Easter parade, pt. 2

We had a great Easter weekend. Samson got to take part in his first egg hunt. And while he managed to find a few eggs, he was really impressed with the manhole cover he found. He was also totally nonplussed by the sight of a large anthropomorphic bunny. Which tells me I made the right decision in not getting him that Donnie Darko board book for his birthday...

Later on we dyed some eggs, which went pretty well. Although there were times when it felt like that first dinner party at Lord Greystoke's house. The onesie he has on in the picture now looks like it was tie-dyed, but I think he really enjoyed watching the eggs turn different colors.




Easter Sunday was another beautiful day, and Samson was resplendent in his Easter finery. We had a little photo shoot outside our house when we got back from Mass.

We had a terrific, non-ham/non-lamb Easter dinner with friends. No mint jelly for miles around, and we just enjoyed hanging out on a sunny Sunday.

Unfortunately, the night went south with the discovery that our cat, Ishmael, was really sick and hiding upstairs. The poor thing has been to the vet twice in three days, and we still have no idea what the problem is.

I have to admit, I felt a little silly Sunday night sitting in the waiting room of a 24-hour animal hospital offering a silent prayer for my cat to be all right. But if I could petition the Lord for miraculous intervention in October, I could certainly see my way clear to asking for at least some comfort for our little friend.

He's been a part of our family for almost 9 years. Indeed, he provided the impetus for our son's first word (and continuing understanding of the universe as a place without order).

So we're still waiting for lab results and hoping for the best. I'll keep you posted.

Suiting up

All credit goes to my friend and former colleague, Joe, for putting me wise to this gem from ESPN's Uni Watch column. Their in-house uniform maven, Paul Lukas, writes:

"Just when you thought you'd seen everything, check out the latest news release from the Arena Football League: "For the first time in sports history, a professional franchise will wear Bible-themed jerseys during a game. On Saturday, May 5, the Birmingham Steeldogs will don jerseys with the name of Bible hero Samson embroidered on the front... "

You can access the rest of the article here. You'll have to scroll down a bit, but it's worth it.

[Sidenote for those of you who really paid attention in Sunday school: the jersey should actually read Judges 13, since that's where Samson first appears. Of course, it would be awfully difficult to call a game with every player having the same number.]

Maybe this isn't just a blatant publicity stunt and will catch on.

Then again, maybe it is a blatant publicity stunt and will catch on anyway. Because nothing says I am a monotheist and adherent of the Judeo-Christian ethic quite like a shirt made of nylon mesh. With numbers on it.

That said, how awesome would it be to have an offensive line of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Or a special teams made up entirely of the minor prophets? [Actually, I bet there a few teams in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with a roster that looks like that.]

Paging Dr. Erikson

Although he'll only be 19 months old this Friday, for all intents and purposes, Samson is now 2.

I say this not as someone who keeps a checklist of developmental milestones on the bedside table --- parents who are super-apprised of what their children should be doing at certain ages have always left me cold.

No, I say this as someone who has tried --- and failed --- to successfully steer my child through a supermarket aisle.

In conjunction with his new self-awareness --- have I mentioned that when he looks in the mirror, he points to himself and says "Sam" --- he's figured out the whole free will thing.

Which is obviously wonderful and cause for great joy and celebration. I'm serious about this.

But it also means he may end up getting run over by a shopping cart as he exercises this newfound freedom.

At home, he's now figured out that eating doesn't always have to be a three-step process (i.e., insert food, chew, swallow), but that you can spit it back out, remark "funny," and then pick it up off the tray and start over again. He's also tried this with milk, albeit with less success.

And of course, four times out of five I can keep it together and gravely inform him that we don't behave that way at the table.

But the other 20 percent is lost as I struggle in vain to suppress a smile.

I may have to start wearing a hockey mask to dinner.

[Years from now he'll be the only kid at a sleepover who watches Friday the 13th and, rather than being frightened, is somehow reminded to wipe his mouth and chew his food slowly...]

Easter parade

We won't see my folks for Easter so they sent a little care package down for Samson. Included among the treats was a little blue, bunny-shaped Easter basket. Which Samson proceeded to hang from the crook of his arm and march around the house with, proclaiming: "Bag... Sam... Awesome..."

