Conspiracy theory

One of the classic ways to break down a person's resolve is through sleep-deprivation. Frat pledges, Gitmo detainees, and new parents all experience this --- with varying degrees of consent and severity (obviously).

But for at least two of the aforementioned groups, there is usually an end in sight. Which leads, as all trials endured and ended do, to a degree of complacency. All of which is a long way of saying I'm about to complain despite the fact that Jane is almost always a good sleeper.

Of late (and I do mean late) sweet Jane has been waking up around 1 am. Which wouldn't be a big deal if she just switched on her light and did Sudoku until falling gently back to sleep.

She does not.

In fact, she yells. Rather loudly. Which means that Samson begins to stir. And there's nothing good that can come of that. Jane can usually be rocked back to sleep, although it almost always entails her sleeping the rest of the night in our bed. [Sidenote: We have a king bed, and Jane is on the small side for her age, but her reach is pretty impressive. Last night she was sleeping perpendicular to Vicki and I and at some point launched a two-footed heel kick into my head worthy of a UFC highlights reel. I digress.]

Anyway, with Jane settled and Samson successfully tucked back in, these early morning disturbances would be nothing more than a bleary-eyed blip in an otherwise peaceful night.

But wait, there's more.

Samson, no slouch in the difficult sleep department, has been waking at 5. And unfortunately, when Sam wakes up, it's almost impossible to get him back to sleep. For one, he wakes up talking, usually in complete sentences and with the purpose of getting a head-start on the day's play. When that fails (and it always fails), he typically pulls the monster card. As in, "Come into my bed. I'm scared. There are monsters." And then starts the crying.

At any other time of the day, we'd be content to call his bluff. But at five, with his sister sleeping just next door, and only another precious hour of sleep left, you can see the conundrum this presents. And so this morning, like yesterday and the day before, I folded myself up into his little bed to keep the monsters at bay and vainly attempt to get him back to sleep. I can report success on only one front.

All of which leads Vicki and I to believe that there is a conspiracy afoot. There's a lot of "chatter" lately on the baby monitors at nap time, and while we haven't intercepted any coded documents yet, Jane gave Samson a knowing smile at dinner yesterday and loudly proclaimed: "Ta-TOOOO."

Probably a trigger word of some sort.

The kids are all right

Usually we're on full alert to keep the kids from jumping on the couch (and each other in the process), but there's something so darn sweet about this picture. I think it lasted about 15 seconds, but luckily for us, Vicki is quick with the camera.

This is another favorite of mine. They were outside playing when a helicopter flew overhead.

And these are just some random ones that I really like and that remind me how lucky I am.

Silent partner

Samson had a bowling birthday party to attend on Sunday, which left sweet Jane and I with a few hours to kill. She spent a good portion of our time together napping, which was fine by me --- I actually read the Sunday paper on Sunday --- and then we headed to the mall on our never-ending search for hair clips that will stay in her hair and won't get lost.

OK, I guess we can't expect the clips to cover that second order of business, but it was 90 degrees outside, and we needed something to do. Plus, the mall on Sunday morning is a nice, relatively empty place for Jane to practice walking. Which she resolutely refused to do. Jane is a girl of few words, but "no" is a contender for her favorite. That and "happy," which she pronounces kind of like a native French speaker: app-EEE.

About a half-hour into our little field trip, it occurred to me that Jane is a really quiet child. I mean, I knew this already. And some of this is probably a function of her not being able to get a word in edgewise with her chatterbox brother around. But as we were wandering around, and I was pointing things out to her and telling her what this or that sign meant, I realized she was probably wondering when I'd stop talking [the source of Sam's chattiness is not a mystery].

So I did. We walked along for a few minutes saying nothing, and I watched her big blue eyes just taking in the sights. Occasionally she'd crane her neck around to see something of particular interest, like the line of people at the Apple store waiting for iPhones. But mostly she was just content to be held and observe life as it happened.

I'm sure there's a Zen parable in this story or something, but I expect that once she gets a critical mass of words, she won't be nearly as quiet.

