Sam’s Story: Week 81

While coming back from the zoo on Saturday, we passed a little girl sporting a tee shirt that read, “I’M THE BOSS!” Parenthood has given me many wonderful gifts, one of which is the urge to throttle any parent who buys their children shirts like that. You don’t need to encourage toddlers to think that they’re in control. In fact, from what I hear, most of your energy goes into trying to counteract such sentiments. Sure, they can’t read, but they know. For my part, I plan on getting a shirt that just says “Do you want a time out?” Such an item would save my vocal cords from otherwise certain exhaustion.

Actually, I’m selling Sam short a little there. She’s not throwing tantrums yet, but you can see the little gears going in her head sometimes as she starts to piece together the association between crying and screaming and getting what she wants. Her teething is putting her in a grumpy mood as it is, but I think some of it is deliberate. Yesterday she wanted nothing more in the world than to lay hands on Ger’s scrapbooking supplies, which included scissors, paper cutter, glitter, and other items that could either create precious memories or a trip to the emergency room. When I refused to hand over any of this contraband, the wailing started and continued until I was forced to call in reinforcements from Sesame Street.

Later that day she made up for it, though, by giving me one of the best laughs I’ve had in a long time. We were up in her bedroom playing when Sam started showing an interest in pulling out and trying on some of her different shirts. So I helped her take her shirt off and put a different one on (an orange and black Halloween one for some reason), then change back into her original one. A few minutes later I was in the other room and I heard grunts of frustration coming from Sam’s nursery. I went in there and doubled over laughing when I saw how she had tried to pull her own shirt off, only to get it pulled halfway down her face with her arms stuck in the sleeves and pointing out at odd angles. Then because I was laughing so hard she started laughing, and the site of her standing there laughing while bamboozled by her own clothing made me laugh even harder. I’m just mad that the camera’s batteries were dead.

Speaking of which,

I love this picture in particular. It was taken near the Zoo where we stopped off to let Sam ride on the Merry-Go-Round. She was understandably freaked out at first, but warmed up when she realized that none of the giant frogs or screaming horses were going to eat her. We also took her on a little ride where she sat on an orange butterfly and went around in circles, but for SOME reason my camera decided that those pictures were an affront to nature and had to be destroyed. I’m still really mad about that.