I wish I had a picture of this to share with you...

The awful truth

Friday night we gave Samson a bath. Nothing unusual about that, really. We try to give him a bath most nights as he's usually got whatever was for dinner in his hair. And he really enjoys splashing around in the tub. I don't think I can overstate that fact.

This Friday night, however, I noticed a small jet of water moving outward from young Samson and heard him, in his continuing role as the narrator of our lives, say "peeing." Which he was.

At which point I went into emergency mode and made ready to empty the tub, swaddle the as yet unbathed child, and re-start the bath process.

But Vicki stopped me, saying "you know he does that all the time."

Gentle reader, I can assure you I had no idea that he did this all the time. Were we in the kiddie pool, I would certainly have assumed that. At the beach, I would have assumed that. Heck, even on a log flume ride I would have assumed that. But I guess I've just been under the impression all these months that he's got an outstanding track record of holding it in while in the tub. [With one glaring exception.] Not so; not even a little so.

You may be wondering why this is such a big deal. I mean, when you think about it, it's hardly surprising. To paraphrase John Kerry, who among us hasn't peed in the tub?

Except that we use his bath time as a time to practice what he's learned in swimming. Which includes having him put his face in the water to blow bubbles. An important part of the whole face-in-the-water-bubbles drill has been my teaching by example. Which means I put my face in the water to blow bubbles.

We begin work on snorkeling skills this week...

The truck whisperer

We have lots of trucks in our house. Big ones, small ones, trucks that make noise, trucks that are self-propelled, trucks with little truckers to fit inside. And while Samson plays with them all just about every day, there's a special place in his heart for the bulldozer.

How do I know this? Because he gives it the double-name treatment. When he really likes something, he'll say it twice. Sort of like Jimmy Two-Times in Goodfellas.

Except with the bulldozer, the second mention gets whispered. Why is this? I have no idea.

But watching him sit down with his bulldozer and hearing him proclaim "BULLDOZER; bulldozer" is my new favorite thing.

Radio silence

Work has been very busy, and I've come down with some kind of crazy sore throat, achy-fever thing, so sorry for the dearth of posts lately. Rest assured, I'll be back on track in a day or two.

We tried out the bike trailer this past weekend, and---wonder of wonders---Samson really liked it. Which is good, because there's nothing sadder than a family biking on the trail with their toddler in a little nylon and aluminum chariot of sorrow...

Voodoo child

When Samson likes something, he really likes it. As in wants to eat with it, take it in the bath with him, bring it into the crib.

Vicki found Samson a little guitar online, and in a case of no good deed going unpunished, he has been carting the thing around the house like some kind of tiny troubadour for the past few days, alternately "playing" and demanding songs.

Maybe this is how Jimi Hendrix got started?

In between days

I'm still trying to catch up at work, and we've just gotten all new windows installed in our house, which means almost every room has all the furniture in the middle of the floor. So it's taken me a few days to get some photos downloaded.

I took Monday off in anticipation of the window guys coming. When they canceled, I took it as a providential sign that I should still stay home from work and we should take Samson to the zoo. Definitely a good move. [And yes, I know the sun is in his eyes in that picture above; young Samson refuses to wear a hat or sunglasses. He's also never heard of B.F. Skinner...]

We had lots of fun looking at the animals and trying out Vicki's new camera. Once again, Samson tried to join the penguins. And once again, I got to test my wrist strength.

We also did some marching.

In fact, things went swimmingly (no pun intended) until we made a quick stop on the way out at the farm exhibit. There, once again, Samson came face to face with his nemesis.

And he blinked. Actually, he cried. Although to be fair, that burro does look sort of fierce.

The return of dada

I'm back from the west, and not a moment too soon. This working on weekends is a drag, particularly when it entails cross-country flights on budget airlines and seatmates who are only 5'8" but insist on sitting as if they are 6'6".

On the plus side, on Friday night I got to catch up with two guys I grew up with who now live in Los Angeles. It was good to see them, and we had some terrific sushi. Also, who knew you could get Sapporo in this size?

