the Many Sides of Serious Sam

So I logged on with a specific idea to post today... 

and then went looking for some photos.  I got distracted. 

Our little cub has grown so much!  He was never "small" per se (I met a 3 month old baby the other day who still wasn't at Sammy's birth weight!).  But look how small he was!  and red!

And... innocent looking!

There were a lot of times he just looked... bored with us.  Or maybe long-suffering?

Around six months or so, he started to get curious...

Some days, he wore himself out.

But then he started crawling... and sitting up... and about 2 weeks later, he'd pull himself into a standing position.  He's pretty good at pulling himself up (or pulling things off the table.  We may not be using table clothes for a while).  He thinks he can walk, but he can't.  Mostly he moves one leg, loses his balance, hits his head, and cries until we pick him up.  Then he's off again.  The babe can CRAWL, people, and he's pretty fast.

And he's starting to develop his personality!  He normally stares down strangers, but if he's seen you a few times before, he'll give a shy smile.  And if you're his big brother and walk into the room, his face will light up!

But if you try to feed him sweet potatoes.... even if yells because he wants to eat them... you'll get a look.  The expressions he has!  From serious to smiling, he's got 'em all now :)

Look who's SIX already?!

Pretend this is written in July 2014, ok?  That's when I started writing it in my head.

July is a BIRTHDAY month around here.  There's America's birthday, a few days later it's Nana's Birthday, late in the month it's JimDad's Birthday, and... hmm... oh, yes:  KADEN'S birthday.  The day around which all others rotate!  You're not going to believe this, but...

He turned SIX YEARS OLD.

But Little Brother isn't about to be upstaged.  He finishes off the month with a HALF birthday... 

so he turned SIX MONTHS OLD!

Each of them is growing in leaps and bounds this summer, so I think I'll just try to summarize what we did in this post, and then give each of them a specific post later.  Er, soon....

But Summer 2014 was the Summer of Family Vacations.  In July, we had a few days at the Outer Banks with (most of) my side of the family.   The very next week was a week in the PA countryside with Jim's family!  Three weeks after that, a family wedding in southern Indiana.  We drove everywhere, of course, and the boys wound up being great travelers together, all things considered.  I wouldn't mind a slightly roomier back seat, but then again, it all worked out fine.

I was sorta off the hook with birthdays this year:  my mom's happened while vacationing with her family, and they took over cake and what not.  Jim's 40th was last year, so this year = low key.  And Kaden's birthday was while vacationing with the cousins, which is sortof like a party everyday anyway.  I have discovered his 3 main ingredients to a great party:  a pinata, a cake with action figures on top, a version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey... all adapted to 'the theme' of course.  Which was Star Wars this year.  I should do a post on that, but I need to wait until I get the pics from my sister in law.  My camera batteries died the 2nd day of vacation.  Fun times.

All the pics here are from a family wedding.  Kaden likes ties, but I bought his from the 'young man' section, which is *vastly* different from the boy section.  Who knew.  I didn't try it on him before getting dressed for the wedding (rookiemom mistake!) and so he wound up with only the vest.  And he was initially perturbed by that, until I told him he looked like Han Solo from Star Wars.  

Then his eyes lit up.  "All I need is a blaster," he said, "and a wookie friend..."

Summertime...

It's been a while!  I'm noticing a trend with this favorite second son of ours.  We had much fun cheering a friend on for her first race- bright and early on the 4th of July.  (Thanks for inviting us!).  And then we hung out at a nearby park for a while.  

Sam is 5 1/2 months now... and not colicky, per se.  He is a bit of a mama's boy, which surprised me because I didn't think that separation anxiety kicked in just yet.  But there are days (or nights!) when all he wants is for me to hold him. If only that 'power' could last...

He is doing all sorts of  things lately, rolling over, grabbing stuff, laughing at his brother.  He has re-started his newborn habit of smacking his lips, and it's quite possibly the cutest thing he does.

 And while he likes to sleep- he's got no discernible pattern. Some days it's a quick 30 minutes, and other days it's 2-3 hours of zzzzz's.  But we never know which is coming, so that's fun.

PA is pretty in the summer.  I'm still astonished that I can be cold in the early am or late nite, but the days are great.  Even when they're hot!

4 Months Later...

Well, hey there!  We've survived the 'most brutal winter in a dozen years' or something like that.  The sad part is, the last 'record snows' the state had...is when we were in college here.  Sigh.

But, all winter long, I kept my eyes on Easter.  If we make it to Easter, I thought, life will be good!  The babe will stop crying, and we'll have a bit more of a routine, and we'll be able to go outside again...

Heh.  The babe mostly stopped crying- at least those eternal colic fits.  And we sorta had a routine- which I promptly messed up by working again.  Only part time, but still.

And THEN, the weather played us.  Now- almost a month after Easter? - we're starting to hit 70 degrees more than once a week.  But it's not 70 in the morning, which means layers.  Still.

But I found my favorite fleece vest!  And almost all the crazy work events are over! and it's 70+degrees out - at least part of the day!  And... AND, the babe is LAUGHING.  On purpose.

