The socks

Sam wanted to help me with laundry, so I asked her to put the socks out in the livingroom in her Elmo chair so we could sort them after I had all the shirts folded. She agreed. When I went out into the livingroom, there were no socks in the chair.

Me: "Sam, where are the socks?"
Sam: "I dunno!"
Me: "They're not in the Elmo chair!"
Sam: "I KNOW!"
Me: "Well Sam, I put you in charge of the sock!"
Sam: "You shouldn't!"

Clearly we both need supervision!

The parts of the Mass according to Sam

Sam: "You sing and sing. Mama sing. Then you see Jesus. Daddy say, 'Sam, do you want to go to the park? Then SIT DOWN!' Then one more song. Okay, bye bye!"

Trail-guide Sam

We've been taking Sam to the park a lot lately because the weather has started to warm up. Today she did the swings and then the slide. Then she turned to me and asked, "Mama, you want I take you see mah ducks?"

She knew exactly where they were too!

Some interesting comments

My husband and I are a marriage preparation couple, and help both with Pre-Cana classes and serve as a sponsor couple. We do this for the most selfish reason I can think of - it's good for our marriage! We also really enjoy meeting with all the couples. It's very energizing to be around people who are at such a happy, exciting time in their lives!

This past weekend was our week to do our presentation at Pre-Cana. I have to say that all of the couples were really very nice, quite polite during the presentations, and they all seemed to participate in the excercises and discussions. Several even came up during breaks to thank us or to chat. It was very nice. Looking through the comments they gave on the various sections though, I found some surprises.

A parish deacon and his wife usually do the talk on spirituality, but as his wife was suddenly ill, we team-taught this section this time, and I think we did a really very good job. Brian and I spent our time talking about the role of faith in our marriage and how we began praying together. One of the comments read:

"The purpose of prayer is not to ask God for things but to thank GOD!"

Hmm. Interesting. I guess Jesus got that all wrong then when he asked, "Let this cup pass from me?" Anyway.

We were aware that there were many interfaith couples, but I was still taken aback by this suggestion:

"Could you throw in some references for the Catholics who don't know what they believe?"

Oh my. Perhaps instead of references, I'll throw in a few catechisms next time.

This last one was my favorite. It's a paraphrase because it was long-ish and awkwardly worded, but I think I've captured it pretty well:

"This forces us into uncomfortable areas and made us discuss things that we were not prepared for. To my knowledge, all other religions do not require you to believe every fact of that religion to be married in that church and I do not think the catholic church should do this either. It is against my understanding of free will."

Hmm. My understanding of free will is that no one is 1) required to marry or 2) require to marry in the Catholic Church. In addition, it seems a bit strange to imagine that some volunteer marriage prep couples had any power to change church law. Still, if we forced them to discuss uncomfortable issues, then I guess we did our job!

Public announcement

Sam is in the habit of loudly announcing her bodily functions, which is somewhat less than completely charming, so we've been trying to get her to whisper her announcements, or perhaps omit them entirely. This morning at the grocery store . . .

Sam (in the loudest possible voice, gesturing for me to lean in): "I WHISPER!"

Mama: "Yes?"

Sam (in a whisper this time): "Mama, I faw-ded."

Mama: I know. I heard it.

And I guess that sounded enough like "I farted" for her to proclaim at top volume, to the whole store: "MOMMY FARTED!"

I was tempted to die of embarassment, but instead I recalled a little gem that goes something like, "They're laughing with you as long as you're laughing too." So, hahahahahaha.

We're going to work on that whispering.

Name that animal

Samantha has a book she likes to read before bed. One page has a picture of animals and Sam likes for me to point to the animals so she can name them. A few nights ago she was being silly and kept telling me that all the animals were bears.

Mama: "Sam! That's not a bear, that's a frog!"

Sam: "It's a bear-frog. It go, 'Hop ROAR hop ROAR hop ROAR!'"

Samantha Hilarity

My ladel somehow ended up in the bathroom sink, and has to stay there. Samantha explains,

Sam: "Is 'cause Ernie is ticky!"

Mama: "Tricky?"

Sam: "Ernie is ticky!"

Mama: "Needs a tickle?"

Sam (exasperated): "Mama, Ernie TICKY!"

Mama: "Stinky?"

Sam: Sigh.

I went to move the ladel to the dishwasher.

Sam: "Mama! Leave it! (Something, something, something, something) Ernie ticky!"

So, Ernie, apparently, is ticky. And I, apparently, have a ladel in my sink.

A longer-than-planned nature hike

Sam and I went to a Wild Animal Show today at a county park, or at least, that's what we planned. We showed up only to learn that it had been canceled. Ah well. We checked out the turtles and the "Birds of Prey" exhibit. It was a beautiful day, so I thought we'd hike one of the little nature trails on the park property. I hadn't really planned for this to be our activity, but we had a drink and some snacks with us and the trails looked short and easy. I consulted the marker at the head of the trail and chose the red trail, which (I thought) the marker indicated was 1/2 mile. That seemed like a distance we could easily do.

So off we went, my junior hiker and I. Happily, the trees along the trail sported red dots to mark our path, which Sam enjoyed pointing out as we went. She stopped to inspect a lot of things and wanted to sit or stand on every log on the path. This slowed us a little, but she also ran along the trail quite a bit, which helped make up time. It wasn't long before I was pretty darn sure we'd already gone a 1/2 mile. We hiked a little further. Then I was REALLY sure. I was tempted to turn around, but kept thinking that it would be stupid to turn around if we were almost back - so I didn't.