And for some strange reason, the nice people at the Hilton gave me an executive level room. Which meant that I spent two nights in a hotel room roughly the size of the first floor of our house.

Still, it was work. And while I like the people I work with (mostly), I don't want to see them in the gym, at breakfast, or really anywhere at all between Friday at 5 and Monday at 9. This holds especially true for sitting next to me on the plane.

So it goes; I'm on the hook for two more weekends after this, and obviously, it could be worse, but I am a jealous guarder of my personal time.

In fact, I work with a lot of overachievers --- people who can't go the weekend without checking work e-mail or coming in to the office for a few hours on a Saturday.

And here I confess that I have always found people with the capacity to work all the time to be somewhat foreign, in the most literal sense of the word. I look on them in the way that the ancient Incas must have looked on the first of Pizarro's men --- with a combination of wonder and disdain.

I understand they are committed, but I can't quite figure out where on earth they're coming from.

Or, for that matter, what the deal is with the flags and swords...

Samson's index

Work puts me on the wrong coast again this weekend, so I've been paying particularly close attention to young Samson these past few days in anticipation of what I'll miss in the next few.

Lots of little things going on at our house. He's made some great strides in drawing (usually on paper) and has settled on circles and tee-pees as his favorite things to draw. Without fail, if you ask what he'd like you to draw, you get one of those two answers (and honestly, it's almost always "circle"). Which is fine with me, because if he starts asking for trapezoids we may have to go to an all-tee-pee format.

We ate at Chipotle last night with Samson's friends Jake and O [and their moms]. If you've never eaten out with three 18-month-olds, I highly recommend it. Aside from the sheer comedy of watching them try to take each other's food, you get to play an ongoing game of pick-up with trucks, forks, sippy cups, napkins, and of course, food.

So without further ado, I hereby unveil Samson's index for the past two days. Not quite as hip (or snarky) as Harper's, but I don't have a team of eager recent grads from places like Williams and Oberlin working for me as researchers.

Ratio of Samson's quesadilla pieces eaten to those on the floor: 3 to 1
Number of people Samson said "hi" to: 8
Number who responded in kind: 5
Number of people in above category who looked like they'd just met with a parole officer: 1.5

Amount of time it took to get Samson to bed last night (in minutes): 50
Number of books read: 3
Number of trucks in those books: 417
Total stalling time [petitions for water, re-brushing teeth, songs, etc. (in minutes)]: 12
Total pre-sleep crying time (in minutes): 5

Number of cookies eaten with breakfast: 1
Number of cookies mommy knew about: 0
Number of circles drawn between last night and this morning: 17
Number of tee-pees: 5
Percentage of time spent dancing (as of breakfast): 14
Number of blueberries/raspberries "accidentally" dropped from high chair: 3
Number of fake "uh-ohs" following the drops: 3
Number of uses of "Samson James" by me in warning against such accidental drops: 1

Minutes until I can go home and play: 73

Be prepared

Pretty interesting article in today's NY Times about a family stranded for two weeks in the mountains.

And Vicki wonders why I keep an emergency blanket in our glove compartment.

Of course, I can't imagine what it would take for this to happen to us given the fact that we live miles and miles from anything like an untraveled road, but you just never know.

We do a fair amount of hiking, and we may even brave an attempt at camping with young Samson this summer.

In any event, one of the models goals I've set for our little family is to never be featured on this show...

Simple pleasures

The weekend was good but very busy. We drove up Saturday morning and came back home Sunday night. Samson got to spend time with his grandparents and his aunts and uncles and just generally run around playing. I think it's safe to say he had a blast. I think it's also safe to say we need to pay closer attention to him when he's carrying crayons; he "colored" the cushions on my mom's rocking chair.

Despite the quick visit, we did manage to get to the beach to try out our new kite. If it hadn't been Siberia cold, I might still be there. The wind was so strong that it took me almost ten minutes just to get the thing back down. Clearly my kite-flying skills are not the kind that could stand as allegory for a life's journey or the fate of a war-torn country, but we had lots of fun.

I wish I had an audio clip of Samson saying "wow!" as the kite took off. As my mother-in-law would say, it was "awesome."

