Grandma and Grandpa Sommer are visiting! At first Sam didn’t seem to remember them and was a bit leery of these strange (and honestly a bit loud) people, but they brought her gifts and paid her lots of attention so she quickly decided that they were all right. Ger and I are also enjoying their visit and the chance it brings to let Sam play with them.
We were actually going to go see a movie the other night –in the theater!– but upon scanning the showtimes we realized that now is the post-Oscar doldrums where there’s almost nothing but crap playing. And what few good movies there are were scheduled for ungodly late hours, like 10:00 p.m. Who stays up that late? So I played World of Warcraft instead. Geralyn did something, I dunno. Read?
Not that we haven’t done anything together. Yesterday we all five went to the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla. There were a lot of fish and this kept Sam entertained for a little while as she enjoyed looking up at them and pointing. The thing she most enjoyed, though, was tearing up the world’s tectonic plates in the Kid’s Zone.
Funny thing was that there was a special exhibit on the seahorse and when I pointed one out to Sam and named it, Sam turned to me and said “Nnnaaayy!” in imitation of a regular horse. “No,” I said. “A sea horse doesn’t go ‘nay’ Sammy.” And I swear, she gave me an exasperated look like “Dude, you’re insane. You just said it was a horse.” and then she continued to say “Nnnnaaaay!” But this time she was much more emphatic.
Here’s some photos:
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As you can see, Sam is still walking. I also like how this picture turned out, as it looks like she’s right in the middle of punching me in the face. Which is silly, because when she hits me in the face it’s usually more of a open slap and she hasn’t yet learned to put her whole body into it like that.
The pace at which Sam is developing is really amazing, though. I don’t know (nor care) about how she matches up with benchmarks, averages, and other children who are not Sam, but it seems like every day is something new. She’s not only walking, but can follow some simple commands (“Give the spoon to Daddy.”) and seems to know the names of many objects even if she doesn’t say them. Last night she invented a new game where she would get on all fours, stick her rump up in the air, and look back between her legs. Then she would giggle until she fell over, get up, and do it again. Fantastic.
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