New Pics

Samson is getting more and more capable with his eating utensils. Of course, not everything makes it into the pie hole just yet.

PawPaw and Grandma came to town this weekend to visit. As usual, Samson was delighted to revel in hours of undivided attention from his two biggest fans.

And you may have noticed that Samson's hair is becoming especially fluffy. Soon we'll be heading for our first trip to the barber, but for now, we're enjoying these luscious curls.

Samson's Favorite Meal at 20 Months

Today marks the 4th day in a row that Samson has eaten chicken salad for either lunch or dinner. Funny, given that he has also refused the last four opportunities to eat breaded, fried chicken pieces (a previous favorite). Thought our readers might want to give our recipe a try and have a little bit of Samson with their next meal. Enjoy!

Samson's Chicken Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 12.5 oz can premium chunk chicken breast, drained & shredded (we use Costco's Kirkland brand; you could sub the same amount of rotisserie chicken, or freshly cooked, seasoned breast or tenders)
• 2 ribs celery, finely chopped
• 2 young green onions, finely chopped (you could substitute 1/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion like 1015, Vidalia, or Maui)
• 1/3 cup smoked almonds, crushed (put in quart ziploc bag & smash with rolling pin or wine bottle until desired texture)
• 1/3 - 1/2 cup mayo (to taste; we use canola mayo to eliminate saturated fat & cholesterol; you could sub Miracle Whip)
• optional: 1 tsp finely chopped fresh tarragon (this adds a great extra note of flavor, but only if you can get fresh herbs)
  

Mix all ingredients until well incorporated. Best flavor develops after overnight stay in the fridge. Serve on fingers, crackers, in sandwiches, or as stuffing for celery or boats of baby zucchini or cucumber. For party sandwiches, remove crusts, cut into small shapes, coat edges with additional mayo, and roll in finely crushed, smoked almonds.

Lefty with a Spoon

Our readers may have begun to wonder why it is that 75% of our posts seem to involve food. It boils down to having a captive subject. When Samson is snug in the high chair, he has a hard time getting away from the camera. Thus, it seems that most of our photography sessions occur at mealtime. That, and during his twice daily trip to the crab sandbox in the front yard.

Here's our first video with the new camera, taken last weekend on Samson's 19th month b-day. He uses the spoon throughout this clip, but in the past week, he has preferred to alternate between the spoon in his left hand and the fingers on his right hand, so mealtimes are now often as messy as they were back when we first started solids! We're not sure which hand is dominant yet. Maybe he'll use them both, like Mama.

Lovin' the New Camera!

Say hello to the Canon PowerShot SD890 IS. New videos coming soon....

I helped myself, Mama

It seems that Samson was still hungry after supper, so he took it upon himself to retrieve the cereal box from the middle of the dining table, open it, unfurl the plastic bag inside, and start chompin'. Every day, his reach gets a little longer and everything becomes a little more accessible.

Busy Boy

It's been another action-packed week in Samson's world.

We started out with another bout of cold-> croup-> ear infection, two drop-in visits to our new favorite doctor's office, and two courses of medicine to somehow sneak into Samson's mouth twice a day. (Along with wildly resisting every attempt to change his diaper, Samson now has determined that anything delivered via oral syringe, no matter how fruity and delicious, must be poison to be refused at all costs. Half the stuff winds up on his face, neck, shirt, hair, or the floor. Argh.) Thankfully, he was feeling good enough last night to sleep from bedtime till morning (7:30p-6a) and even go to school today.

Meanwhile, Daddy was off to California most of the week doing cool nerdy stuff, advancing his career and bringing home the bacon. We celebrated his return on Thursday by taking an evening trip to our new favorite area park, which features a world of water fowl, a huge pond, and a gorgeous tree-lined trail. Samson likes the ducks, but most of his attention goes to figuring out how to escape from his parents long enough to get himself into the pond. We must get working on those swimming lessons post haste.


