Samuel's first cold

Samuel is getting socially integrated at the halte garderie but he also came home yesterday with a slight cold.  Not serious enough to go to the doctor but serious enough to keep him, and us, up most of the night.  He has a stuffy/runny nose and a slight cough with the occasional sneeze.  His appetite is currently half of what it normally is.

We gave him some children's tylenol at 0430 and he has mostly slept since then.  It is difficult to see him go through this and the smiley, happy little boy that we know so well does not exist right now.  He is aware and awake but he is not smiling and has no energy to chase after the cats.

He is obviously not feeling well and I feel completely helpless to do anything to help him.

-Dave

Samuel est super mignon.

Samuel had his first full half day in the halte garderie yesterday(Thursday 22/1).  Maryvonne, the women who takes care of the babies, sent home a note with Samuel when I picked him up. I was able to decipher a few words, and they were positive but I was not able to understand the entire note and I had to wait until Julia cam e home to know fir sure the content.

Translation:  Samuel is super nice.

I am quite disturbed by Samuel's behavior at the halte garderie.  When I dropped him off yesterday I placed him on the floor and Maryvonne gave him a bucket and toys.  I bent down to kiss him goodbye, stood up, and walked toward the small security gate and after stepping through turned back to say goodbye again and Samuel had rolled onto his back and was holding teh bucket in the air over his face, completely oblivious to the fact that I was leaving.

When I arrived Samuel was on his stomach crawling/scooting toward Maryvonne who was washing Samuels onesie in the sink as he had a leaky diaper during his stay. Again, he did not notice me until i bent down to pick him up.

Samuel definitely does not suffer from seperation anxiety.

Samuel and Molson-19 January

Samuel cornered Molson in the kitchen today.  He did have help as I was standing in the door preventing Molson from leaving the kitchen.  Unfortunately I could not allow Samuel to actually catch Molson as he hid under the kitchen table.  We keep the water fountain and the cat's food bowls under the kitchen table.  Samuel got close enough that he was almost able to put his hands in the cat food.

I ams in the office and Samuel continues to leave the office heading toward the kitchen in hopes of catching Molson.  Very tiring.

Samuel's monumental accomplishment

Samuel was siting on his activity mat.  He fell forward so that his legs were pinned under him.  He started to fuss and looked to us for assistance.  Instead, we sat on the couch and encouraged him to keep trying.  His right leg was in a very tight position under him while his left leg was splayed to the side.  Eventually with a lot of encouragement he was able to bring his legs under him and scoot forward.   Not quite crawling yet but so very, very close.  Very good job.  He was very proud of himself.

Second swimming lesson

Samuel had his second swimming lesson on Saturday.  He is slowly adapting to the water.  He had a few moments where he fussed/cried.  He is very clingy while in the pool.  The other babies seem to be better acclimated but we realized on Saturday that most of these babies have been in the pool since September.  We moved into Neuilly too late to register Samuel for the under 6 month swimming which began in September.

After the lesson we went to the local toy store to pick up Samuel's new bowl(seen above).  Julia takes credit for the bowl even though I did supervise.  We owe a debt to Samuel's godmother Poonam for inspiring us to make the bowl.

On our way home we stopped at the Monoprix so that Julia could translate some items for me. We will never go to Monoprix on Saturday again.  It was much worse than I have experienced on a weekday morning.  Even Julia admitted to being very frustrated by the Parisiene attitude. Hopefully she will post something about this soon.

Just had a visitor.  Julia is supposedly "watching" Samuel in the living room.  Well, I heard a noise and turned around and Samuel was entering the office.  He was crawling over the dirty clothes that are in the hallway waiting to be washed.

-Dave

Samuel and motivation

Samuel is becoming a true handful.

For example, on Tuesday we went to the carreau (indoor market) to purchase veggies and fish for dinner.  Upon returning I took Samuel out of the baby bjorn and placed him on his mat in the living room.  I then took the produce into the kitchen to put it away.  This took about two minutes.  As I left the kitchen to return to the living room, I turned the corner and Samuel was in the middle of the hallway crawling toward the kitchen.  very sweet but also very concerning as we have yet to baby proof the entire apartment.