Fun in the kitchen.  

Sam is a climbing machine. 

Steppin' out

Sam is an excellent crawler. We commonly chase one another around the second floor of our house. I take off into the bedroom and stop on the rug in front of our bed. I hear him behind me, his hands and knees hitting the floor--thump, thump, thump, thump. He sticks his head around the door and offers a big smile. Then he squeals and we crawl at top speed toward one another. I tickle him and he laughs and laughs. Then he speeds toward the bathroom. I go the other way and we meet back in the nursery. Once again we have a tickle-fest.

Sam is a problem solver. He likes to look out through the of our bedroom window onto the world. He can't quite see outside when standing up, so he will turn over our laundry hamper and push it to the window and climb up on top of it. He then stands at the window, pounding on the glass, squealing. Today he moved our kitchen chair to the counter, moved his little blue chair to the big kitchen chair, and climbed up one to get on top of the other.

Sam is a climber He climbs up and down the stairs. He climbs up and down from the couch. He stands up and pounds on the oven door. He pulls himself up to standing and looks at us in the bed. He holds onto furniture and steps across the room reaching from one piece of furniture to the next. He climbs out the front door and down the steps onto the sidewalk. He crawls from our front door to our car parked on the street and stands up holding onto the driver side door handle, wondering why it won't open. He loves jungle gyms in the park and taking multiple trips up the stairs and down the slide. On Sunday we were walking with the stroller in the South End and Sam started to whine and squeal inexplicably. Lynn knew what he was after; he had seen a little park about a block away with a slide at it. Sure enough, he kept his attention on the slide and as we walked closer, he started to rock back and forth and tried to squirm out of the stroller until we finally released him and let him use the slide.

Sam is a Walker For a couple of weeks, Lynn has seen Sam take a step. But she didn't think that it really counted. Last week at the playground, she was helped Sam off of the slide by setting him on his feet. He normally would get down from his feet, crawl to the stairs, climb them and go down the slide again. But that day, instead, he took three steps and then got down, crawled, climbed and slid like nothing special had happened. Today Liz saw Sam walk again at the Museum of Science. He doesn't make a big deal about it (like Claire would). He's still the same Sam.

Would you like the doll, daddee?

Tank yew

I have been playing a game with Claire since she was a (very) little girl.

She plays intently with small toys--the lid to a bottle, a hat, Lynn's blood sugar meter--for what seems like an hour at a time. As she plays, I will come up to her, open my hand and say, "Claire may I please have that lid?" At first I had to form my hands into a sort of a cup that she could put the lid into. She places the lid into the hole I have formed, I take it from her and say, "Thank you, Claire!" In response, she immediately reaches to take it back. I give it back to her and we do it again. We play this game a lot.

Over time the game has evolved. I no longer form my hands into a cup, but instead just leave one hand open. Instead of my having to take it from her, she will urgently thrust it into my hand. Instead of grabbing it back, she waits for me to offer it. This is all part of my strategy to make Claire behave in public like a trained seal (Ork-Ork).

Last week the game took a new twist. I was playing it with her and when she took the toy back, she sweetly said "tank yew" and smiled at me as if she hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. We have, of course, been playing this game quite frequently lately. She says thank you, or something roughly equivalent to that, if you play the game with her for about a minute. Sometimes she gets excited and yells "Daaa!" as she hands off the toy, and "Daaa! Dat!" as she takes it back.

Christy, Claire's early intervention therapist independently noticed the same thing from her. This was at the session where Lynn was going to ask whether our kids neither walking nor talking at nearly 15 months was a sign that they would have to take the little bus to school.

Claire uses other words.

• She has said "dada" for a while and has recently started saying "daddee" she says it in all sorts of situations, including ones that are contextually appropriate. So that one counts.
• For months and months, when she is in a situation she does not like she will say, "Neigh, Neigh, Neigh." Lynn says this doesn't count because it isn't a word. I point out that it is perfectly good Middle English, used in a situationally appropriate manner. Lynn says that we don't speak Middle English around her, so it does not count. We are at an impasse.
• When something drops and I say Uh Oh!, she will respond in kind.
• When she finds an item (a book, a shoe, a funnel) that she wants you to read to her, take from her, or notice the importance of, she will hold it up and say Oooo as in "MinnesOOooota." Lynn believes that this is the influence of her Great Grandma Bobbie Betlock.
• Sometimes she just babbles and seems to say the strangest things--about Sarbanes Oxley, or her shoes.

And Sam.... well, Sam knows how to squeal. And he has a nice smile.

Look who's talking