Now Entering the Terrible Twos...

Last week Sam turned two, and he received a lot of great presents from his relatives. He celebrated his birthday by not sleeping that night.
Anyway, we can see him making more and more connections every day. Thanks in large part to his grandma, he's learning colors and numbers. We really never know what new words he's going to learn every day, so we have to be especially careful with our language now.
He also is really becoming attached to his stuffed animals. He often tries to carry two or more with him, in addition to a ball. He calls them by name and is very affectionate toward them. He even hugs the bear-shaped honey container.

A Word Is Worth 1,000 Pictures

The other day, Katie wrote down all the words Sam says now, and it’s getting close to 100. His speaking ability is really taking off. It’s funny to hear him say “Bye-bye… Dad,” pausing as he tries to remember what to say next. It’s also a relief that now he can at least sometimes tell us what he wants, whether he needs a drink or wants to go outside on a walk.

Car Wars

We've had some interesting car trouble recently, after having virtually none for 3 years. One of our cars was rendered undriveable, and had to be towed to the shop. $500 and a few days later, they said it was fixed. We drove it home, and the next morning it wouldn’t start again. Another tow and 7 days later, they found that someone had poured sugar (or something similar) in our tank, which had worked itself up to the engine. Before you tout your knowledge of the show Mythbusters, let me assure you that in the right conditions it is possible to mess up a car with sugar. In any event, the repair bill was now estimated at about $2,000. Fortunately, our insurance has agreed to cover it as vandalism, and we are only out the $500 deductible, which we would have had to pay anyway for the first repair. But since the sugar was the cause of that too, the whole shebang will only be the $500. Now we have to take the other car in too, as it is also having some problems. We pray that it’s not the same cause…

Last night Sam figured out how to make a spit bubble when he opened his mouth. So for a while we sat there, popping each other's spit bubbles. It was a true father/son bonding experience.

All right, it’s been a while since I updated this blog. Needless to say, Sam has not ceased to be entertaining. He recently started speaking without prompting. He’ll now say “hi” to us pretty often. We frequently argue over whether he has a globe or a ball (to him, anything round is a ball). And his dancing skills are truly amazing. We were at a wedding reception last week, and when they were playing music he grabbed his mom’s hands and started dancing, without any prompting. The kid has natural rhythm.

[Note: I'm messing around with templates, so don't get weirded out if the layout is different every time you visit.]

Ssssssibling Rivalry

So we are finally sure of our snake's gender. Reggie is a girl. We know because a couple weeks ago there were suddenly a dozen really small snakes in the cage. Let me tell you something that may surprise you: Baby snakes are really cute. It's certainly not something I would have thought about before, but they are.
We released all the babies but one, whom I, in a fit of creativity, named Hannibal. This because he ate one of his siblings and then tried to eat another, until the next day I finally had to help extract the second snake still protruding from his mouth. He's been fine since then, but I haven't been able to get him to eat anything else, presumably because he's still working on a meal as big as he is.