Sam-isms

Sam cracks me up. He makes me laugh constantly, and usually I'm so involved with trying to keep up with his antics, that I don't have time to write them down. But someday, years from now, when he brings a girl home to meet us, I better have a written record of his Sam-isms. So here's just a few sweet, cute, funny, and just plain Sam moments.

Nic's parents bought this really cute Fisher n' Price Christmas play set. It has a little Christmas tree, a sleigh, a reindeer, a Santa, etc. that Sam can play with. Nic was handing each of the pieces to Sam and asking him what it was. Sam's vocabulary has skyrocketed so we were getting "reindeer", and "Christmas tree". But when Nic handed Santa to Sam, Sam said, "Papa!" With Papa J's full white beard, we had to admit that Sam was right--there is quite the resemblance!

A couple of months ago, I decided to be brave and take the boys to Beauty and Beast being performed at a local high school. Nic had other things going on, so it was just a mommy and her boys date. We were doing really well at first. I brought snacks for Sam and alternate activities but we hadn't even broke into those yet. Sam was sitting next to me, enthralled with the production, and I was holding Mark, trying to get him to go to sleep. Suddenly Mark let out some very impressive canon fire and produced an epic diaper blow-out (of which I will not recount the details) that will go down in the records. I was trying to be discreet (with deadly sulphuric fumes coming from our section) and wait until the end of the song then quietly make our exit to deal with things. Sam, however, was not in on this plan. Sam immediately called out, "Baby toot! Ewww, gross! Baby pooey!" To whomever we were sitting by who happened to be filming the show, we apologize.

Last night we were at my parent's house hanging out. It was just my mom, my sister, Sam, Mark, and me. Well, for Christmas, we had given the cat, Sanders, some little play mice. At some point, I looked in the kitchen and saw the cat playing with what I thought was a toy. Then my sister saw him, and declared that it was a real mouse. I didn't believe her at first but as Sanders moved toward the living room, I could see the mouse, still alive, wriggling, as Sanders carried it by its tail. Pandemonium ensued--screams, climbing on furniture, calls for help. Finally, my sister was brave enough to try to get cat outside amongst my mom and me yelling at her not to make the cat drop the mouse. Mission accomplished, my sister, the brave warrior, returned to the living room only to fall on the floor laughing. We all looked at Sam, who had been silent through out the entire ordeal, and he was just standing there with his eyes and mouth open as wide as he could get them. He looked so funny! The perfect impersonation of the painting, The Scream.

We have a plastic Precious Moments nativity that Sam is able to play with. The other day he was going through each piece and naming it: the shepherd, Mary the mommy, Joseph, the donkey, the sheep, and Baby Jesus. Later, we were told that they were all sleeping and discovered the entire nativity set laying face down, rumps in the air, which is how Sam likes to sleep.

Nic surprised us by getting Christmas lights put up on our house. When Sam first saw the lights, he said, "Oh, pretty! Thank you, daddy!" And now, every time he sees the lights, he says that same thing.

Sam is pretty darn smart, and we like to show him off whenever we can. He can count to ten, sing the ABC's up to Q, and various other 'smart' things. The other day my parents were impressed by how many animal sounds he knew. They were trying to show Sam off to my Uncle Jerry, but Sam wasn't feeling like a performance. They kept asking him, "Sam, what does an owl say?" But he wouldn't respond. Finally, I guess he got tired of them asking, because he responded with a flat, slightly agitated, "It say hoo-hoo!" and then went back to playing without missing a beat.

Now for a tender moment: Christmas night, we were driving home from Nic's parent's house. We live close to an LDS temple, and as we drove past the temple, we could hear Sam in the back seat singing, "The temple is a house of God, a place of love and beauty..."The words and tune were so clear. It was a great reminder that Sam is listening and that I have the best present of all, my family forever.