This will come in handy

to embarrass Sam in front of his future girlfriends....

A candid of Sam in the nude before bathtime. Enjoy.

On the move

Nobody puts baby in the corner.

To clarify, Sam did this to himself. In the process of learning to crawl, Sam seems to have made some progress...er...backward. He started out on the blanket with his toys and ended up amidst the dust bunnies. Just so you don't think I'm cruel, I actually grabbed the camera to just take a quick photo of the (literal and figurative) mess he'd gotten himself into, but I had it on the wrong setting. So, fun for everyone! This is just about 15 seconds out of the 45 minutes he spent stuck.

Kidding! I kid.

Nine things.

To celebrate Sam's nine month milestone, I thought I'd share with you nine things about him that you may not know.

1) He sleeps through the night, from around 7:30 to around 6.
2) His favorite pastime is banging things together, or, if he only has one thing, banging against a nearby surface, such as his own head. If he has nothing to bang together, he will clap.
3) He can't figure out how to crawl and prefers to practice standing and walking.
4) His favorite food is Cheerios (actually, Joe's O's, the Trader Joe's knock-off).
5) Sometimes, after a long day at school, he smells like vinegar, from the accumulated spit and other debris that collects in his chins. (Don't worry, we bathe him.)
6) Strangers comment on the perfect roundness of his head, and they like to rub it.
7) He says Mama and Dada, but to no one in particular. Actually, I have seen him say Dada to Bruce on more than one occasion, so I think he's headed in the right direction. But he pretty much says Dada to anything he likes.
8) He shows me affection by grabbing a fistful of hair on each side of my head, pulling me toward him, and then biting me on the face. He shows Bruce affection by jerking his glasses off his face and then hitting him with them.
9) He loves being outside. Where Bruce lets him play with the thorny Sweet Gumballs from our tree.

BFF

We just interrupted them discussing the benefits of tall fescue over kentucky bluegrass.

Moist. And sharp.

Beware the drooly monster!




(Yes, his shirt is wet from drool, the polite term for baby spit.)


And here's the cause of all the moisture. The may look innocent, but they can be deadly.

Not So Swimmingly

Today would've been Sam's last day of his Shrimp swimming class. He will not, however, be graduating up to the guppies (or whatever they call the next level) as previously hoped.

You see, during one of the class exercises, each baby is given a small, colorful ball to sort of chase after in the water. It is supposed to get them used to reaching in the water. A precursor to a swim stroke, I suppose.


Here is a photo of Sam chasing after a red ball during one of the classes. You can see the exercise is successful here. The ball is out in front of Sam in the water. But this is before Sam was introduced to a yellow ball in a subsequent class. And what ensued was a passion so strong that nobody could separate Sam from the yellow ball once he took hold of it. For the entire class, instead of participating in the activities, Sam just held onto the yellow ball and lovingly chewed on it. After refusing to give it up without a fight (read: screaming and REAL tears, y'all), I had hoped the swim teacher would take pity on him (me) and let him take the yellow ball home. No such luck.

But, as a seven month old, Sam has a short memory, right? So I introduced him to a yellow rubber duckie once we got home, and he seemed placated.

Only, I couldn't help but wonder what fresh hell we would face should Sam and the yellow ball be reunited in the next class.

And, that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we missed our last class of swim lessons. I couldn't break his heart again. That, and the fact that he has a pretty bad cold. But mostly the ball thing.

EDITED TO ADD: The same thing happened at the grocery store yesterday (Sunday) with a lemon. What to do? If anyone has a baby-safe yellow ball (I already told Bruce no to tennis balls right now), please do let me know.