We're falling in love all over again.  Ah, spring!

Speaking of Spring... though we live in an apartment, the grounds here are nice.  We see all sorts of critters when we're out.  A chipmunk that likes to race across our porch and under the table.  Squirrels that like to bury their nuts in our planters.  Large birds holding small ones in their talons.  The occasional deer (while driving, not in our 'yard').   Oh, and falcons on the highway signs!  Here:  Bunnies, mostly at dusk.  And- the best part- a pair of chickadees nesting in a birdhouse Kaden made last year!  Right on our porch, which is pretty awesome to see and hear each morning.

And, of course, our favorite little groundhog- who may or may not be teething at 4 months.  Drool or no, we'll keep him!

Ten Weeks along...

It's hard to believe that LittleManSam is 10 weeks already.  It feels like forever! In a good way (mostly).  His crying jags have lessened.  We're rarely on the "level 3 alert" - which was eyes scrunched closed, mouth wide open and WAILING at the top of his lungs repeatedly.  Not fun for any of us.  He still cries and fusses, but at (usually) lower levels and (usually) not 3+ hours at a time.

We haven't taken too many photos of the cry jags.  I've been TRYING to get a photo of his smile, which is completely adorable.  But it comes and goes rather quickly.  His first smile was around 8 weeks.

You might think, from the photo above, that we entered him into some sort of old-tyme photo shoot.  Not at all.  He's not pretending to be a founding father (with their white wigs)- this is actually his baptismal outfit.  It was mine, actually, which is kinda cool.  (Kaden used a combination of my 2 brothers' outfits.)  I swear he looked much more normal when he was baptized.  That was around... 6 weeks old.

My thinking brain hasn't fully engaged yet.  It does, for brief spans of time, and then... it doesn't.  Very frustrating on some levels.  A bit worrisome since I ease back into work this week.  But most of the time, with those cute toes, a bit of aspirin and strong coffee- it's all good.

Here's the close up of our founding father.  I love all the expressions on his face here.  All these photos were taken by a (new) friend of mine... she offered to take newborn photos, but she has a toddler and it took us about 7-8 weeks to synchronize :)   She's pretty talented, though, and the day was a lot of fun.

Sam's face seems to be changing day by day this week.  Kinda amazing, watching him grow.  The 2 month doctor visit went fine.  We're still doing both nursing and formula.  Kaden is still over- enthused about his baby brother.  Spring has sprung, Easter's around the corner, and all in all, life is looking better each day :)

OH! and this week, Sam has started focusing more intently on stuff (and people, too).  He really likes patterns and the feel of flannel.  One day he was wearing a footie outfit, where the footies were little bears, and it looked like he was trying to grab them.  He hold his head up really well, and usually prefers to be in a sitting position.  If you try to lay him down, or just recline his head/back a little, he grunts and moves his head up.  It's kinda adorable to see him trying to do stuff, but not having the body control to do it.  I'm sure he'll get there soon.

And, even though it's way too early for him to be teething, we've noticed that sometimes he likes to bite down on stuff.  Interesting, that little boy.  Another fun tidbit- when he sleeps, he'll often still do the moro reflex (where his arms flail out for no reason).  He's almost 12 lbs of fun, that little boy!

What did you say?

Hi!  Thought I'd catch you up on things around here.

Mostly, I sleep...  and eat, and pee.

I make all sorts of odd noises (grunts, squeaks, smacks).

Some days, I cry.  A lot. But never when there's company.

Can you believe I'm a month already?

I open my eyes a little bit more now, and look around at people.

Even though I'm just 4 wks, I weigh about 10-11 lbs.  That makes it hard for mom to figure out which clothes will fit me.  Below, I'm pretending to be a meditating monk.

And here is my first or second walk outside.  It's freezing out, so I have about 3 layers of clothes plus 2 blankets on, and Mom still doesn't let me stay outside for more than 10 minutes or so.  Sigh.

This is my big brother, Kaden.  He's really nice to me.  He talks a lot.

Yesterday, I was crying, and he told me:

"Don't cry, Sammy, this is a happy house."

And the other day when I was crying, he told me:

"I know it's hard, Sam, but you gotta face your fears if you want to grow big and strong like me!"

I don't know what he meant by that.  Where's my monk robe? I need to think about it.

PS- like my sideburns?  Mom thinks they are cool.

The gig is (almost) up!

So, it's Christmas, more or less!  And our five year old boy is thinking.  A lot.

The other day, he tells me he "just knows" that Santa will bring him a specific toy.  "Hmm," I said, "but you just wrote him a letter, and you only asked for ONE toy, and that wasn't it.  How can he bring you a toy if you didn't ask him for it?"   He thought about that, and then explained to me (!):  "Well, Mom, doncha know that Santa watches me all the time?  He knows if I'm bad or good.  So he knows what I want, too!"

