Sam’s Story: Week 79

Back a few years ago, before Sam was born, a friend of Geralyn’s came to visit us. She brought along her husband and one of their children, a boy somewhere around 1 year old. I remember very clearly when we went out to dinner how amazed Ger and I both were over how easily her friend could simultaneously ignore and pay attention to her child. The kid was constantly squirming, grabbing at things (steak knives, glasses of water, etc.), and shouting, but this woman somehow managed to corral him, yank things away from him, and otherwise keep him in check, all without breaking stride while holding an adult conversation with the rest of us. It was like someone was remote controlling her arms and hands while the rest of her stayed in this world.

Out to dinner last night, Ger and I realized that we had come to possess this same incredible gift. We were sitting there talking about what books we had been reading while Sam snatched, threw, yelled, and generally spazzed out like a little tempest in a tea pot. Sure, Sam may have thrown a wadded up napkin in Ger’s cream of mushroom soup, but Ger never batted an eye as she picked it out with one hand and pulled a crayon out of Sam’s jaws with the other –all without any kind of lull in the conversation with me. It was bizarre, but I guess it’s a good thing. If only I could split my being like that at work, I’d be running the place by now.

Look, this week’s pictures:



Of particular note is the following sequence of images, which is currently my computer desktop wallpaper (click for a larger version):

Watermellon



In other news, Sam’s vocabulary seems to be backsliding a bit. She understands more than ever, but her predilection for “No” (or, on occasion, “No-no”) has squeezed out other words of late. Here’s a chart to show what a typical day’s uttering amount to:

Sam Says



Unless the SATs of the future feature only questions to which the correct answer is “No!” things need to improve.

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