And yes, those are grown-up mittens on young Samson. He has his own but for some reason prefers the giant, cumbersome hand-covering option. I think they actually acted as a counterweight and helped him keep his balance on the sand.

He's going to be amazed this summer to discover that going to the beach doesn't always entail biting wind and near hypothermic conditions.

Elvis Costello was right

Accidents will happen. Particularly when naked time comes right after dinner time and just before bath time. To his credit, Samson managed to pee only into the bed of his dumptruck. Which is a pretty neat trick but makes for a very delicate disposal process. And of course, we then had to boil his truck.

A classic returns

We head up to NY on Saturday to attend a dinner honoring my Dad as "Hibernian of the year," but I wanted to wish you all a Happy St. Patrick's Day with a photo from last year.

Here's Samson James at six months proudly showing off his heritage [and hopefully not attracting the attention of the Dept. of Child Protective Services].

Speaking in tongues

Samson has new words all the time, but we can almost always figure out what they are. Here's a sample of his lexicon:

Hojew: literally, "hold you," which he says while putting his arms upward, asking to be held. We figure he derived it from our saying, "Do you want me to hold you?"

Bakkahn: pronounced with almost a Cajun inflection, this is what Samson says when he wants to put his shoes "back on." We typically hear this in the car immediately after the tell-tale velcro sound of him removing his shoes.

Pokock: inexplicably, this is the word for garbage truck.

Wukkum: "welcome," which Samson usually says in response to our coaching of "can you say thank you?" Sort of a right church, wrong pew kind of thing.

But a new word surfaced while I was away, and as yet, we still have no idea what it means.

We can't even figure out what part of speech it represents. We do know he finds the word hilarious because he laughs when he says it. Which, of course, makes us laugh.

The word, and I don't pretend to know how to spell it, is pronounced Buk-uh-nay-nay.

It hews to no particular time of day or specific situation and seems to be an all-purpose word. I think I may start using it myself. I've got a three o'clock meeting; maybe I'll see if I can throw a little buckinaynay in there.

18

Our buddy is 18 months old today, which means he gets to celebrate by going for his quarterly check up with the doctor. For some reason, he is deathly afraid of the stethoscope. I don't think I can state this strongly enough. It verges on mortal terror.

He does all right with shots, all things considered. And he manages to keep it together with the whole weigh-in and measuring routine. But the doctor who tries to listen to Samson's chest may as well be at the head of an evil clown parade and brandishing a rattle snake.

PS: I have no idea why the picture loaded vertically. It's clearly a horizontal shot, and I tried to load it several times before deciding to try and pass it off as an artistic choice. So there you have it. Think of it as a commentary on how we view children and the norms we ascribe to imagery; or you might see it as an attempt to challenge the accepted forms of representation---a kind of mimetic liberation of the object from the viewer (the whole gaze/gazer dichotomy).

Or you could just know that my computer skills topped out with Speak & Spell.

PPS: Said picture was taken during the recently instituted (and very recently weather-appropriate) daily five minutes of naked time. He could be in the foulest mood and ready to completely fall apart, but once he's sans culottes, everything (to quote Bob Marley) is gonna be all right...

Long-distance dada

I'm in San Francisco until Sunday for work and am using the hotel's business office right now to post [never let it be said that I'm not dedicated].

For some reason, our office routed me to San Francisco through Oakland via Kansas City. I think it would have been faster if I had connected in Reykjavik. The first leg was nice and quiet, but when we got to KC, the plane filled up and I got to sit behind the only person in the world who was unaware that she couldn't have her cellphone on during the flight.

I am not some kind of world-weary traveling sophisticate. In fact, I think this is the first time I've flown in more than a year. But even my parents know you can't have a cellphone on during a flight, and their VCR clock is only right for half of each year.

To make matters worse, cell-phone lady had a small child, a very large child, and an even larger husband, who, for reasons I can't begin to comprehend, refused to allow the small child [I'm guessing he was 5] to have the window seat. He himself sat across from the mother and two kids, taking up the aisle seat opposite them. You only need to know this because he spent at least a third of the flight alternately leaning across the aisle to threaten the two kids or actually getting out of his seat to take a swipe at one of them. Good times over the Rocky Mountain west.