This Santa business- I don't know how long it can last, if he's thinking like that.  At FIVE.  We were with some good friends the other day, and I loved watching their 3 kids write their letters to Santa.  The oldest started with "I still believe in you, even though I'm 10 and some of my friends don't."  Heartwarming, yes?  Then she closed with "and I know I've been good, so I deserve some presents."  I had to snort my coffee so I didn't laugh out loud.  She really is sweet, and the rest of the letter was not demanding at all, which made the ending so surprising!   Her younger brother, on the other hand, was not demanding at all in his gentle suggestions for toys.  He ended the letter with "and I hope I've been good enough."  Clearly aware of his areas for growth :)

Last week, the kids had a *scheduled* 2 hour delay, that I missed the memo on.  So after walking to the bus stop, then driving to school, then standing outside for 5 minutes... someone clued us in, and we decided to head to Starbucks for a treat.  Today, we had a *winter weather* 2 hour delay- and I totally got the memo on this one!  So we bundled up and carefully trudged out to the bus stop.  The girls were more or less lined up, chatting with each other.  The boys found a pile of snow/ice to destroy by stomping or grabbing and throwing.  On the way there, Kaden mentioned how walking on ice "was kinda like skating" and how he couldn't wait until recess, so he could throw snowballs.  "Hey bud, I don't know if they let you do that at recess.  I've never had a snow recess, so I don't know how it works."  He looked at me very seriously.  "I've never had a snow recess EITHER."  Then he smiled, "so I guess we'll find out TODAY."

This weekend was also the feast day of St. Nickolas.  Kaden was thrilled to see him, even before he realized there was chocolate coins involved.  We were around most of the morning, long enough to see St. Nick 3 times. One of those times, it was his dad playing St Nick.  When St. JimNick entered the room, Kaden stared at him for a minute, then started stroking his own imaginary beard (no lie, he does this often when he's thinking).  HEY! (he jumped out of his chair and yelled) YOU REMIND ME OF SOMEONE.   "Santa Claus? I'm the original one, you know."  Kaden shook his head, "no, that's not it.." and thankfully his teacher jumped in and moved the class along.

Later that day, Kaden told me he thought Jim was dressed as St. Nick.  "He had the same shoes, Mom."
Jim piped up:  Just a coincidence.  
Kaden:  "And the same voice..."
Jim:  a lot of people sound alike, buddy.
~ pause ~
Kaden:  and the SAME GREEN EYES, Dad!  (then he smiles and starts nodding his head)
Jim: (flabbergasted)
Me:  well, the way to tell if Daddy is St. Nick's special helper, is to go see St. Nick again.  If you see St. Nick and Daddy *together*, then they can't be the same person, right?!
Kaden:  hmmm.

Thankfully, I knew we had one more St. Nick sighting to go- and it wasn't Jim.  So we were sure to have Jim in the same room with Kaden and St. Nick.  We haven't heard any further arguments, but we're not sure he's convinced either!!

Excitement! Getting to know Neighbors!

So!  Earlier this week, we had a wee bit of excitement.  No fewer than SEVEN firetrucks in our neighborhood.  You would've thought it was a block party, there were so many people hanging out, milling around, chatting.  No one had any clue what was going on, but we were all chatting away anyway.  After about an hour, all the trucks left (waving at our little guy and making him sooooo happy).  Another hour later, I hopped on facebook to check the fire dept's fan page- and sure enough, they posted the event.  Thanks to an alert neighbor spotting smoke and calling 911... the FD had to bust in a door because no one answered... and it turned out to be a small kitchen fire and the chef asleep in the next room.  Excitement for the day!

That's not the only way we meet neighbors around here.  Besides the normal "hi" when we pass each other on the sidewalk, we sometimes have someone stopping by when I'm watering the garden.  It's a patio one, and they're all in boxes- more on that for another post- so it looks "interesting".  The best part is there's actually herbs FLOURISHING, so they get attention, and our watermelon vines are going *all over* now.  Here's a pic of our smallest one, less than 1/2 inch long.  The largest is probably a 5 inch diameter- I think they were sugar babies, so it probably wont' get any bigger.  There's another 3-4 in different sizes growing.  Much fun, and a good discussion piece!

Random Fun

I don't think any of these photos happened *recently*... but they did happen in 2013.  So there.  We took advantage of having free weekends (wha?) and did some touring.

 Like to a pretzel factory in Lititz! Fairly neat place, even if it was a historical factory and not really used (much) anymore.  Way cool to see the ovens and huge paddles used to bake the tasty treats.  Not cool at all to have to work there, back in the day!

Of course, there's Hershey and Chocolate World, which we may or may not visit too often.  It depends on who you ask.

I didn't think this would ever happen, since the kid has not voluntarily fell asleep since he was about 3 months old.  But sure enough, I sent him to read a book on his bed... and ta-da! or wa-la! whichever.

 And then there's Superfireman Guy.  He's like a fireman, only a superhero too.  Because he can fly, and water shoots out his hands, like spiderman, only it's water not webs.  What, you didn't know that?

And these last two?  Well, I just love my kid.  I'm pretty sure he's hiding under the table, waiting for us to notice him.  He may or may not be fully clothed.  My guess is not.  It's apparently a lot of fun to run away and hide instead of putting on PJs and going to bed.  Just an observation, I haven't tried it myself.  Just clarifying, for you weirdo types.