Climbing!

As Sam and I clean up our old rental today, he kept working his way towards the stairs. When I finally finished vacuuming downstairs, I decided to see what Sam would do when he got to the stairs. He had climbed up boxes before, but had never had an entire staircase in front of him. Unassisted, he climbed up stair after stair, not looking back until he had climbed 4 steps. I went and got mom, and and with her as the goal at the top, he climbed the entire staircase, using the carpet shag as hand holds going up. Now all he has to do is figure out how to safely go down stairs...

Egg on his face

Sam ate egg yolk for the first time this morning and also fed himself for the first time today. He's been interested in exploring with his index finger lately - everything gets touched by that finger first. He did the same with the egg but also managed to get it stuck to another part of his hand and bring it to his mouth. Very exciting. He's on the road to self-sufficiency already!

-Christine

Home Sweet Home

Sam slept in his room in our real house for the first time last night. Ah, home sweet home. He's been having fun exploring the new house and discovering how hardwood floors work.

Bombs away

For the last couple of weeks Sam has been enjoying pulling up on various objects to get into the standing position. One of his favorite objects is a free-standing plastic file box of mine that's about a foot high - perfect for him. He's in the process of figuring out how to get down once he's gotten up. Yesterday I saw him stand and look at his hands on the box, then look at his toy on the ground and back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. I could see his brain whirring and the moment that he thought, "Well, bomb's away!" and he let go with both hands and headed face first to the ground and landed on his hands and knees. Today he added the beginning of bending his knees to make it less of a free fall. It's amazing to watch all this unfold...

Bigger than a shoebox

Climb to the highest heights

Sam helps unpack the microwave

Sam's new favorite thing

That's why little frisbees are made!

That's why little frisbees are made!

Alice's biggest fan!

Take your medicine like a 7 month old

Sam came back from our last trip with an ear infection that required antibiotics be given to him orally. The doctor told us that the easiest way to administer them was to put a syringe in the corner of his mouth and squirt it into his cheek. Well, Sam did not like this at all and was very resourceful in making it difficult. He invented the following ways to stop medicine from getting into his mouth:

1. Tongue blocker - moving his tongue to block the incoming stream of medicine.
2. Tongue blocker 2 - open his mouth just a little, but keep the tongue blocking the small opening.
3. The Head Flail - moving his head from side to side to make it difficult for us to aim
4. The Straight Arm- putting his arms straight out and hitting our hands as we attempted to get close to his mouth.
5. The inflated face block - Sam would inflate his cheeks and pucker his lips to let us know we weren't putting anything into his mouth.
   

And of course all this was accompanied by lots of wailing.

So I found a way that was much easier and fun as well for all of us. I would make funny faces at Sam until he would laugh. As soon as he opened his mouth, I would shoot medicine in from 3 inches away, which would invariably surprise him, but never seemed to upset him. We would wait until he swallowed this portion of his medicine, and then repeat until he had taken his required dosage. This routine made taking medicine almost fun....almost. But today he's done, so hopefully it won't be an issue again for a while.

Help! My dad has me imprisoned in a laundry basket!

And away we go

Sam started crawling today. He's been dragging himself around the floor mostly with his arms and a little wiggles from his legs, but today he had the first official use of alternating arms and legs to travel five feet to where I was. Now, it wasn't pretty and there was lots of collapsing along the way, but I expect he'll be perfecting it shortly. I now look around our living room with a new eye...one that's a foot off the ground to see what he could get to if he wanted.
-Christine

Father's Day Reflection (Belated)

So I (Dave) was asked to give a reflection back in June for the UCSD Catholic Community mass on Father's Day 2007. I had written my reflection in Word, but the copy that I read from had my handwritten notes on it that I wanted to put back into the original.
I just found the printed sheets with the notes yesterday and figured it was high time to recycle them, so I integrated them into the original. Our thought is that this blog is essentially Sam's baby book, so it seemed a good place to put it for safekeeping and sharing.

Father's Day Reflection

Hacker @ Large

Sam-not-so-well

Sam got his first ear infection in his right ear on Monday night. We took him to the urgent care and got him antibiotics but he was so pathetic on Tuesday. He was still a little feverish and just lay there with a toy in his hand, barely playing. I've decided there's nothing more pathetic than a sick kid and nothing sadder than an Urgent Care full of concerned parents and sick, hurt children. At least Sam is now on the mend and nearly his old self again.
-Christine

Sam at his first real Chicago pizza joint

Ian and Peanut at the picnic

Mobility

Sam is getting better and better at moving around each and every day. Around the middle of August he perfected sitting up unassisted and even learned how to use his arms or stomach muscles to make gentler transitions to lying down. He moved on quickly to getting up on his hands and knees, which he practices with great enthusiasm. He has figured out how to get from a sitting position down into a crawling position, but still hasn't coordinated all those hands and feet to crawl. He moves slowly around by rolling and twisting, though I don't think it will be long before he decides to move faster. His inner curiosity is now showing as he has the ability to get to things that intrigue him though (like the laptop I'm writing on right now!).
-Christine

Shopping with mom & dad

Sam & his cousin Devon

On the move

I think Sam has now officially figured out how to roll both ways. He's just managed to roll himself and wriggle himself across the blanket to get to the diaper wipes he wanted (he loves all plastic packages). His world is changing...
-Christine

Our Buddy Boy!

Sam at the Luau

Wish you were here with us! Dave & Christine

Newest member of Sam's fan club

I like Dad's hat

Grandma and Mr Clean Peanut

How's that for ettiquette?

What's this solid food stuff?