Sam Turns 2 today!

When I was pregnant with Sam, so many people told me to cherish every day because the time flies by.  Boy, were they right!  I still can't believe that just 2 short years ago, our world was turned upside down quite abruptly - and what a wild ride it has been. 

It's amazing to think about how much he has changed just in the past 12 months.  A year ago he was crawling, could only say about 5-10 words and animal sounds, loved to laugh, and was very easygoing.  He still loves to laugh, but he only crawls when he is pretending to be a dog.  He rarely walks anywhere, he usually runs full steam ahead.  He is speaking in 3-4 word sentences and can very clearly tell us what he wants. 

Although he's overall a pretty happy little guy, he certainly is not as easygoing as he used to be.  He has very strong feelings about things and lets us know when he wants something!  Just the other day, he acted like the world was ending because we put him down for a nap without pants on (he had gotten his pants dirty and it was quite warm in his room that day) - apparently he MUST wear pants for naptime, lesson learned!

He is very independent and insists on doing most things himself (I wonder where he gets the independent streak from!).  Here's an example of him insisting on carrying his lunchbox to childcare, even though it is big and quite heavy (we pack food in it for several days at a time) and he can barely walk with it - but he is determined to do it himself

He has a terrific sense of humor and loves to joke and tease. Sam has learned how to say "Becca" and "Brad" from hearing us talk to each other in the house. He now loves to scream out our names and laugh. He thinks it is hilarious.  For the last 2 months, Sam loves to joke that his name is Neal (here's a January blog post I did about him saying his name is Neal). Neal is his best friend at child care (his birthday is March 22!), the boys LOVE each other and greet each other with huge hugs every day. Although Sam definitely knows his name is Sam, he thinks it is hilarious to say that his name is Neal. We haven't heard him say that his name is Sam for several months now - until recently when Brad was at Costco and a stranger started talking to Sam and asked him what his name was. Amazingly, Sam said his name was Sam - because he knew that the stranger wouldn't understand that saying Neal would be funny because the stranger wouldn't understand the joke. Incredible.

As we prepare for life with a new baby, we are really emphasizing sharing.  He has recently learned to say the word  "share" but tends to over-generalize its meaning. As a typical 2 year  old, he doesn't share very well and when we have playdates with other  kids, he routinely tries to take toys from another kid (or another kid tries to take a toy from him) - so we are constantly reminding the kids to share. However, he over-generalizes the concept and thinks that it applies to us at home. For example, the other night he grabbed a sharpie magic marker off the desk (which he's not allowed to play with) and I went to take it away from him - and he starts yelling "No Mommy, it's mine! SHARE!" I was cracking up. every time I try to take something from him b/c he's not allowed to play with it - he starts to carry on about how I need to share with him. All he understands is that he has something and mommy wants to take it from  him and mommy isn't sharing. He also loves to taunt the dog with cheese and if she tries to eat the cheese, he yells at her SHAAARE.  Too funny!

He is VERY into cars, trucks, trains, buses - basically anything that has wheels. He loves to spin wheels on everything.

Sam on his motorcycle rocking horse from Uncle Calvin!

He loves to point out planes and helicopters in the sky - even if he can't see the plane, but can hear it - we have to stop and look around for the plane.  He is such a boy!  He still has very little interest in the baby dolls we gave him, he brought the doll over to his toy work bench the other day which cracked us up.  He enjoys cooking in his toy kitchen and spends countless hours pulling our pots and pans out of the cabinet to cook his plastic letters and make alphabet soup.

He loves to sing the ABC song and has begun to identify several letters by sight.  We are working on numbers.  He knows that he wears 2 socks, 2 shoes, and that he is turning 2!  Blue is definitely his favorite color, he likes to say that everything is blue even though he knows the colors black, brown, red, and yellow.  After most meals, he insists on being picked up so that he can push the button to turn on the CD player and listen to music.  Right now he's obsessed with "Be My Friend" (a song from my mom's program).  Check it out:

He mimics everything we do.  As you may have seen from earlier blog posts, my heightened sense of smell during the pregnancy has led to some unfortunate vomiting incidents while changing his poopy diapers (see my earlier blog post on one of the Top 5 Worst Mommy Moments).  I had a horrific repeat of this just last week, and for several days Sam went to each trash can in the house and pretended that he was vomiting into them.  Lovely.

Tonight Brad went grocery shopping with him and let him use one of Giant's "Customer in Training" toy grocery carts.  Sam went straight to the bakery and proceeded in loading his cart with cookies, donuts, cupcakes, and even tried to pick up a huge cookie pie.  Check out the video:

Because he is my child, he loves to test the limits on everything.  One of the rules in our house is that he is not allowed to stand on the brick hearth in front of the fireplace.  However, he is allowed to sit on it.  He regularly tries to test this rule and see exactly how far he can push the envelope.  Can he sit with both feet up on the hearth? Can he sit with one leg up on the hearth? Can he kneel on the hearth? Can he stand on the floor and put one foot up on it?  Exactly WHERE is the limit?  We work hard to be consistent with the rules because he routinely tries to figure out exactly what the rules are and how far he can push.  My parents always hoped that I would have a child who does this - because this is exactly what I did as a child. 

He is EXTREMELY social (I know, shocking that Brad and I would have a social kid) and insists on saying hi to everyone, everywhere we go.  He doesn't understand when strangers don't respond to his continuous yells of "HI!" and just gets louder and louder yelling "HI" until they acknowledge him and say hi in return.  He does this to neighbors who are pulling into their driveway..4 doors down.  Kids running on the street, etc.  Here's a funny video of him playing with the doorbell on the front stoop of our house, until he noticed our neighbor driving down the street - he had to stop what he was doing to wave to the neighbor in his car.

Sam's big birthday present this year will be a terrific swingset for the backyard.  We hope that the boys will enjoy this gift for many years to come.  We have spent a LOT of time researching swingsets, preparing the yard, mulch options, drainage issues, etc.  This has been quite the project.  But we found a fabulous swingset - here's a picture of one that's almost just like ours:

We are excited to celebrate Sam's birthday and will have his official party later in April after the new baby arrives.  We strive to cherish every day with our precious little boy and smell the roses.  Every day we marvel at the beauty, joy, and laughter that he brings into our lives.  We are so blessed to have such a smart, sweet, cuddly, loving, creative, curious, independent, social, and energetic son. 

Sam, we love you more than you will ever know.  It's hard to remember what our life was like before you came into the world.  As much as we try to teach you new things, you have also taught us so much about life, love, family, and about ourselves.  Thank you for being the wonderful little boy that you are.  We can't wait to see what an amazing big brother you will be and what the next year has in store for you and our family.  Happy 2nd birthday Sam!