Sam is Fifteen Months Old

Samantha is fifteen months old now, getting two more molars and eating lots. She can say so many words and understand even more.

 

Below, from left to right: playing with Marcus in a box; hugging no-longer-a-baby-"Baby"-Charlotte; eating potato soup (it only looks like gruel, I swear), with great gusto.

She can say dog (for all footed animals), woof, quack (and sign "duck"), eat ("Ee! Ee!" while signing "eat"), bear (for her build a bear), baby (for herself, other babies, and dolls), book, yum, pop-pop (she picks up my phone, holds it to her ear, and asks to call him), diaper (she pats her bottom and asks for a change when she wakes up in the morning), that, shoe (for shoes or socks), there, hi, bye (accompanied by waves, of course, and sometimes blowing of kisses), down, uh-oh (an early sentence was "Uh-oh, down!" as she tossed something on the ground and waved at it), no (shaking her head along with the word), up, brother, mama, dada, ball, thank you ("deh-deh," but perfect intonation as she takes something from you or hands it to you), Marcus (sounds like "Darkduks," but she points right at him when she says it, very deliberately), and wawa (nurse or water/cup), leading to what I'm calling her first real sentence, "Mama wawa!" upon waking up one morning and wanting me to nurse her.

If you ask her to put the toys away, she will; she also will put something in the trash if you tell her it's trash. She points to her head, her belly, and her toes on cue, and will do them along to the "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" song (she actually gets all the way down in a low squat to touch her toes, which is pretty cute). She follows simple directions like "Bring Marcus the car" or "Put the bear on the table." You can also tell her to blow a kiss, or give someone a hug. Marcus in particular doesn't tire of asking her, "Samantha, can you give me a hug?" She leans in and hugs him, and says "mmmm" when she does, and then he asks her again. They are each other's favorite people--it's amazing to watch them love each other.

We've kept busy, mostly on weekends, going to special events--a pop-up arcade and mini-golf all made by grade school kids; another couple of Lexi's hockey games, including a semi-finals game in Hyannis; the Build-a-Bear store for bear friends for each kid; Amesbury Sports Park for tubing for Marcus and Robert (Samantha liked wearing the helmet and pretending she was big enough to go); Ikea for a free breakfast day and Marcus's first time in their playroom; Sarah's house for a potluck dinner for her birthday; and the Quincy Lunar New Year celebration in the North Quincy High School, with Ren and Amalia.

At Build-a-Bear Marcus took awhile choosing his bear, but as soon as he laid eyes on Rainbow Bear, he knew that was the bear for him. Meanwhile Samantha got a 100th anniversary of Girl Scouting bear that I somehow talked her into.

The indoor kid-made mini-golf was a hit. Marcus played three rounds.

Tubing was a hit as well. Marcus and Robert, tubes tied together for the descent, were out there almost every single minute of their allocated three hours.

And though Lexi's team lost to BU, we were glad we were able to make it to so many of her games this winter.

At Ikea, for the first part of Sarah's birthday celebration, Robert went crazy and managed to rack up a $30 tab at breakfast for us and Sarah and Sean. He didn't believe me when I said there was no fine print on the "eat for free" offer other than spending $100 on non-food items at Ikea; between napkins and kitchen/bathroom rugs and scrub brushes and self-watering pots, we managed that part, and sure enough they subtracted all of Robert's crazy breakfast from our total.

At the second part of Sarah's birthday party, that night, Samantha showed Garrison how to be a huggy big brother:

 

With Robert on a business trip to California, I met Ren at the lunar new year celebration and we had a great time. Marcus and Amalia (happier than she looks in this pic, for some reason) spent over an hour at a couple tables of kids' games and activities upstairs, and before Ren got there we got lunch at the food court, where Samantha spent almost an hour eating rice noodles. What could be better? All that, cotton candy, and free balloons!

 

Go back to web essays or over to links.
robertandchristina.com was made with a Mac.
© 2013 C&R Enterprises
Email christina@robertandchristina.com or robert@robertandchristina.com
Created: 3/15/13. Last Modified: 3/15/13.