SPL's Blog

Communication: Sam is back in “verbal zone” after a 4 month hiatus (walking/running/climbing demands utmost concentration – no time for gab).  He’s back to repeating words that we say and has added trucks, bus, trash, bush, peas, toast, baby, beep beep, garbage, stop, and the “ahhhhh” part of “aaahhhchoo!” to his vocabulary.

He’s also using gestures to communicate and has added the very funny “I don’t know” shrug to the line up.  I laugh every time.  Sam will also hold up his hand with some number of fingers raised when you say “how many _____ are there?”

Sam will also go to his room if you ask him if he needs a diaper change and he’s amenable to the idea (what he does when he’s not amenable is another story :-).  He also knows all the bedrooms and bathrooms by name, including the most important one, his 🙂

Sign-language: he’s added “daddy”, “water”, and we’re working on please and thank you.

Mandarin: At the beginning of October, Sam started spending time with Mary, a babysitter who is from China and who speaks Mandarin exclusively.  John and I feel strongly that being bilingual or multi-lingual will be even more important for Sam’s generation that it is for ours.  And since the critical years for language acquisition are 0-7, we figured we’d get him started.  Mary is also great at teaching me and I am proud to say I understand about 20 or so Mandarin nouns (no grammar yet though).  Sam says “diti” which is “little brother” and “je je” which is “big sister” (a tribute to the importance of our neighbor, Katie, to whom this refers — she’s 6 years old). 

Sock obsession update: you’ll see it in the video – he’s now using them to clean up the house.

Additional obsession(s):

• brooms.  You’ll see this in the montage too.  We bought him a broom and sadly didn’t get the wooden one.  The plastic one lasted all of 45 minutes so we’re going this week to a hardware store to get a “proper” broom.
• Pouring.  You never know if he’s asking for more milk or water to pour or to drink.  Sometimes he fakes us out.  It’s messy but fun.
• Climbing.  He ended the month by starting to climb up the IKEA toy storage “steps”.  I’ve realized it’s important to listen to his verbal cues as he’ll ask for assistance to climb – but if you’re not responsive, he’ll give it a go solo (and there are 6 kinds of ways this can go wrong as you might imagine).
• And I forgot this very important obsession: trash trucks.  Wednesday is the magic day for our neighborhood and when Sam hears the trucks, he goes running to our front door.  It’s very cute.  October is a bonus trash month too as it’s our biannual "large item" pick up month, which to Sam means a 4th truck — woohoo!

Bruises, Gooseeggs, bumps, scrapes etc:  This gets the grand prize as we went to the ER for the first time this month: October 3.  Sam decided to stick a coat hanger where?!?!?  In his eyelid!!!!??!  John and I are still asking ourselves, how the $*&@ did he get it under his eyelid?!?  And thankfully, how did he get it under his eyelid without puncturing it?  Up his nose?  Maybe.  In his mouth?  Of course.  But under his eyelid?!!?!  It’ll remain a mystery.  The good news is neither Sam nor John is the worse for wear.

Most endearing development: Sam is big on giving hugs and sloppy kisses.  And sometimes when he falls down and needs a hug, he comes over to John or me, hugs us, and pats us on the back (as if to say “It’s alright mom/dad – you’ll be ok too.”

Identifying body parts:  He’s working on chin, elbow, and neck. 

Other updates:  This month we said good bye to the AM nap and also to the infant bathtub.  Sam now understands “hot” and “hot food” in particular and will make the noise to “blow on his food" at the slightest mention of the words “hot” or “hot food.”  Too cute.

He’s also backing up like a pro now (walking) while pulling his toy. 

ok, I think that’s it for now.  Again, it’s been another hectic month so I’m sure I left some things out.  But this time I did keep some notes along the way (and actually was able to locate them when I needed them too – wow!)