Indeed, by the time we got home (minus the sought-after clips, just fyi), Samson and Vicki had returned with tales of bowling and video games, and Jane was pretty adamant that Sam's goody bag be shared. As in, she grabbed for it and insisted: "Me. MEEEE." Then she did a kind of spin move and yanked the bag away in one swift motion.

Maybe her quietude is less about observation and reflection and more about her secret plan to become a ninja?

Not-quite instant karma

I never see my father so happy as when he's watching Samson spin the karmic wheel of wise-guy-ness in my direction. I'll have to call him with these two stories:

Story 1: At the dinner table. Samson, who is a good eater when he wants to be (unlike Jane, around whom you could lose a finger if you weren't careful) decided to turn a spoonful of applesauce upside down.

Me: "What are you doing?"

Samson: "Hey! I have applesauce on my shorts!"

Me: "What were you thinking?"

Samson: "Well, I am an astronaut. I don't have any gravity."

Story 2: Last night, around 8 pm. Samson, already put to bed, post-stories, post-glass of water, post-discussion about monsters and their potential hiding places, is heard on the stairs. Vicki and I are in the kitchen, and there he is, in the living room. In a cape.

Vicki: "You're supposed to be in bed. What are you doing?"

Samson: "I'm not sleepy, and I wanted to come downstairs, but I didn't want you to see me. So I'm in disguise."

Luke channels Bartleby (and the Buddha) at the beach

While Samson played in the sand, and Jane charged the waves, cousin Luke exercised his right not to get his toes wet.

Look at this little guy: Calm, determined. Heck, he's almost in a full-lotus position.

Gidget

At the beach

We made a quick trip to NY this weekend for baby Emily's christening. We also finally got the kids to the beach. This little jaunt probably lasted all of an hour, and that's a generous estimate, but it was worth pushing Jane past her bedtime.

To be honest, she'd probably still be there if we let her. Our first encounter with the water involved a wave that broke a little bigger than I expected.

Which sent Samson back to the towel, declaring "I don't like the ocean. I just like pool water." And that was that for him.

Jane, on the other hand, had to be physically restrained from pulling a King Canute.

Seriously, I walked her back up to our towel at least three separate times only to have her turn around and toddle back down to the shore. The girl is fearless.

That's really super, SuperGirl

Speaking of secret identities, Sweet Jane has discovered the joy of wearing a cape around the house. Good times...

Alter ego

Samson's attention has turned back to superheroes, and so once again we are having lots of conversations about secret identities.

For some reason the topic comes up a lot at dinner, and we'll go through the litany of guys [it's only guys] and their respective alter egos: Clark Kent, Barry Allen, Peter Parker, the Bruces: Wayne and Banner, and John Stewart [this one, not that one].

So I guess it shouldn't be surprising that Samson has now assumed his own alter ego. He's been doing a lot of role-playing lately, as in: "I'm Daddy and you're Samson. Come on, Samson, let's go play baseball" or "I'm not Samson; I'm Daddy. Hey Vick? Do you want coffee?"

But he's also apparently married the love of role play with his rock star ambitions. We were in the kids' section at Barnes & Noble over the weekend, where they have a little stage. Samson got up on the stage and announced, not too loudly and to no one in particular, that he was ready for the show.

Two children actually came and sat down and waited patiently. What they expected he was going to do, I don't know. But in less than a minute, the kid had mustered an audience. Forget the Little Einstein books and videos, we need to get to work on a Little P.T. Barnum series.

When one of their mothers asked him what he was going to do, he said he had a band: Oregon Ridge Manhole. Now Oregon Ridge is a nature center near our house. Where the manhole comes from, I just don't know, but it made me laugh out loud.

He then told her his name was Brian Mexico.

I like to think I have a good imagination. And I'm pretty certain that some of Samson's talents for straight-faced fibbing comes from me (although Vicki did tell her third-grade class that she had lunch with Queen Elizabeth), but I think he's rapidly approaching the end of his Grasshopper phase...

No spitting

As a kid, the "no spitting" signs on the NYC subway cars always made me laugh. Now I wish I had one of them for our house.

