Poppa has a hard time of it, I think. Samantha just brought the phone over to me and said "Daddy." She wanted me to call Matt so she could talk to him over the phone. He hadn't even left for work yet and she already was getting ready to call him. I can't imagine having to leave her behind and go to an office. I am very lucky to get to spend time with her.

Her words are getting increasingly useful. She said cup this morning while eating breakfast, so I got out her tiny porcelain cup. She was ecstatic. I pour a tiny bit in the cup. She slurps up some, blows bubbles in some and pours the rest out on her tray. Every once in a while she puts a morsel of food in her mouth, so for me it is a good tradeoff.

She screamed ‘coming’ so I got up and let Ella through the gate to join us downstairs. I can’t hear well enough to know that Ella just walked down the stairs, so it is a good thing that Sam told me. She communicates very well! (I often tell Ella I am coming to let her know she can stop whining or scraping the door.)

I have to talk about the ‘p’ word today, because it is a momentous occasion. She was looking at the potty, and I asked her if she wanted to sit on it. She clearly said yes. Now, when a toddler actually says the word “yes,” it is imperative to act immediately. I put her down on the potty and read her a story. Then I read her another story. She got up, pulled out the seat, sat down again, got up, moved the seat somewhere else, sat down again, did that three more times. Nothing much coming out. Then a little bit did and I praised her a lot and was pretty excited. I sat with her a bit more, and then went and got a wipe. When I came back, she had peed on the seat. Not actually in it, but pretty close. I’m happy. I went to get something to wipe up, which took, maybe one minute. I came back to a huge puddle right next to the step and another smaller puddle in the corner. At least Ella had been courteous enough to stick with one puddle per hour during her potty training. So I clean everything up, put a diaper on quickly – thinking the whole while that maybe we should just stick with diapers. We could always say in high school that she just has a medical problem, couldn’t we? Then I notice Ella nosing Sam’s push toy. Yep, that other smaller puddle turned out to be her missing her push toy that she obviously felt was just an unusually shaped potty. I highly recommend having a dog at your side during potty training. They not only will point out spots you miss on the floor, but they will get very upset if there is a spot you miss on the child. Everything must be clean! Anyway, all is back to normal in the household, except for a drift of eau de floor cleaner.

We just got back from the Medford Boat Club where people from the Arlington E-mail List had gathered. I met a few other moms. The rain seems to have scared away most people. Samantha was hell on wheels. She dashed from one end of the little beach to the other, ran pretty deep into the water and didn't worry about where I was at all. She found this 7 foot tall structure that had a rope ladder on the side and climbed right up it. She didn't even slow down when other kids shook the ladder. Every light had to be investigated, touched and then whacked. She ran off into the lodge and I caught her hand just as she was about to put it into the fan in the kitchen. This little one has no fear of anything and wants to see and touch it all. It is very challenging to go out with her.

I think Sam is starting to understand color. I asked her to point to the white cat as opposed to the purple, yellow and red cat. She pointed to the right one, and then grilled me on the rest of the cats in the row. It really is amazing to see the lights go on as she absorbs new ideas.

Add blueberries to the list of favorite foods. She climbed up the front of the flat dishwasher to get to the counter where the blueberries were innocently laying about six inches from the edge. A safe distance, you might say? Not when she is this determined! She pulled the carton off the counter, sat down on the floor and started shoveling them into her mouth by handfuls. The few that managed to escape her hands didn't escape her tushie. Yep, soundly crushed by a wet diaper, such an ignominious end to a noble berry. She was very happy about the whole thing. I am glad she likes berries, but I do like to wash them first. I can't wait for her to go blueberrying in a couple of weeks. I wonder what she''ll do when she sees whole bushes full of ripe berries.

Samantha went down for a snuggle and a nap just now, very early for her but she seemed to want it. I lay the purple and red velvet blanket on top of the sheet and her pink and grey quilt on top of her. She tucks her knees under her tummy, wiggles her butt a bit, then reaches up behind her and grabs the quilt and tucks it in around her. Then she wriggles her butt again and croons herself to sleep. I try not to disturb her as I watch her routine. She is a sweet girl and makes me very happy.

I realized I should thank my brother and sister for being such good kids, because if they had been bad, Mom would have never dared to have a third. Thanks Alan and Patty!

And then there are the two words I heard, socks and broccoli. She even pointed to a picture of broccoli and said broccoli. No one else hears these words. Adults will ask her to say things, and she just stands there and looks at them. She won't even say bye bye until after the person has long gone.

Well, I have to disagree somewhat with pedestrian taste comment. Ella drinks from her bowl with Sam holding on, then Sam leans over and drinks the same way. She raises her head and looks right at me as I rush to her to get her out of the bowl. Aren't I proud of her for mastering this wonderful new skill? Okay, so I was kind of proud, but also grossed out. Motherhood entails lots of conflicting emotions.