I'm sure the nice folks at the Oakland Chamber of Commerce won't use this in their promotional materials, but there's something endearingly shabby about what little of the city I saw. The airport itself reminded me of the one in San Salvador; again, probably not the kind of appraisal you'll be seeing anytime soon on the Oakland Visitor's Bureau website.

That's all for now; lots to do tomorrow, and I catch the redeye back Sunday morning. I miss you, Samson. Get a good night's sleep, and be good for mama.

Siesta

Gratuitous sleeping Samson pic...

And if you're thinking his crib looks a little cluttered, you should see it before the ritual jettison of all the things he "needs" with/near him to go to sleep.

That bus is made of tougher stuff than I thought --- although we have to keep rotating Carloses through on worker's comp.

Milk

By now Samson's narration skills are well established. He points out hats and cars and just about everything else he recognizes. At times, there are things he's seeing and announcing that we don't even see [this happens a lot with the moon; it's like he has some kind of weird lunar radar].

But a new wrinkle has been added; he's now letting us in on his interior monologue. Sometimes this takes the form of free association, like when we mention going to the park, he'll almost immediately say "Jacob, Oliver" and lately, "pope."

Or when we're out running errands and he automatically (and usually correctly) assumes and announces "coffee?"

Last night when he burped at the table, he followed up not with "excuse me" --- which we're still working on --- but "milk." I'm assuming it was kind of a vurp [figure it out], and he was keeping us apprised on the taste in his mouth.

For some reason I find this more hilarious than gross, but I'm sure I should be correcting it.

Walking

There is no cool or funny story behind these photos. I just liked them.

I'm sure Thoreau's got a dozen or so profound quotes on walking, and I'd bet Bruce Chatwin has a couple as well.

But I really just liked the symmetry of the two of us: right feet forward, shadows overlapping, going nowhere in particular and in no great hurry.

Wind power

What could be better on a blustery March day than getting the chance to fly a kite? I say "chance" because it was pretty iffy that I'd even get the thing strung, much less airborne. You'll notice me in the background working away. For his part, Samson was content just to run around the park.


We did get the kite aloft, briefly, but it was hardly the kind of performance you'd write a novel about. On the plus side, I'm not sure Samson knows exactly how high a kite is supposed to go. So for now, he may very well think that I'm some kind of kite-flying superninja.

We upgraded after the paper kite tore, but by then the wind had died down. And it was getting kind of cold. But next time, look out...

Tub punks

Let's see what happens when we switch the boys' regularly scheduled Raffi cd and put on the Clash.


London Calling indeed.

Swimming with the Holy Father

For reasons I can't begin to imagine, the school at our church, where we had Sunday night's spaghetti dinner, has a life-sized statue of Pope John Paul II in the lobby.

I wish I was kidding, but there he is in all his posthumous pontifical splendor, right down to the red papal slippers [which I have to believe are not the shoes of the fisherman].

In any event, Samson was intrigued by this figure, so I explained it was a statue of the Pope.

Well, that word is only one syllable and has a nice pair of plosive Ps in it, so it took about half a second for Samson to start repeating "pope, pope, pope." Which seemed perfectly appropriate given the venue (not to mention the decor).

However, somewhere between then and now, the pope has been incorporated into Samson's playgroup. Samson has swimming on Wednesdays, and as he and Vicki were driving home, she asked him who he saw at swimming. They went through the litany of friends: "Jacob, Oliver, Christopher" when Samson added "Pope."

Sure enough, when I asked him tonight at dinner who was at swimming, the Pope made an appearance. He was also at playgroup and even merited a shout-out from Samson while I was on the phone with my sister.

Perhaps this is some kind of toddler sixth sense thing [although, if anybody should know they're dead, you'd think the Pope would; I imagine they get to skip all the Dante-inspired stuff and head right to the big room]. Or maybe Samson is just really affected by statues. Either way, we'll probably steer clear of Madame Tussaud's.

And I'm sorry, but I have to think that even Martin Luther would have found the thought of the Pope swimming with a class of toddlers funny.