For a while now, Samson has been spitting. More properly, he's been giving raspberries [I don't want you to think he walks around the house like a minor leaguer with a jaw full of chew or anything].

He's particularly convinced that the way to combat bugs (mosquitoes, flies) that make it into our house is by spitting at them. You can guess how well that works. Basically we end up with saliva dots on the bug's last known place of residence and a wet, wobbly flying insect still making the rounds of our house.

Anyway, operating on the monkey see principle, Jane is now spitting. And laughing about it. It's driving Vicki insane.

Independence Day

For a change, it wasn't 300 degrees on July 4th, and so the parade was less of an endurance test than usual. For heat anyway, there was still the usual coterie of election-year floats and other oddities to be endured.

On that front, this year's winner by a mile was a float that featured kids dressed as robots and had a woman speaking into a megaphone about America embracing God again and getting the country's business back on track. I need to go back to my New Testament to figure out which of the Beatitudes dealt with macroeconomics...

We had the Ace of Cakes guy as the parade's honorary grand marshall, which meant that he and his tattooed band of merry men (and women) were pulled down the street on a flatbed to the wild cheers of food nerds and people who like girls with sleeve tattoos and tube dresses. Which covered everyone (except maybe the robot Reagan/Jesus people).

Jane (for whom every day is independence day) decided the sidewalk would be the ideal place to really practice walking. To her credit, she didn't complain about the scraped knees that resulted, and she actually did a pretty good job.

Amazingly, she can only really walk when she's holding something. Usually said object needs to be either a choking hazard or an object that could render her a cyclops, but she settled for a bag of crackers while we were at the parade.

Later in the day our friends had their annual 4th of July party, immediately preceded by the annual thunderstorm. Even so, the tents were up, the beer was cold, the grill was going, and Samson got a chance to jam (and stay up late enough to see a firework or two).

Life with Sam(son) Beckett

There are times when I wish I had a camera rolling in my car. This morning was one of those times. Samson has already discovered the theater of the absurd.

Scene: Saturday morning, in the car. Samson and Daddy, returning home after playing soccer at the gym and getting a pretzel at the mall.

Samson: Where are we going?

Daddy: Home.

Samson: Why?

Daddy: You said you wanted to go home, didn't you?

Samson: When?

Daddy: At the gym when we were playing soccer. And at the mall after we got our pretzel.

Samson: I know. But where are we going?

Daddy: We're going home, buddy.

Samson: Why?

Fear and loathing at the ice cream parlor

For some reason, Samson was obsessed with going out for ice cream yesterday. Since it was a nice day, we'd planned on taking a walk after dinner to an ice cream place right in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, Jane never took an afternoon nap, and by the time I got home from work she looked ready for a three-state killing spree.

So it became a Sam and Daddy trip. Which was fine. Until we got to the ice cream place. I had forgotten (how, I don't know) that Samson still has a black eye. Which, given his complexion, looks about a thousand times worse under fluorescent lighting.

So here I am with my wounded child buying him ice cream and it felt like everyone there was silently making out a report to Child Protective Services. He, of course, was totally oblivious to all of this and was just focused on getting some Crazy Vanilla, which is basically French vanilla ice cream with food coloring.

An interesting thing about getting ice cream with Samson is that he picks based on color. It makes sense when you think about it. Chocolate may be delicious, but it's just, well, brown. That electric yellow and green stuff on the other hand. That sure looks interesting.

We've thrown away more than a few cones of sour apple, electric mango, and the like because they didn't quite meet his taste expectations [and it seems silly to make a child eat ice cream; green beans, sure, but turbo watermelon chunk?]. All of this has taught me to approach vivid ice cream colors the way that nature uses them on wild animals: essentially as warnings to stay away.

Anyway, Crazy Vanilla is actually pretty good, and we managed to make it out of the shop without anyone asking him what happened. Which is good as that would only have made things worse. I know what happened, but when a friend of ours asked him yesterday, he said: "Um, I fell on the floor. Right Daddy?"

Thanks, Luka.

Sweet Jane: A (very brief) photoessay