Sam’s Story: Week 125

Sam has a new favorite thing: the vibrating chair. Her grandma has one of those pads that you can drape over any recliner to turn it into a Vibromax 2000 Brand Muscle Buzzing and Relaxation Station, and once Sam gets on it it’s hard to get her off. Any suggestions that she dislodge herself in favor of other pursuits like bathing or eating are met with –and I quote– “I’m busy, Daddy.” Usually shouted over what sounds like the buzzing of a thousand extremely mellow bees.

Relaxing moments in the vibrating chair aside, Sam has a pretty active week. She once again went to the pool at Ger’s godparents’ house, out again on Saturday, and to a Father’s Day party that one of Ger’s cousins was throwing. And there was another pool there, which I had to take her in even though lightening storms blowing through the area presented the delightful twin threats of electrocution and hypothermia.

This Father’s Day was marked with unhappy undertones for myself, as it was the first one in my entire life that I didn’t have to wish my own dad a good one, thank him for everything he’s done for me, and promise him that his gift was a little late but totally on the way. Or would be after I bought it and put it in the mail, and let’s face it it’s just going to be a gift certificate because I’m awful at buying presents. I think this goes back to one Father’s Day in particular, when I was finally old enough to choose and buy a gift on my own and, inexplicably, settled on a mass-produced, godawful print from the frames department at Wal-Mart. I think there were ducks and a hunting dog and a sunset, all in various tones of brown, beige, and more brown. My dad was clearly taken aback when I gave it to him, but he recovered quickly and thanked me nonetheless. Though he apparently couldn’t help noting that it was certainly the last thing he had expected to receive. I think that most of my gift-buying difficulties stem from that event, as it presents a kind of mental road block where I just give up and take a detour onto Gift Certificate Lane.

Sam, on the other hand, seems to be a natural. She marked the special day on Sunday by presenting me with the Venture Brother’s Season 1 DVD set, still neatly wrapped in a Best Buy shopping bag. Which, of course, is five separate and distinct kinds of awesome.

Here’s some pictures:

You’ll notice that I’ve put Sam to work cleaning my car, but she was actually glad to do it and kept chirping “We giving Daddy’s car a bath!” the whole time. I preemptively dressed her in her swimming suit as I thought that the hose play would result in a soggy Sammy, but she displayed a healthy fear of the hose, yelling “Get out of the way! Get out of the way!” and running for higher ground whenever I reached for it. She did, however, enjoy the rainbows I created by setting it to “mist” and spraying it up into the sunlight.

The last thing I’ll mention this week is that Sam’s diction and pronunciation are coming along nicely. She uses pronouns quite deftly, referring often to “you” or “me” or “she” in the manner most sanctioned by international grammar laws. The only major challenge she still needs to conquer is her “S” and soft “C” sounds. She still almost always puts a “Sh” sound in there instead so that “snake” becomes “shnake” and “Percy” becomes “Pershy.” This normally isn’t a big deal, but can be a little embarrassing if we’re out in public when she gets tired of walking and announces to the world that she needs to “sit.”

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