Speaking of physical feats, Samson has become quite the climber and acrobat lately. There is no piece of household furniture he has not scaled and dismounted, often head-first (though with no concussions as of yet). The window seat in the den, the sofas and chairs, the master bed, and several other surfaces that were not intended for use as a pedestal or diving board. To Mama's horror, he even found a way to climb up into the flimsy IKEA swivel desk chair and stand, smiling with pride as she came around the corner into the kitchen. Yikes!

Other fun stuff:

• kicking the red bouncy ball around the yard, preparing for his peewee soccer days
• playing the hula hoop game where someone rolls the hula hoop on the ground and Samson laughs maniacally when it circles to a stop; he then pushes the "roller" toward the hoop to signal he is ready for another round
• showing a desire to organize things by independently finding a container and putting all of his letter & animal magnets inside; finding all of his wooden shape sorter table blocks & putting them into an empty wagon under the table; putting away all his bath toys when he's ready to exit the tub
  
• understanding lots of words, babbling constantly, and saying a few words consistently: "ca" = cat or car; "da" = Daddy; "ma" = Mama; "ja" = Jennifer (our wonderful sitter); when asked to bring Mama a diaper from the green basket, he goes straight there and returns with the requested item
• insisting on feeding himself with his spoon
  
• new mastery of the straw and juicebox, quite a relief for Mama since Samson had so far refused to drink anything but rice milk & yogurt drinks from his Born Free sippy cup

Also, after 5 failed attempts, we finally found a comfortable pair of ridiculously expensive Jumping Jacks shoes to fit Samson's chubby Flintstone feet (see the first picture above) in size Toddler 5.5 Double Wide. Thank you, Zappos! Contributions to the Samson Shoe Fund are much appreciated ;o)

Excellent table manners

Toddler Crack

Every time Samson sees one of these wrappers, he goes berzerk. We can't leave them on the table during his meal (for dessert), or he will scream bloody murder and refuse to eat his "real" food. His first actual tantrum (and several subsequent ones) were caused by this item.

Mmm. Crunchy.

Samson had a big day of firsts on Sunday:

• first meal from the kid's menu
• first grilled cheese sandwich (thumbs up, he said)
• first taste of chocolate
• first taste of ice cream (it was the aforementioned chocolate; thumbs down, said he)
• first trips down the big kids' slide
  

And then there's the subject of this video. After the slide, Mama thought it might be okay to let him get onto the ground and check out some of the toys at his eye level. As usual when Samson hits the ground, he immediately had get his hands on it. This was a new sensation, the sand flowing between his fingers. But the inevitable end to any object in Samson's hand is....

We knew this would happen sooner or later....

Since Samson discovered his crawl a few weeks ago, he has become increasingly difficult to contain and now pretty much has the run of the front part of the house. We invested in a thick area rug for the den to give his knees a break from the hard, cold stone, tile, and concrete floors, and we set up a couple of safe and stimulating play areas in two different corners. Of course, Samson usually prefers to go directly to the places which are not in the least prepared for his presence.

And so, today as Mama stood at the microwave stirring up some soup for lunch, she heard a sudden rise in the pacing of Samson's stride coming from the den to the dining room (which is open to the kitchen). She figured he was hurrying around the corner to make sure he could see her, or perhaps he was engaged in his favorite pastime of herding the cats. Just then came the tell-tale sound of tiny fingernails scraping the bottom of a ceramic dish and the scatter of kibble on across the tiles. Around the corner of the bar, there the boy sat, contentedly chomping a mouthful of Iams Indoor Weight and Hairball Care. Let's just say, he was not eager to give up his salty treasures, and it took several passes before all were removed, a few already crushed and soggy. Blecch!

Cake

So much fun at the party! Thanks to everyone for showing up and sharing Samson's special milestone. More pics to come....

Most made it in the tummy, really

Take 5 on our introduction to solids. Organic rice cereal with expressed breast milk - yum!