occasionally says “dog,” “Dada,” “Momom,” and “Clare” but usually he stays pretty quiet.  Adam thinks that Sammy is going to suddenly start talking in paragraphs one day, and that he’s just saving up his thoughts and observations until he’s ready to share them all.

• Even though he’s quiet and laid back, our boy is SMART.  He knows the parts of the face – eyes, nose, mouth, ears, chin and hair.  He will surprise us by suddenly imitating something we do in daily life.  The other day he stood up on the stool next to the bathroom sink and mimed brushing his teeth and spitting into the sink.  I was a “Huh? You’ve been paying attention to that?” moment. 

• Sammy is obsessed with climbing everything.  He’s all over the couch, the chairs, the kids’ table, and the oven drawer/stove.  Over Christmas he probably climbed my parents staircase 40 or 50 times in a two day period, and he only fell down about 4 stairs once.  He can get up and down the stairs all by himself and is so very proud of himself. 

Apparently we like striped shirts around here…