The Sam Digest.

Sam has long been a talker, but now that he's really stringing words and ideas together his little personality is emerging. He is really funny and smart! I thought I'd share some of our conversations, some of his one-liners, and the fun little anecdotes I have about Sam from the last couple of months.

We pass McDonald's and Sam yells, "Fen Fies! More, fen fies?" (This was complete with sign language for both more and french fries).

Mommy: Sam, are you stinky?
Sam: No.
Mommy: I think you pooped.
Sam: I don't poop.

I put Sam in a shopping cart at Market Basket and roll him in the door. As soon as I pull out my shopping list, he shouts, "Hot gogs! Nonuts! Mannas! Mater nacks!" (Hot dogs, donuts, bananas, and Mater fruit snacks). I guess he thought my list was incomplete!

Our family is close friends with the Harmon family in our ward. Their oldest daughter Jessica is now 12, and she's Sam's favorite person outside the family. If we see a bus, "See-a-ca" must be on it. If we are going to church, Sam will willingly go because he knows "See-a-ca" will be there. If he won't eat something, sometimes he will try it if I tell him Jessica likes it.  The best was, I was trying to get him to say Julia's name. "Sam, say Sis-ter Har-mon". He grinned and said "Yay, See-a-ca's Mama!"

Sam loves Mater fruit snacks. He also likes Buzz and Woody fruit snacks and will eat "Peen-cess" fruit snacks ("Princess" to Sam is anything pink, purple or feminine). Apparently, Sam believes there are fruit snacks for anything he is a fan of, because the other day at the store he asked me for "See-a-ca" fruit snacks and was quite disappointed that they didn't have any.

Sam uses the same phrase for lunch and breakfast Aidan did at this age. "Mama, me eat?" I love it, it's so cute.  But the other night, he patted my leg while I was on the computer and asked "Mama, make nummy dinner?" How could I resist?

Sam dislikes having a dirty or wet face or hands. While my other children and kids of my friends generally had a wide drool spot from their mouth to their bellybuttons from age 10 months to 3, Sam rarely has any drool on his clothes. Not because he doesn't salivate at the same rate as other kids, because he does. But instead of letting it go, he sucks it up almost every time. Weirdest baby ever.

Another symptom of his dislike for dirty hands, Sam likes very few finger foods. He only wants to eat food with a fork and a spoon on a proper plate unless it is completely dry like cheerios or fruit snacks. He calls spoon and fork "A poon and poke-it".

If you tell Sam there is meat in a meal he'll get excited and say "Yay meat!"

One thing you should know about Sam, he is obsessed with Buzz and Woody from Toy Story and Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater from Cars. (He can say all of their names except Lightning McQueen, who is Bye-nee-neen!!!! instead.) Mater's catchphrase is "Dadgum!", Buzz says "To infinity, and beyond!" or "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!" and Woody says "There's a snake in my boot!" and "Somebody poisoned the waterhole!" Sam goes around saying these things in his own baby way. "Badgum!" is my favorite, but he also says, "Too abby ah!" and "Buzz to the reck-you!" or "Nake in boot!" and "Waterhole!" all of which are funny and most especially when you hear them out of context or without background.

So Sam and I are wheeling around the produce section getting "bapes" and "cats" (grapes and carrots) and a kindly grandmotherly type comes over to make goo-goo eyes at him. "Look at his angelic blonde curls and his beautiful blue eyes!" she exclaimed. "Sam, say hi to the nice lady," I said dutifully. She looks hoepfully at him, no doubt expecting him to coo softly or goo-goo-ga-ga or even say hi or wave shyly. Instead, he rears back and says "Well badgum!" LOL! The lady goes, "Did he just say dadgum?!" "Yeah," I reply sheepishly. "Sorry." She walked off giggling. At least she wasn't offended. And it made me glad we don't curse or let Sam watch movies with curse words in them. Heh.

Sam loves to dance and he usually enjoys it when we join him in these activities. He'll dance in the grocery cart when a bouncy song comes on  and say "Dance, dance" to everyone else. So the other day we were in a Michael's store when a bouncy song came on after a slow song, and I got the dancing under way. Sam is sitting in the cart, looking at me with a very flat face. : |  I say "Dance, Sam!" and keep dancing and finally he shouts, "MAMA!!! You're done." Shocked, I stopped. Just to test him, I start it up again. "MAMA!!!" Sam says. "No."  Lol! Here I was thinking I'd be embarrassing to him at 19. But instead it starts at 19 months.

Same day, Abby is singing in the car, and Sam grabs her arm and says "Abby!! SHH!" complete with finger on lips. Lol!

At Michael's spelling bee, the announcer was telling us what the funds from the ticket sales would be used for. He mentioned the word "money" and Sam started shouting "MONEY! MONEY! YAY! MONEY!" The crowd got a good laugh.

We used to hold Sam in our arms and "sneak" up on people in a very obvious way. We'd loudly say "Sneak, sneak, sneak!" and when we got to them, say "AHHH!" He loves this game and right around Christmas time, began to play it himself. You'd be sitting somewhere and hear "Neak, neak!" and then he'd pounce on you, which was really, really funny. Then, he got smarter. He stopped saying "neak" and actually started sneaking. And instead of saying "AHH!" and pouncing, he'd throw something at you or hit you when he got to you, and it wasn't funny anymore. So to get back to the funny game, I was having him use his stuffed animals to "neak" and he liked that a lot. But the other night, he was already in his crib when I was using Baa to "neak" Abby, and so when I was done, Baa "neaked" Sam. And Sam did what we always do! He pretended to be surprised!!! He looked away, acted nonchalant, and gave me sideways glances and looked away again. And when I said "AHH!", he screamed and then dissolved into laughter as if he'd really been startled, and told me, "Mama, you funny!" I had no idea he knew we were pretending the whole time.

The smartest thing I've ever seen Sam do happened in the kitchen and just blew me away. Sam was bouncing a rubber ball in the kitchen while I was making dinner. He was with me for five minutes, and then the ball sounds stopped and he left the room. He came back about two minutes later with a 3 foot slat from an old toddler bed in the boys closet. Sam laid down on the floor on his stomach in front of the fridge and began poking the slat under the fridge. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, "Mama, my ball?" His ball had gone under the fridge! Instead of crying, or getting me, he had decided to solve the problem himself. And instead of using a tool within his line of sight or something that wasn't an appropriate length or shape for the job, he remembered where he had seen something that should work, and went and got it, and came back and tried it. He solved the entire problem in his own mind with only the limitations of his motor skills holding him back. WOW!

Well, thanks for spending time with Sam and I. I just wanted to write all this down so I would remember later all the fun, silly, smart things he said and did at this age, and brag to you guys a little. Hope all is well with you.