He might have ended up with 96 theses, but I bet he would have laughed first.

Sean Penn, the early years?

Samson sends a message to the papa, er, mama-razzi...

I am Samson

Samson has started saying his name. It actually sounds more like Sassoon (as in Siegfried) or Sasson (as in Ooh La La), but it's pretty cool to know that he knows what his name is.

The latter pronunciation would make even more sense given that he's suddenly become fascinated with the mirror. There's a mirror on the wall next to his changing table, and now when I hold him in front of it, he smiles and raises his arms behind his head in some kind of strike-a-pose maneuver. It's really sweet, and a little weird. But mostly sweet.

In other news, after months of "no," we finally got him to say "yes." He only said it once, and he seemed immediately aware of the fact that he'd given away some kind of secret. As if saying no was protecting him from eating foods he didn't want, but now that yes was out of the bag, the game was up.

It reminded me of a story I once heard about the orangutan. I don't remember if the myth came from Indonesia or Malaysia, but legend has it that the "man of the forest" can actually speak. He chooses to stay silent, however, for fear that if people know he can talk and understand them, he'll be put to work. Makes sense to me.

Sorry, Samson, but mama and I heard that "yes." Take heart, little man, it was a good run while it lasted...

Radio days

Just got these photos a few moments ago and figured I'd share. Vicki picked up some kids' music CDs yesterday at the library, and Samson sat down for some "If You're Happy and You Know It."

This last photo is Samson shouting "hooray!" As in, "if you're happy and you know it, shout..."

Spaghetti --- it's what's for dinner

Our church had a spaghetti dinner fundraiser on Sunday night. It was perfect, in a silly parish elementary school gym kind of way. We met our friends there for an early dinner, sat the kids on our laps [no one remembered booster seats, and we actually forgot a bib as well], and let the noodles fly. Glad I wasn't wearing a white shirt...

Catch-up (not the condiment)

My folks have been visiting for the past week, which means the computer room/guest room has been otherwise occupied. Lots of good stories to catch up on, but watching my parents with Samson made me realize why grandparents love grandchildren, particularly very young ones, so much.

They offer a kind of passage backwards in time, offering all the joys of being a new parent without all the anxiety and sleep-deprivation. Watch a grandfather or grandmother with a very little child and you can almost see them when they were younger. For my folks at least, the house has been emptied of kids for years now, and while I certainly don't think they'd trade their routine for ours, I think I can safely say they had a blast chasing him around the house.

Vicki and I were talking last night after I dropped my parents off at the airport about how lucky we are. I hope we never take for granted the wonder of looking into those wide blue eyes, the joy of hearing his tiny giggle in the house, or the simple pleasure of sitting with a little person who, while not a blank slate, is not yet old enough to be anything other than honest [whether this means taking something he wants or burping loudly and without embarrassment].

We know we live in a kind of magic circle right now, where every day brings some new word or discovery. Our house is noisy and toy-bestrewn and crumb-laden, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Songs of experience and innocence

I'm sure this is not what William Blake had in mind, but I thought I'd pass along these two small pieces of wisdom...

1. Baby-sized goldfish snacks are a cute idea, and we were certainly taken in by the clever marketing/packaging. But at the end of the day, they're really just a challenge to see how many cute little fish your cute little toddler can stuff in his cute little mouth at one time. Which can only lead to one thing. And even cute little fish can't make choking fun. There's no such thing as a cute little Heimlich maneuver. [Sidenote: I am always amazed at how blithely Samson continues with his day after I've had to do some kind of finger-sweep of his mouth. It scares the hell out of me, but he seems to take it as a matter of course. ]

2. Just because you are careful and take out all the potentially dangerous things under the bathroom sink doesn't mean your child won't find something in there to play with. And it's not like we leave Samson alone in the bathroom to play, but apparently it only takes a minute to set up a tampon/toilet lid drum kit.

I really wish we had taken a picture of this.

Tiny bubbles

I don't know what the good people at Gymboree put in their bubble solution, but those bubbles are awesome. They're thick, if such a thing is possible, and they don't explode on impact but rather rest gently on the carpet, chair, cat, etc. I'm sure there's an episode of Mr. Wizard's World somewhere in all of this.

