While our Sam is quite sweet, he’s not a super smiley baby. I wouldn’t say that he’s serious but he’s just calm and content. I call him the little dude because he just kind of relaxes back in a way that makes me say “the dude abides.” Sam abides.

He also moves. He’s relaxed, but he’s usually in motion. His hands are going, his feet are kicking, his knees are coming up, his fingers are always, always in his mouth (it’s not teething… it’s not teething… if I keep telling myself that it won’t be teething… yeah… right), and his head is moving around. When he’s on his tummy he’s very busy swimming his arms and pulling his knees up under him. It’s as if he was born knowing that he wants to move forward and it’s his life’s mission to figure out how to do it.

Sam is still a Mama’s boy, but he has discovered Daddy and he thinks that Daddy is HYSTERICAL! Sam has actually started giggling, but only when J tickles and zerberts his chest and neck. When Jeremy got home last Thursday Sam literally squealed with delight. Of course I’m not surprised – Clare still thinks that J is the funniest person on earth and now it seems that Sam agrees with her.

A few things I want to remember about four-month-old Sam:

• Sometimes winding down to sleep he lets out little coos, grunts and moans to wind down. It’s the sweetest thing, especially since he’s not usually that verbal. He’ll let out a little loud sigh and then melt into a deeper sleep.
• I thought we might hit a month birthday without putting away all of Sam’s outgrown clothes and pulling out a whole other size. This month we almost did. I’ve only put away his smaller 9 month size pants, his 6 – 12 month size ones still fit. I did, however, pull out a pair of 12 month size pants the other day. My thick little guy needs a roomy cut around the middle. So far his 9 month size sleepers and onesies still fit – phew!
• Sam has never really liked laying on his back. I’ve never known a baby to dislike it as much as he does, but he much prefers to be on his tummy. He doesn’t especially like being leaned back at a 45 degree angle either, but he has tolerated it in the swing, his bouncy seat, or being in his activity gym if there are enough other things to distract him. He LOVES to be straight up and down, so he spends a lot of time in his bumbo seat and now his exersaucer (pictures coming soon). These toys allow him to be upright, which is his preferred position (besides being held of course).

I’m so proud of this little girl. OK, so there’s some maternal pride going on but even if I wasn’t her mother I would be so very proud of how well she’s adjusted to being a big sister. Truly, she has welcomed Sam into the family with open arms and just a few moments of sibling rivalry and jealousy.

That’s not to say that Clare hasn’t needed additional reassurance with this change to the family, or that she doesn’t sometimes get frustrated with being told to wait while we take care of Sam. My biggest pride with her is in how well she tells us what she needs. If she needs extra reassurance she’ll ask us to “shush her” which is to snuggle her close and shush her like we do to Sam when he’s upset. She’ll tell us to go take care of Sam when he cries (though we’re usually on our way to do it) but sometimes she’ll say “No, you stay with Clare.” Even if we can’t stay with her in that minute, we try to listen to what she’s telling us. Not once has she ever taken it out on the baby.

Lastly, a few pictures of my cuties. The last post indicated that we’re having a hard time and, honestly, we’re not. Last week Sam started eating more from the bottle (hooray!). Every day is a little different around here but, like my mom reminded me today, with my children all is right with the world.

This precious little guy and I have a special bond. I don’t know if it’s because we’ve always had an easy nursing relationship, or if it’s a mother-son thing, or I’m a more relaxed and confident mother, or something special about him and I, but we have this tight attachment. I have it with Clare too, but because they are different people it’s expected that we will have different relationships. Anyway, from Day 1 Sam and I have just been very relaxed around each other. He prefers me and I’m content to hold, snuggle and feed him as much as he wants. I know his cries, his grunts, when he’s tired, hungry, bored, wants to play or just wants to snuggle. This has all been well and good until I started working last week. I mentioned in a blog post a while back that I wasn’t sure how me being away from him all day was going to go and, honestly, it’s been rough.

The big excitement around these parts is that the child pictured above (who very intentionally posed like that when she saw me take out the camera) is now using the potty like a big girl!! We’re on Day 4 of wearing underwear with 1 (yes, one) accident! Hip hip hooray!!

We’ve been dancing around potty training for a while and then we put it on hold when Sam was born and for a few months after. Finally Clare was ready. I think she’s actually been ready for about a month now but with traveling, illness and other things going on things just haven’t been right. But suddenly something clicked and Clare started saying that she wanted to wear underwear. She takes herself to the bathroom, sets up the potty seat and step stool, flushes and pulls her pants back on all by herself! She’s really into “by myself” self care skills, so it doesn’t surprise me that she enjoys the independence of using the bathroom by herself. We also introduced some m&m bribery to the mix and I think that sped up our success.

