Thursday, January 14th

Another Thursday, another trip to the city centre.

Samuel gets very excited when he realizes that we are leaving the house.  He says "go, go".  He runs to the front door and points to his shoes on the desk and his jacket hanging on the coat rack.  I have learned that it is best to get dresssed for the outside first as once Samuel is dressed he is very impatient and not willing to wait for others to get ready.

On our return trip from the city centre, Samuel was riding in his jogging stroller and I noticed hat his mittens had come off. I asked him to put them back on and much to my surprise he was able to use his right hand to put his left mitten back on.  He then immediately took it of and turned his head to look at me as if to say "You did not tell me to keep it on."  He is already smarter than either of us.  We are doomed.

Samuel has a very funny routine when we return home.  When we walk in the door the first thing we do is unfasten the strap of his wool cap.  He then reaches up and pulls the cap off and places it on the desk.  He then tries to unzip his jacket, he often needs help, but as soon as the jacket is unzipped he will take it off himself.  He then drops it on the floor but a very stern look forces Samuel to pick up the jacket and hand it to us so that we can hang it on the coat rack. He then proceeds to sit on the bottom step and try to take off his shoes.  For this he needs help.  This morning was particularly funny as Samuel missed the step for the first time and fell on his behind.  He had a tremendous grin when he did this.

There are many positives in having Julia work from home.  One of them is that we are able to have regular evening meals.  When Julia was working she would often not arrive home until 2000.  With Samuel beginning his bedtime routine at 2030 it made it difficult to have a "normal" meal prepared.  We had become accustomed to having Picard frozen meals, especially soups, which are very, very good(for frozen meals).  Now we have established a routine where Julia will begin feeding Samuel his dinner at 1900 and I begin to fix dinner at the same time.  Fifteen or twenty minutes after Samuel is finished with his meal we all sit around the table and eat a delicious(most of the time) home cooked meal. Samuel will then share part of our meal as we give him vegetables and potatoes from our plates.

-Dave

We are still learning

Last night(Tuesday) Samuel had his teeth brushed for the first time.  He enjoyed the toothbrush being in his mouth.  Our kit for his dental care also includes a rubber cylinder that fits over an adult finger that is used to massage his gums.  That is what is is designed for.  However, Samuel had other ideas as he constantly closed his mouth over my finger and did not allow me to massage his gums.

Samuel also has a seventh tooth coming in.  Explains why his cheeks have been so red for the last two days.

We had to move to France to become Kentucky hillbillies.  Backstory-When we were living in Cincinnati we found it comical that the mornings when we placed our trash on the curb, that numerous cars and trucks, mostly trucks, would cruise our neighborhood rummaging through the trash and taking things that we and our neighbors were throwing away.

Our next door neighbors were throwing out two young child bicycles.  They both need some work, a rusty chain needs to be replaces, a brake cable is broken but we took them and they are now stored in our basement.  We may never actually use them but we currently have a full size basement so we have the space to store the bikes until we move.

Samuel the problem solver

On Sunday(yesterday) when we returned from our errands Samuel wanted to carry the baguette into the house.  he was dressed in a very bulky cold weather jacket with mittens on his hands.  he was unable to hold the baguette in his hands and he was holding it in his arms with his mittened hands trying to keep the baguette from falling to the ground.  He was holding the baguette when he approached our front gate.  Our gate has a very small step, about 2 inches, which is not a vertical step.  There is a slight angle to the step.  As Samuel approached the gate he attempted to step up, without being able to see well because the baguette was blocking his vision.  French baguettes are almost as long as Samuel is tall.  He lifted his foot up but placed it on the slight incline.  When he lifted his other foot, gravity took over, and Samuel and the baguette fell to the ground.  He did what he has been taught to do. He got up, brushed himself off and grabbed my hand and I helped him over the step.

Today we ran a few more errands which included buying a baguette for lunch. When we returned home, Samuel again insisted on carrying the baguette into the house.  He approached the gate with baguette in his mittened hands.  He adjusted the baguette so that he could hold it with his left arm.  He then reached out with his right hand to steady himself on the pillar that holds the gate and he then proceeded to step over the incline and continue on to the front door.

Similar situations separated by 24 hours and he learned from the mistake he made the day before and develops a new solution, with no prodding from me as I was distracted taking the pushchair out of the car.

Samuel continues to grow, as do we.

Samuel now has a vocabulary.  The other day he was sitting between us on the couch when he dropped his snack trap of cheerio's and he very clearly said "Oh no."

Today is Sunday and we had our traditional Sunday morning breakfast of croissant and pain au chocolat. Samuel had his standard croissant. We are slowly learning as parents.  We have been attempting to feed Samuel "real" food while we eat our meals.  We would hand Samuel green beans , baguette, whatever we were eating and he would immediately place it in his mouth.  We noticed that Samuel did not actually eat much, as most of the food ended up on his bib or tray as it dribbled out of his mouth.  We finally realized that we should regulate how much food we give Samuel(as Homer Simpson would say D'oh!).  This morning we were eating our breakfast on the couch, watching the snow fall and the river cruise by, while Samuel was sitting in his high chair.  Julia slowly gave him pieces of croissant to eat.  She waited until he had swallowed the previous piece until we gave him more.  Doing this, he ate about 90% of the croissant.  A massive improvement over previous meals.

Samuel does love classical music. As we were eating this morning a promotion featuring Vivaldi's four seasons came over the radio and Samuel immediately threw his arms in the air and started waving them and swaying his head and shoulders from side to side.  I would like to say it was in time to the music but Samuel is cursed as his parents are with no rhythm.

Samuel and I went to the boulangerie this morning.  We drove as we had a few other errands to run and it was a brisk-4 this morning. As we were leaving with our order I handed the baguette to Samuel and he tried to carry it to the car with his mittens on his hands.  Very cute as he struggled to hold the baguette but refused to let it fall to the ground even though he could not grip it with his hands.  The women at the boulangerie were very encouraging as he determinedly walked through the door to the car.

-Dave