Anyway, Samson is now obsessed with blowing bubbles. And he's pretty good at it.

Although he kept putting the business end of the bubble pipe (wand, bugle, shofar?) in his mouth --- which might account for his super gurgly stomach afterwards. Clearly he's not a candidate for aversion therapy. [He was probably thinking, "hey, this tastes like the bathwater I enjoy so much."]

The fugitive

On Sundays, we try to hit the 9:30 Mass. It's in the church basement and is promoted as the "family" mass. What this means, basically, is that people are forewarned that they might very well end up with someone's else child standing in their row and leaving a trail of Cheerios behind him as he rambles on. In fact, they might end up with my child doing just that.

Before we had Samson, I would only attend this Mass as a last resort. Call me a curmudgeon, but I'm not big on guitars and John Denver-y music in church. And I really don't need to hold other people's hands during the Lord's Prayer or to get all revival tent with the whole call-and-response thing.

That being said, I totally appreciate being in an environment where my 17-month-old is allowed to act his age and do his thing. Within reason, obviously, but it is really nice to watch him sit and play with his trucks with other kids his age.

The trouble is, the older he gets the less he sits. In fact, I realized today the major difference between a 17-month-old and a 21-month-old is not size or emotional development or language skills. It's speed.

The little boy next to us --- I think his name is Michael --- was fast. Olympic track-and-field highlight reels fast.

Normally, and especially in church, Samson will walk about 15 or 20 feet away from us and then turn around to see if we're watching. When this other little boy's feet hit the floor, it was like someone had fired a starter pistol. No look back, no gradual sneaking away. He was all forward motion.

Which made me think that our church [and maybe yours, too] is missing out on a big opportunity. If, at the start of Mass, you could put money on which kid (or kids) would make it to the altar before being caught by their parents, I bet it would bring in way more than bingo.

Live racing versus numbered ping-pong balls in a hopper. C'mon, it's not even close.

Think about it; you've got a small but active number of kids between 1 and 3 years old [and let's be honest, anything over 3 just wouldn't be fair] who make a break for it every Sunday. The oftener you go to Mass, the more familiar you'd be with the field of racers.

The church could cap the prize money at, say, $20, and have the rest take the place of the inevitable (and inevitably unpopular) second collection. And it could be a little more sophisticated than simple winners or losers. You could allow a parishioner to bet that Timmy Peterson (19 mos, 24 lbs) makes it to the altar rail before the second reading. Or something along those lines. Instead of ads in the bulletin, local businesses could sponsor toddlers.

This could work. Seriously, how much can you make from bake sales?

And yes, this is what I think about in church as I'm chasing after my son.

[Here's an inside tip if you come to church with us. I love my son more than anything in the world, but if you want a safe bet, put money on his friend Oliver. That little guy is showing some real promise. I think he'll be on the altar by Palm Sunday.]

Sesame Street live?

Friday night at the mall (a big, late-night-out for us), we stopped at the food court to get something to eat. Figuring it would be fast and at least marginally healthy, we got in line to order from Chick-fil-A. Seated at a table near the end of the line was a woman I can best (and most charitably) describe as a less attractive Don King doppelganger. With orange hair. And I mean orange.

Samson, who was in my arms at this point, looked around the court at the hordes of Friday night mallgoers, which for some reason included an entire division, it seemed, of newly minted Marines. I appreciate what these guys go through and what they do, but they look far less impressive out of the dress blues. Particularly when they are walking around with Abercrombie & Fitch bags and drinking frozen Starbucks' drinks. But I digress.

Young Samson looked at the woman near us, pointed, and said quite clearly, although if she heard us she gave no indication, "EL-MO, EL-MO." If you've ever tried to recover from something your child has said, or even something you've said, you know that certain words can be covered up. "Elmo" is not one of them.

I briefly considered saying something like "No, Samson, this is the food court. The Alamo is in the beautiful city of San Antonio."

But that would just have been ridiculous.

Since she pretended not to hear it, I pretended Samson didn't say it and took him looking for a high-chair and an empty table. We sat next to half of Bravo company as they slouched in their chairs, ate waffle fries, fiddled with their cell phones, and (probably) regretted not wearing their dress uniforms out.

