Well, We had a great time at Aleza and Soren’s home. Jon wasn’t able to drive up, but he said he’ll visit another time, so I’ll have time to wash the Cat in the Hat t-shirt long before he arrives.

Sam ran with Ella and Maggie, Aleza’s dog, in their big lawn for a bit. Aleza asked Sam about feeding the goats, and off we went. Sam actually got right in there and held out handfuls of oats for the nanny goat, two mommy goats and a kid to eat from. They are big goats, except for the kid, but were very nice to Sam. She loved it all. We romped down by their big pond for a bit admiring the geese and the 5 goslings. We trekked over two bridges that Sam loved. She told the fishies to come out and play, but none of them did. Imagine that. There was a field of grass with strawberry plants, then a smallish forest of pine trees with a little brook running into the big pond. We walked through another grassy area then home along the brick wall. Maggie kept Ella quite busy and well away from the electric fence. They seemed to love romping together, as evenly matched as any two dogs I have seen. Maggie was adorable, and loved Sam. This time it was Maggie who wouldn’t stop licking Sam, but she was so sweet about it, it was hard to get mad at her for it. She did try to behave, which is pretty good for a year and half old. We had a little snack, and then ate dinner outside. Something about eating outside makes the food really tasty. That and good cooks! Sam made sure that all the dogs had their toys. She loved throwing Poppy’s rubber squeaky for her. Poppy is the 12-year-old boxer that Elanna adopted recently. Poppy was very patient with Sam. They politely kept Bailey and Benny, the other two dogs, in the house while Ella was there. Both of them seemed to hate boxers, so it was easier to keep the peace with them separated. Sam felt tired, so we went in and she lay down on the floor with a little pillow and took off all her clothes. She wouldn’t put them back on, which really amused all the adults. I am not sure if the new parents of twins were as amused. I think they didn’t want to think about their babies growing up to be quite that uninhibited. It was cool outside, so she put her clothes back on pretty quickly. We had a quiet drive home. She slept the whole way. She was very tired, but she made sure to tell Daddy all about the goats and Maggie as soon as she got home. I think the goats were the biggest hit.

Matt still isn't getting any sleep. I have been sleeping through anything lately, which can be really annoying to the person who gets up, I would imagine. Sam has the sniffles and is coughing a bit through the night. We think it may be some allergies, but am not sure. She wouldn't nap at all today, which made it really hard for us to take our own nap. She actly stayed in her room for a bit, but she took out the jar of Aquaphor and smeared it on the carpet, her hair, her bed, the chair and a few books. Very interesting trying to clean it up. I washed her hair twice, no picnic let me tell you, and it still has stuff in it.

We are off tomorrow to a friend's cookout for the day. We'll see my brother-in-law jon in the evening. Sam is excited to see him again. She talks about him every time she wears the Cat in the Hat t-shirt he got her, her favorite shirt.

We had a pretty impressive storm last night, as far as thunder and lightning are concerned. Sam woke up around 10:30 at night because of the noise. Not because she was scared. Oh, no, not at all. Samantha loves thunderstorms. She woke up because she wanted to go out to the sun porch off our bedroom to watch the lightning and listen to the thunder.

She was awake until around midnight, and was very disappointed when the storm finally passed. When I was sitting with her in her room trying to get her to go back to sleep, she kept saying "Daddy, make thunder come back again."

Between Samantha and work, I didn't get to sleep until almost 2 am, then I had to be at work in time for an all-day meeting that started at 9.

Y...a...w...n.....

Samantha is starting to learn the alphabet, and going to be reading before we know it. Not only can she sing the entire alphabet song, she has memorized most of her favorite books and can "read" along with you, reciting the right words on each page. She clearly also knows that the printing on the page is words, and that the words go with the story, because if I point to specific parts of the page she'll recite approximately the right part of the text. She's not reading, of course, bue she's associating certain passages with particular parts of the writing on the page, which is a start.

And if that wasn't enough, Amy sent me email today with the following observation:

Sam wrote and A on her hand and said, Mommy, I wrote an A, an A mommmy,
right here!

Wow...

I'd say Samantha had a pretty good day today. Surprisingly, so did I. Surprisingly because yesterday would have been Emily's 4th birthday, had she lived. Between that and the anniversary of mom's death, May pretty much sucks as a month despite including my birthday (about which I care not at all) and my anniversary.