We came to a little creek. Sam threw pebbles and attempted to go for a swim. We played for a while and had a nice break. Then we got back on the path and kept hiking. The weather was gorgeous and birds were singing. It was lovely. I was surprised that she kept such a lively pace. Had she not, perhaps I'd have been more inclined to turn around.

We stopped again for a snack - goldfish and bananas and water. Sam assured me that this was very fun, but I was starting to worry a little. I mean, we hadn't gotten SO far - I could definately walk back. But what was the right decision? Keep going or turn around? Would she be able to hike the distance back if I turned around? Would she be able to hike the distance back if I didn't turn around?

By this point, she was starting to slow. I kept pointing out things along the trail, and she wasn't complaining. Finally, I heard what sounded like a car. Looking up the trail there was an incline that turned out to lead back to the parking lot. Sam and I scampered up, and sure enough - we were back where I'd parked. I went and checked the trail markers again - it turns out we'd chosen the 2.5 mile trail - which is somewhat different than a 1/2 mile trail! To Sam's credit - she walked the whole thing and didn't want to be carried even when I offered! I promised that next time Mama would check the trail length before we set out. She asked, "And the rocks?" Which I assume means that the length of the hike is less important than whether or not she gets to throw pebbles in the creek.

We didn't, by the way, see another soul out in the woods the whole hike, which was nice in one way, and somewhat terrifying in another.

Pictures of our day are here.

How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

I was asking Sam about the steps to make a PB&J this morning as I was fixing her lunch. I like holding conversations like this - it makes me feel more like a responsible mother trying to teach her something, and less like a lunatic trying to throw together some food and get out the door in time for work. So I prompted that the first step would be to get some bread. Then . . .

Mama: "So we've got some bread. What's the next step?"

Sam: (Gestures to indicate bread in front of her) "Bread."
(Gestures as if pushing something away) "No cat!"

Mama: "WHAT is the next step?"

Samantha: "NO CAT!"
(Gestures as if spreading peanutbutter) "Then, pea-butter . . . "

Cue Mama rolling on the floor laughing! Who knew that was a step in making a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich? Hahahahaha! I live for this stuff!

Mama is great! She feeds us the chock-it cake!

Or, not so much.

Sam woke up this morning telling me that Barney had made her a cake, and that she needed to eat the cake - for breakfast apparently. I showed her that there was no cake in the refridgerator, so she spent some time looking for it, but then demanded that I find this cake. We had this conversation:

Mama: Did it have icing?

Sam: No . . . . chock-it!

Mama: What color was it?

Sam: Mama! Chock-it!

Mama: Sam, I think this was a dream!

Sam: Mama! It a CAKE!

Yeah, so I let her have a cookie for breakfast. We were running late. I'll make her eat some broccoli for dessert later.

Samantha hilarity

On Thursday, Samantha was playing with her babydolls. They were screaming at high volume and running around the livingroom. Now, I'm not saying that any child of mine does such a thing, but she's been exposed to such behavior somewhere. Anyway, she turned to the doll and said, "Pardin jur mouf." I asked her to repeat herself so I could be sure what she said . . . "Pardon your mouth!" That has to be Miss Marie talking! I wonder why got her mouth pardoned?

She has a new word: chock-it. It took me a while to figure out that she means CHOCOLATE.

We went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant tonight. Samantha ate a ton of chips and (hot!) salsa, and then put away quite a bit of beans and rice. I am so amused at her love of spicy and exotic foods!

Oh, and this happened over the weekend too. I wonder if I should interpret it as a threat?

Why I Didn't Vote?

I consider voting my civic duty, so I'd better have a pretty good reason for not voting.

Short summary: 4+ hour commute = no time to vote

Longer missive: I picked Sam up at 3:30pm. Beltway was fine, but Rt. 50 seemed to have a large assortment of cars, pieces of cars and smaller pieces of of cars on the shoulder. This should have been a clue.

I made it as far as the Annapolis Mall at a cautious crawl, but after that traffic wasn't moving at all. People were backing down the shoulders to take exits. I made my way to the exit, thinking that I'd cut through Annapolis. Two hours later, I was still sitting in Annapolis, pretty lost, since I'd circled around looking for a street that wasn't blocked, only finding streets that were more blocked. I really had to go to the potty, so I pulled into an Elementary School that was open for voting. Oh YEAH - election day. Well, thank goodness for that. A very nice volunteer gave my hungry Sam a banana and showed us to the potty. God bless that sweet woman. Hungry two year olds that have been in the car for 2+ hours are not pretty!

I let Sam run up and down the hall until I was satisfied that we'd compromised the election, and then we took off again. Oh, note to self: Parking your Cavalier on a soft shoulder = not such a good idea.

We made it across the Severn River Bridge - the UNTREATED Severn River Bridge - and I thought we were home free. I had to cross another concrete apron to make it onto Rt. 2 and my car slid sideways and we sailed across it. When I hit asphalt on the other side my tail end threatened to come around in one direction, then the other. Sam squealed. I probably squealed. Then, all the sudden we were going forward again, headed in the right direction even. That's not what I expected moments before, but I like fun surprises. Sam stopped squealing, we didn't hit anything, we went on our way.

So, more than 4 hours after we departed daycare, we arrived home, mostly unscathed. Mostly. Not that I'd go back out anyway, but the polls are closed.