Dance-party Samson

In keeping with his newfound interest in lyrics, apparently young Samson has also got dance fever. This morning, as I was trying to get out the door to go to work, he stood in the middle of the living room floor, pointed at the stereo speaker, and said "dance."

Ok, it was more like "denz," but I knew what he meant.

We put some music on [is it any wonder I can't get to work on time?], but no deal. He pointed to Vicki and repeated "denz." She obliged by picking him up and tango-ing him to the door to see me off.

From the looks of playgroup yesterday, all the kids were gettin down. And yes, that's the garbage pail they're drumming on. The living room was packed with toys, but nothing draws a crowd like a closed metal cylinder full of cast-off food and other domestic detritus.

It actually looks like a lot of fun.

Samsonova

Lately Samson has been walking around the house saying "ANN-NUH, ANN-NUH."

He is crazy for this little girl, who is, by all accounts, the belle of playgroup.

And he's clearly not shy around her either...

Still waters?

I don't know when this happened, but at some point in the past few days, Samson not only picked up a whole bunch of words, but he learned some lyrics.

We sing all the time. In our house, in the car, at the table. Not in a Family Von Trapp be-lederhosened way, mind you, but still, we sing a lot. We cover the classics like "Itsy Bitsy Spider," "You Are My Sunshine," and "Down at the Station." And if things are really desperate, we break out the "Stairway to Heaven" of kids' songs: "Old MacDonald."

[Sidenote: this song can last for hours; I've gotten far enough into it that I've had Old MacD with deer on his farm. When I get to the part about the sound they make, I do the eyes thing that Susanna Hoffs did in the video for "Walk Like an Egyptian."]

[Second sidenote: I was in Cairo a few years ago. You should know: nobody walks like that there. I figured I could blend in with the locals by aping their gait; they spotted me as an outsider right away.]

Anyway, the other night, Vicki and I were putting Samson to bed and singing when we noticed he was supplying the last word of each line of "Sunshine." Thinking it might be a fluke, we tried "Spider." Same deal. We ran through the rest of our nighttime repertoire, and sure enough, he knew at least the end words of every sentence of all of our songs. We were amazed.

Does this make him some kind of prodigy? Of course not. But it is pretty cool. [And I'll be honest, child prodigies tend to creep me out.]

Beyond being cool, this latest development is also a little spooky. Lord only knows what other words he's heard and has yet to unveil.

Big snow, part II

Samson's friends, Jacob and Oliver, came over to play in the snow. And because the snow was high enough for us to lose them in [or at least high enough to make it impossible for them to play in], I dug a zone of fun for them in our front yard.

I'll get out of the way and let the photos tell the story...

Big snow

It started snowing yesterday afternoon, and by six o'clock all the local newscasts were featuring live shots of reporters standing by a busy highway and warning the public to stay inside.

For a change, the storm actually merited the hype, and we awoke to more than a foot of snow. Samson wasn't sure what to make of it at first [I have no idea if he remembers the snow in Woodstock on Thanksgiving], but he seemed willing to check it out.

Until we put his boots on.

It was if we'd outfitted him with a pair of 19th-century diving boots [you know, the kind worn by those little figures at the bottom of your aquarium?].

He absolutely refused to move. At one point, he had himself turned halfway around to see his mother, and his feet were as firmly planted as if he was Superman in a pair of green kryptonite slip-ons. [For the record, Samson's boots are blue and are made, I think, of rubber and rip-stop nylon.]



However, once we got him outside --- and picked him up from his inaugural face plant in the snow --- he seemed to like it just fine.

Thanks, Nana and Papi

Vicki's mom and step-dad visited on Friday and Saturday and brought with them a Samson-sized digger/loader. This could very well be his favorite thing in the universe.

I'm serious, if it had a tray attachment, he'd be taking his meals on it.

One of his big things lately is handing you something and saying "share." He usually grabs it back about a nanosecond later, but I can't wait to see how the sharing goes when some of his friends come over and check out his new ride.

Oh no, it's Devo!

Guess who found part of dada's Halloween costume...