Ah-ga-me!

I was shocked when Samuel pointed to an ice cream truck today and said, "Ah-ga-me!"--his word for "ice cream." How did he learn that?

Asleep

On the way to the park, the boys fall asleep.

Picking Flowers and Hiking

After church on Sunday, we had a picnic and hiked at Fresh Pond. A beautiful summer weekend.

Samuel is self toilet training

I was shocked yesterday when prior to taking his bath, Samuel walked over to his little potty, sat down, squirted some urine out, stood up, turned around and pointed saying, "Pee-pee!"

Samuel's new supercut

I skipped the usual visit to the Chinatown barber for a quick visit to our Central Square supercuts, and it was really nice: clean, no wait, fast, and Samuel was super cooperative. We will probably be going back.

Talking a lot more

Samuel is finally experiencing his verbal explosion. He had me a little worried awhile back, but he's really come around. He loves to repeat the words he hears around him, for example, while he was picking his nose this morning, "Boooger!" Or when he points at his elbow and say, "Elmo!" He likes to lift up his shirt and show off his "Tummy!" And Thomas the tank engine is, "Tommy!"

But of course my favorites are when I come home from work and he stops what he's doing and runs to me saying, "Daddy, daddy!" and when I ask him a question and he says, "Yesh!"

Defiance

At breakfast this morning, Samuel wiped his hand on the leftover yogurt on his tray, and then started to rub it into his hair. I told him, "Don't put yogurt in your hair Samuel." While looking straight at me, he dipped swiped more yogurt off the tray, and started patting his hair again. This is something Joshua would have never done. Joshua was our rule keeper, and often the rule enforcer--even his teachers at preschool saying that "he is a good role model for following the routine and classroom rules even when there are changes that arise." Parenting Samuel is going to be very different.