Anyway, today was a good day, in spite of it all. We went with Jim, Thea, and Colette down to Roger Williams Zoo in Providence. It's a bit of a drive, but worth it. It's a small, manageable, but very high quality zoo with a number of other good things around it in Roger Williams Park -- think San Diego's Balboa Park, but on a much smaller scale.

It was a cloudless and very warm day (so much for the weather forecast of cloudy and cool -- Amy and I ended up buying exhorbitantly overpriced tee shirts in the zoo gift shop since we were so overdressed for the weather), and we spent about 3 hours in the zoo proper. Both Samantha and Colette, who is about a year older, were very well behaved, even when Sam started getting very tired. I think they both liked seeing the animals. Jim took a couple of hundred pictures of both of them (not to mention animals and other kids in the zoo), so hopefully I'll have some new photos to post soon. I, of course, forgot both the digital and video cameras in the bustle of getting everything ready and into the car this morning.

Samantha keeps coming out with hilarious utterances at every turn. As we walked through the wetlands marsh area she told me that the birds where whining, and then looked at them and said "Oh, be quiet!" I suppose that says something less than ideal about what she hears at home (sometimes directed at the dogs, sometimes at her I'm afraid), but at the time it was pretty funny.

Later on, when we were watching the camels and she was eating a lollipop, she looked carefully at the camel's long tongue lolling out and then without warning said to the camel, very sternly, "No, camel! Don't you ever ever eat my lollipop!" Jim and I practically fell over laughing.

After the zoo we went over to the reproduction antique carousel, and both kids got to ride on the carousel a couple of times, then we took them over to the park across the street for real pony rides. Samantha rode a pony named Spice. Twice. She was the only kid there who insisted on being lifted up so she could pet the pony's nose and head before getting on to ride. She has a real empathy for animals.

After pony rides and a train ride for Sam, and a ride on one of those whirly things that make me nauseous for Colette, it was time to go home. A very full day, and Samantha slept like an angel in the back of the car all the way home.

Once home, I had to go out and mow and edge what's left of the lawn. So it wasn't a perfect day. But what can you do?

Samantha had a decent evening for the most part, but toward the end of dinner she was getting tired and a little out of hand. It was one of those nights when she was frustrated and decided to take it out on the dog (Tucker) by smacking him. I scolded her and told her not to do it, so of course she did it again. At that point I told her she was going to bed, which shortly thereafter she did.

She actually stayed up for a few minutes longer because she said she busy feeding mommy. She was. She was carefully taking bits of grilled steak, putting them on a fork, smearing them in steak sauce, and feeding them to Amy, each bite accompanied by a cheery "Here you go, mommy!"

Amy actually put her to bed, but she insisted on seeing me before she went to sleep. The reason she wanted to see me was to say "I love you, daddy" (after which all was, of course, forgiven -- how can any father resist that?) and to insist that she get out of bed, find Tucker, and tell him she was "very sorry for whacking him" (her words, not mine). I guess she really does have a sense of empathy, when she's not too busy being a tired, frustrated, stubborn toddler.

She's pretty damn cute at times too.

Matt just came in after tucking in Sam fro the night to tell me what a great daughter we have. Evidently Sam was insisting that Daddy come in so she could tell him that she loved him very much. She went on to insist that she get up and give Tucker a hug and tell him she was very sorry for whacking Tucker. Quick thinking Daddy said that Tucker was sleeping now, so she should stay in bed, but Daddy would make sure to give Tucker her message when Tucker woke up.

I have no idea why she couldn’t tell me, but I am glad she felt some contrition for the whacking. Tucker is a very patient, good boy with his girl.

We’ve been out gallivanting the past couple of days, partly because Sam is cranky and partly because it keeps my mind off from Emily’s yarzheit, at least a little. Sam and I went to the Aquarium yesterday and she was thrilled to see the penguins and watch the fishies. She loves the fishies. I had to carry her out of there screaming because she didn’t want to leave the fishies. We had lunch at Legal Seafood across from the Aquarium and she charmed everyone. She really wanted to watch the lobster tank, so we watched those for a bit. One of the waiters took one out for her to pet, but she didn’t want to go that far, she just wanted to look at them. The restaurant also had a big fish tank with two little clown fish like Nemo that she spotted right away. Definitely a winner. She ate some of my calamari, just a couple of tentacles, but that’s pretty good for a toddler!