Oh, and of course while we're on the subject of words, we mustn't forget the most common word of all: no. But she's still about the cutest toddler I've ever seen. Everyone says so, even some of the people with kids of their own.

It's been ages since I've posted anything here, which is annoying because Samantha grows and changes every day, and while I haven't been too busy to notice it, I have been too busy to write much of it down. Some recent highlights:

She learns at least one or two new words every day. Yesterday's new word was "clock", said repeatedly while pointing to the clock on the wall of her room. Hi, yeah, shoes, cheese, juice, down, all done, book, cat, car, duck, quack ... her vocabulary grows by leaps and bounds. The most amazing thing, to me at least, was the first time she pointed to a picture of a car in one of her books and said "car", making the leap from the real object to a representation of it. This was followed shortly thereafter by saying "car" to the car-shaped tin of cookies (which doesn't look much like a car, but she recognized it), and then by grabbing Amy's keys and standing at the basement door (which leads down to the garage) and saying "car! car!" while trying to turn the doorknob. Think she was trying to tell me something?

She's almost tall enough to turn doorknobs now, which means another round of babyproofing is coming up. She's also fascinated with light switches, like many toddlers, and will climb things to get to them so she can flick them on and off. And on and off. And on and off. And on and off.

She gives hugs and kisses now. Mostly to Ella. Sometimes to Amy. And to Lucia and Trajan, the twins who live down the street. Occasionally even to me. But she's really really fond of Lucia and Trajan -- when we go out walking around the neighborhood and we pass their house she tries to head for their front door, and is apt to fling herself down in the road and have a minor tantrum if we can't go and visit them. Funny, Ella is the same way -- she generally heads for their door as soon as we get near the house.

New favorite foods: strawberries and chateaubriand. Amy and I went to dinner the other night and Amy brought home some chateaubriand -- Samantha wasted no time the next day grabbing pieces of it from her plate and gobbling them down. So much for my plans of having a vegetarian baby. Well, at least she's still mostly vegetarian. (I can hear the Princess Bride fans among you saying "there's a big difference between mostly vegetarian and all vegetarian...") Ah well, if you're going to develop a taste for meat, it might as well be really really good meat. No one can accuse Samantha of having pedestrian tastes.

Oh, and thank G-d, she sleeps through the night almost every night now!

We went shopping this morning and Sam was just too tired to cope. I was having a hard time too, which probably didn't help much. Whenever I put an item in the carraige for her, she took it out and threw it on the floor. She screamed when I put her in the carraige, so I let her run around a bit. She has so much fun just playing with the hangers, it is amazing. We have a strawberry fiend in our house. She ate five strawberries and cried hysterically when I had to take time to remove the green part. Loves her strawberries, does Sam. She is trying very hard to get into the fridge because she knows there are strawberries inside. We have a very determined little girl. Her white shorts have red splotches all over them, but she's happy. Some lady was laughing pretty hard watching Sam pour her orange juice all over herself and the cart. I'm glad someone thought it was funny. I am taking my own nap soon.

We are being deluged with rain here, horrid, rapid downpours. It is hot too. I feel like I am living in the original verdant jungle of the dinosaurs. Every day I pour out inches of rain from the kiddy pool or a bucket. Samantha is going nutty she is so bored from being inside, but I am scared to have her wander around outside too much. The mushrooms grow inches in a day and new ones are popping up everywhere, not to mention the mold that is making everything extra slippery. The moss is a gorgeous bright green. It's very pretty.

We gave up today and went to the Science Museum. We climbed up and down the musical staircase, but Sam seemed to enjoy it most when everyone else made the music. She didn't seem to connect her movements with the bell tones. She liked the wheel that went around making different pictures on the wall mural, but she didn't see the mural, just the wheel itself. We went downstairs to see the animals, and she had a blast climbing up the seat and down from the seat. I don't think she saw the snakes or the bobcat. Going up and down the elevator was really fun, although I was really glad the emergency call button didn't work, sort of. We ended the visit with some catsup and french fries. Did you know that french fries are just a way to get catsup to your mouth? You don't actually eat the fries, or Sam doesn't. There was a group of tourists in the next table, playing Kazoos, clearly getting ready for their Duck boat tour. They whispered for a bit and then turned around to quack in unison for Samantha. She barely reacted. She didn't smile, she didn't act scared, she just watched them. I guess catsup was a priority right then. Nothing fazes Sam, that's all I can say. They clearly thought she was adorable. She makes everyone smile who sees her. I hate going grocery shopping without her. People are much more grumpy when it is just me.

I'm watching Sue's twins tomorrow in the hopes that Trajan and Lucia will tire Sam out and make life less boring here. Wish me luck!