« Photo of the Week: Broken Heart |Main| Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim »
Week 169: Talks, Illness, and Changes April 23, 2007
It’s amazing that after more than three years, I’m still shocked by how quickly Sam can lurch forward along her developmental path, displaying new tricks and quirks. Sometimes it’s nothing demonstrably stupendous, but instead something subtle like the way that talking to her has morphed from a series of staccato question/answer exchanges about Curious George to a flowing conversation complete with pauses, intonations, implied messages, retrieval of previously archived thoughts, and a general exchange of abstract ideas. Also about Curious George, but it’s still qualitatively different than the kind of exchanges I was having with this person just a few weeks ago.
 |
 |
In fact, the kid seems crazy for conversations. One of her favorite things lately is to have me “talk to” her toys. Or even just common objects, like her bath towel or her toothbrush. And by “talk to” she actually means “talk FOR,” because in order to stop the otherwise incessant flow of “Talk to the frog, Daddy, talk to the frog talk to the frog daddy talk to the frog,” requests I have to take the object in question and pretend to make it talk. This cracks Sam up, and she will proceed to have engrossing conversations with the object about eating flies, absorbing bathwater, or removing plaque. When all those parenting books told us to constantly talk to our baby we didn’t quite foresee this kind of mania as the result.
 |
 |
Sometimes, though, Sam reverts to her old self. The other day Sam suddenly came down with a fever. Just the run of the mill childhood malady that’s nothing serious, but which sends the reading on The Samantha Alert System crashing through the floor into previously uncharted territory, specifically somewhere between “Pissed off at Entire World’ and “I Will Kill You All With My Shrieking Shrieks of SEVERE DISPLEASURE.” During these times, Sam just wants to sit there so she can sputter and cry at the world, and any overture of help (say, a hug or a popsicle or neon red goop from a bottle with a child-proof cap) are met with spastic rejection in the form of shoving and renewed shrieking.
 |
 |
It usually doesn’t last long, though, and it didn’t in this case either. During the night Sam’s fever broke. I woke up suddenly around 4:00 a.m. when the part of my brain that I’ve reserved for hearing Sam’s bedroom door open clicked on. It can do this no matter what state of consciousness I am in nor no matter how far away I am. Modern scientists think it has something to do with quantum physics and dark matter, but they’re not sure. I got out of bed and met Sam at the door to my bedroom, dropping to my knees and asking her what was wrong. She just mumbled something ending in “Daddy” and leaned into my chest, wrapping her arms around my neck. I picked her up, carried her back down the dark hall, and put her back in her bed. She settled in, mumbled something else that this time ended in “you can go now,” and closed her eyes. Those are the quiet moments, the best moments, that make the more shriek-filled tirades and never ending conversations with toothbrushes worth it.
 |
 |
Mandy is also doing well, and again I’m shocked almost every time I look at her. I can set her down and turn away to look for the remote, then when I look back at her she’s completely changed. I think she has started to grow into her baby fat a bit, so that she’s still not quite as chunky as she used to be. She’s also really started grabbing things and pulling them towards her mouth. She seems to favor her index and middle fingers, which she periodically grabs with her other hand and crams into her maw or, if her aim is bad, her nostrils. Oddly enough, getting them in her mouth never seems to be as satisfying as she thought it would be, because she spends the rest of her time slurping and emitting sharp grunts of extreme annoyance. But it entertains her, so I’m not about to stop it.
As far as pictures go this week there’s not a whole lot. I like this one of Mandy, because of the stupendously stunned look on her face after putting her in the bouncie swingie thingie. I also like this one of Sam for some reason, probably for the lighting and because the expression on her face really encapsulates a good part of her personality. The other part is captured right here, which is the part that constantly shouts “Hey! Excuse me! Excuse me! Everyone look at me now! Excuse me! Hey!”
Comments (8) |
Permalink | 
File under:
Parenting
Tags: Amanda, Parenting, Samantha
Comments
Posted by Laura on April 23, 2007 7:40 PM:
You know, it was never super obvious to me whether Sam looked more like you or Geralyn. But in the black and white picture of Sam where she's wearing a hat - she looks sooo much like Geralyn that it's strange I never saw it before.
(In case you're wondering, I think Mandy looks a lot like you.)
Posted by shawn on April 23, 2007 11:51 PM:
When I saw illness in the title and the photo of Sam lying down sucking her thumb, I thought a trip to the hospital had occurred. It looks like she is wearing a hospital bracelet in that photo. I'm glad to hear she is on the mend.
I'm growning into my baby fat too!!!
Posted by Jamie on April 24, 2007 5:44 AM:
Laura, yeah it really depends on what expression Sam is wearing and how the light hits her. I can see both of us. Mandy looks a lot more like a Madigan, though. At least so far.
Shawn, that actually is a hospital bracelet. Sam took it from Ger's mom, who was just discharged from the hospital following knee replacement surgery.
Posted by Ger on April 24, 2007 8:23 AM:
The hospital bracelet is my mom's, she had knee replacement surgery earlier last week and gave Sammy the bracelet. No need for alarm! : )
Posted by jjohnsen on April 24, 2007 3:09 PM:
Sick kids are the worst. Both of mine have been passing something back and forth(and sharing with my wife and I) and it seems never ending. As soon as we think everyone is well, one of the four of us will start coughing. Ugh.
Posted by Jamie on April 24, 2007 7:43 PM:
It's preschools, man. Those places are big petri dishes for small-scale biological warfare.
Posted by Todd on April 24, 2007 9:35 PM:
Amen to preschools being little virus labs. I can't wait until real school starts and we start dealing with pink eye, strep, chicken pox, mono and other fun.
How are you doing you're B&W conversions? Sam has kind of gray/blue eyes if I remember. Try playing with the channel mixer. I always had a good time emphasizing the red channel. With blue-eyed kids you get big, dark eyes and white, dreamy skin. (See this old one of Emma for an example.)
Posted by Jamie on April 25, 2007 6:30 AM:
Sam's eyes are now more green than blue, but I'll try that, Todd. I think for that image I was in a hurry and just used some pre built B&W conversion actions I had downloaded. That shot of Emma is great.