Other fun developments around these parts include Sam is now blowing raspberries! I thought Clare was a champion raspberry blower but Sam might be giving her a run for her money since I don’t remember Clare starting quite this young. I do, however, remember a car trip where Clare literally blew raspberries for 25 straight minutes. Sam, you better start practicing now if you want to beat that record.

The picture above makes me laugh because I was trying to get some candid “lego play” shots of Sam and Clare. Clare has started posing for the camera and she immediately dropped her legos, put her arm around Sam and instructed me to take their picture like that. The result turned out pretty cute.

So we did it! We hit the beach on a BEAUTIFUL and WARM weekend. There were lovely sunrises over the ocean, holes dug in the sand, toes dangled in the water, dogs walked on the beach, sea food eaten with a view of the ocean, and lots of visiting with family.

Mom, Glenn, Chris and Tracy enjoying a beautiful day on the beach.

J, Clare and Lucy playing in the sand and water.

As you can see, Clare’s pants didn’t last very long…

Clare and Lucy became fast friends. At one point Lucy was leading Clare around by the hand and telling her a long, involved story.

Mom helped little Aksel with his walking.

On Sunday we packed up and headed down to the lovely Oregon Coast Aquarium. I’ve been wanting to take Clare there for a while and show her the seals, sea lions, and fish. She loved it – especially watching the sea lion feeding, the part where you can walk through the fish tank, and touching the sea anemones and sea stars. We loved experiencing it with her.

Our precious Sam has been in our lives for three months now. He’s pretty much a sweet little guy but, as typical with the end of the fourth trimester, he’s more interactive with the world and us. He’s playing with his toys, grabbing them and bringing them to his mouth, sucking on his fingers, watching his hands, and following us around the room with this eyes. He recognizes me, Jeremy and Clare by our voices and by sight, which is really fun.

Besides watching the world with his quiet way, Sam seems to be trying his darnest to set some kind of infant growth record. I’m not exactly sure of his weight and length these days but I know that I’m now putting away his 6 month clothes and dressing him in 9 month size clothing. This means he’s averaging a clothing size per month. At this rate he’ll be wearing a 4T at his first birthday so I assume that pretty soon he’ll slow down. But I’ve been assuming that for a while now and it hasn’t happened so we’ll see.

Here are some of Adam’s pictures from the December nannyshare adventures. It looks like a fun month (if a little bit cold).

This month also included a trip to the Children’s Museum, where Clare painted her own face. She was so proud that I left it on until we got home (Sam and I went to the museum with Adam and G). It’s sort of Maori Warrior-style, though she told me she looked “like a kitty cat.”

In the continuing series of “What we’re reading at our house” here is the January 2012 edition. I’ve noticed we’re reading less these days – maybe only six books a day as compared to over a dozen at the high point. However, Clare’s books and attention span have gotten longer so we still spend quite a bit of time reading. Clare also loves to “read” on her own, study the pictures and “read” to her stuffed animals and dolls.

Clare calls this book “Amos McGee!” and it’s become one of my favorites as well. It’s a pretty simple little story about a zookeeper whose animal friends visit him when he gets sick, but it has really sweet illustrations and nice descriptions. Clare’s a sucker for an animal book, and the illustrations are complex enough to give us something to talk about. A new development with reading books together is the conversations we have around why characters do certain things, how they are feeling, what we like or don’t like, etc. It’s pretty fun.
I’ve loved Olivia ever since I managed the children’s section at a book store 12 years ago, I’ve loved the Olivia books. I brought this one home to Clare and it immediately became a favorite. Olivia is also a feisty, imaginative little pig (much like a feisty imaginative girl I know). It’s another one of those books where the pictures tell a much bigger story than the narration does, so it’s as much a conversation starter as a simple read through. Clare’s gotten to where she can recite each page, and will often start reciting the book at various times through the day.

“The Moose Book!” Grandma T brought this book on her last trip and may have lived to regret it, since I think she probably read it 50 times in her five days here. Since then we’ve limited it to reading it no more than once a day and its popularity is starting to wane, however she still loves it. It’s a fun book because there are hidden moose on specific pages that Clare likes to point out. It’s also a repetitive book with silly phrases and made-up words – all the things a silly two year old loves.

The Sneetches book has several stories in it, and Clare’s favorite is the last story called What Was I Scared Of? It’s a cute little story about being afraid of a pair of person-less pants. The story begins with the narrator being afraid of the pants and by the end of the story the narrator realizes that the pants aren’t scary and are, in fact, friendly. Since Clare is prone to being occasionally nervous and scared of the unknown this is a nice story to begin conversations about feeling scared and being brave in spite of fear.

I bought The Snowy Day before our trip to Tennessee. It’s a classic story and very simple but Clare loves it. I think she can really relate to little Peter in the story and his adventures. It’s nice to have a shorter favorite book in the rotation for hurried reading sessions.