Today we took the T back down to the waterfront because there was no way I was driving through that construction again if I could help it. The red line stops a couple of blocks from the Children’s Museum. We had another gorgeous, sunny, warmish day to roam the docks. We met Leslie at the milk bottle in front of the Children’s Museum and headed over to the Barking Crab for lunch. Sam was thrilled to see two low flying helicopters and one further away, plus a goose and numerous seagulls nearby. She had some of my soft-shelled crab, but was pretty content with her snack of grapes. We walked a bit further on around the Federal courthouse and saw the big ferry boats and tourist cruises go by. She loved that too. That was about all she could take, although she demanded to get out of the stroller and walked for almost twenty minutes back to the T from the courthouse. She loved the T and wanted to know where the train was going. I told her about the little grey mice that live in the tunnels because if you are very quiet, sometimes they will come out and look for food. She asked me where the mice were the rest of the way home. We got back to the car, which, thankfully, had not been towed. I had to park illegally because the Alewife garage was full and there are no other public garages next to the T. Isn’t that crazy? She fell asleep within a minute or two of getting in the car, and I carried her up to bed. She is so sweet to hold when she is fast asleep like that. A beautiful, lively girl. Given how tired she was, I couldn’t believe what a good girl she had been during our outing. She just likes to be out and about a lot, I guess.

I asked Sam last night what she wanted to eat for dinner, and she said “Thai food.” I guess I haven’t been cooking at home much lately.

She has been doing really well with her Friday morning swim lessons. Paddling, sliding into the pool on the toy slide, even leaping off the edge of the pool is all part of the fun for her. She is getting better at getting her face wet, but really she is so brave in the water that I am astonished. She does hate the shower, though. Hates it.

We went to the Bishops Bear Fair at the Bishops Elementary school today. They had ponies, and Sam got to ride the pretty chestnut pony named, and I couldn’t believe this, “Snuggles.” Sam got very happy when she heard this. She waited in line very patiently and was very good about sharing ‘her’ pony. She told me she wants a pony and she would let Trajan and Lucia and Cole ride it. I thought that was very generous of her. There wasn’t much else to do there, so we went home.

Sam had an eventful day. Matt was reading a book to her and she kept pointing to all the letter A’s and saying “there’s a little ‘a’!” We were amazed. Her very first letter. She also used the cell phone to call her daddy. I programmed the voice dial with her voice and showed her how to activate it. She did it all her self and had a nice chat with daddy on the other end. She was so tickled with herself. She kept trying to get the regular phone to dial daddy. She’s pick up the handset, press a button and say “Matt, Matt, Daddy, Matt cell” I say Matt cell when I call. Makes me realize just how much she really listens to what I say. Am I the only one who is reminded of the scene in Star Trek, the movie where they stay in San Francisco to fetch a whale to the future, and the engineer is talking to the computer, “Computer” and the guy shows him the mouse and thinks he is nuts? I’m old enough now to have seen some major leaps in the way we use technology. For instance, she uses Tivo so what she wants to see is always there, taped and waiting. I can also fast forward through all commercials.

Sam decided she wanted butterscotch for dinner, so we went to Brighams where she ate a whole grilled cheese sandwich and two bites of a butterscotch sundae. She was pretty funny, trying to tickle me, asking: What does the Lady bug say? Hello, Ladybug! What does the Giraffe say? Hello down there! What does the elephant say? Pthhh! She is incredibly adorable when she wants to be.

We walked through Harvard Yard today and sat at the fountain next to the Science Center. Everyone loved Ella and gave indulgent smiles to Sam. One woman with an Eastern European accent came up to me and held onto my arm. She said “you have such a beautiful dog and a beautiful daughter too. You are truly blessed!” This was such a nice change from the, “Oh boy, have you got your hands full there!” I told the nice lady that I was indeed blessed and I was very happy to have them in my life. You meet the neatest people in the Yard.

Matt wrote this in an e-mail to my mom, a dance fan. I thought it was pretty cute so I am adding it here.

Samantha, it turns out, is a Gene Kelly fan, and loves "Singing in the Rain". We were watching it the other day and the scene came on where Cyd Charise is wearing that wonderful green dress and doing her "vamp" routine with Gene Kelly's character in the speakeasy.

When she saw this Sam shrieked with glee, jumped off the couch, and
started dancing. She was trying to mimic Cyd Charise's dance moves in
fact.

Great, my 2 year old daughter is a vamp :-)