The Sam Update - Twenty Six Months Old

Samantha is an integrating machine.  She is working on connections.   The associations she makes are astounding, puzzling, and sometimes hilarious.

While helping her to put on her shoes the other day, I named the parts of the shoe, including the tongue.  Later in the car, she took off her shoe, held it up, pointed to the hole and said, "MOUTH."

She learned my name from an old personalized book I had when I was a kid.  At the end of the story, my name is spelled out in fireworks in the sky.  One day, Sam kept pointing to a spot on my sweater and saying, "AMY AMY AMY."  I finally realized that there was a pattern on the sweater that looked exactly like the fireworks in the book.

When she first learned how to eat fruit, I taught her not to eat the stems and peels by calling them the icky parts.  I also recently started letting her peel her own bananas.  The other day I asked her what she wanted for a snack and she kept saying, "PEE-OW, PEE-OW."  I asked, "Do you want peas?"  NO!  "Are you saying please?"  NO!  "I'm not sure what you are asking for - fruit, yogurt, pears?"  PEE-OW PEE-OW  PEE-OW.   "How about an apple?"  Then I saw the wheels turning and she finally came up with: ICKY.  Ah, she was saying "peel."  She wanted a banana to peel, and when I didn't understand, she told me in another way.  I'm not sure why she didn't just say banana but I thought this was quite a leap in her thinking and communication.

I got her an orange shirt with a black Halloween cat on it which she's worn a few times.  While putting away her summer clothes, I was baffled when she began meowing at her orange shorts, until it dawned on me that they are the only other orange piece of clothing that she has.

She loves the color yellow and she loves big trucks and cars.  A yellow school bus makes her squeal with delight.  But now every big vehicle is a yellow bus, even if it is a white van.  And once she says it, I get treated to this song:

YEYOW-BUCH.  YEYOW-BUCH.  MORE-YEYOW-BUCH. MORE. MORE. MORE. MORE. MORE-YEYOW-BUCH. BYE BYE YEYOW-BUCH. BYE BYE. BYE BYE. BYE BYE. BYE BYE YE-YOW-BUCH.  Sometimes I get a bonus of BEEP BEEP BEEP if she recalls the last time she saw one back up.

Speaking of songs, she can now sing three songs that I recognize.  She hums Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  (Have you noticed it's the same tune as the alphabet song?)  She misses notes and just keeps going and going and I want to give her a Grammy.  She gets a few words of Rock-A-Bye Baby, but it's mostly ROCKABABY ROCKABABY.  Tonight, she sang Ring Around the Rosy.  We've never sung this to her so she must have learned it at day care, but I actually recognized the tune and her own, minimalist lyrics: ASHES ASHES DOWN!  ASHES ASHES DOWN!

Samantha has an eye for the sky.  I've learned not to doubt her when she calls out "AIRPLANE."  If she says it, I follow her sight line.  Sometimes I have to look carefully and there is just the tiniest speck in the sky, but she's always right.  Except when it's a helicopter.  She also loves birds, and she adores the moon.  The Halloween costume her dad bought for her about a year ago just-because-he-couldn't-resist-even-though-it-was-way-too-big-at-the-time turned out to be perfect.

I'm surprised she didn't meow at it.