Christmas and a lost tooth

Sam had a wonderful Christmas, he could not open his gifts fast enough.  He was so excited about everything that he didn't want to stop for breakfast. 

One of the things he got was a semi car carrier.  The sides open and there are little shelves to store hot wheels cars.  The part that opens is plastic and it snaps over another piece of plastic, in two places, on the bottom of the truck.  It is really difficult to open the sides, you have to pick up on the clip a little bit before you pull it.  This morning Sam was playing in the other room and decided he didn't want to ask for help to open it, he wanted to do it himself.  But he couldn't get it open with his hands so he decided to try to bite it open and proceeding to ripping out one of his bottom teeth. 

We were able to get him into an emergency dentist and they said the entire tooth came out clean and based on the x-rays he would've lost that tooth in the next couple of months as his permanent tooth is getting close to pushing it out.  I was so concerned for him, and then relieved. 

4 year checkup

Sam had his 4 year check up today.  Yes it is months late, but that is because we changed him over to Megan's new doctor and it took a while to get him scheduled.

He is 44" tall (90th %) and weighs 40.6 pounds (40th %). 

As expected he is in great health.  She recommended some blood work today to look for the root cause of his ear issues.  This was Sam's first blood draw and he handled it really well. 

Advent box delight

Yesterday we decorated a new advent box (I know we are 6 days late).  I put fun things to do in each box and today's said "go to granny's house and help to decorate her tree".  When I read it for Sam he jumped up and started screaming and clapping and cheering. 

Tonight before bed he told me he was so excited to find out what the fun thing is in the little drawer for tomorrow. 

More thoughts by Sam from our trip to the zoo

"I'm going to ride on the train every day when I get older.  I'm going to use the train because I don't have a car and I don't know where the car buying place is; so I must take the train".  (we were passing a train depot so he knew where he could find a train

"We can't take a rhinoceros home with us because he is too big and we don't have anything to feed him"

When granny tried to get Sam to look at what an african hog was eating and he thought she was talking about him eating the hog: "Ew that's gross we have to bake him in the oven before we eat him" 

Conversations

Sam: I really very like Santa, I do.
Me: what does Santa do?
Sam: I don't know, does he drive his truck?

Me: Sam, Thanksgiving is about being thankful.  What are you thankful for?
Sam: I am thankful for pie, I really am
(Note: he has a thanksgiving shirt that has pie on it)

Sam playing in the toy room having a conversation with himself:

• Mommy said boys don't wear earrings.  I know they are cute but mommy said we can't wear them
• Mommy said boys don't carry purses.  No they don't.  That's just silly
• Let's go to the candy patch.  Everyone can have whatever candy they want. You want to have candy, you go to the candy patch.  Yes there is all of the candy growing there, you can have whatever candy you want

10 months of catchup

So much has changed about Sam in the last 10 months.  He turned 4, started pre-k, he's grown 4+ inches and started learning how to sound out words to read.

He is a super smart, incredibly observant little boy.  We recently replaced our toilets (all done while he was at school) and the second he went into the bathroom he said "there is a new bathroom in our bathroom".

Sam is gaining more understanding about Megan.  He still doesn't realize that she is "different" which I am good with but he is starting to talk about her needs a little more.  He is pretty great with her - he is caring and understanding most of the time, he is still 4 after all.  She loves, LOVES, to get hugs from him and he is pretty good about it.  Some days he will say "she really missed me when I was at school, she just wants to hug me all the time".

He is really enjoying her new development (see Megan's blog for that info) and getting to play games with her.  They play chase and tag and rough-house together.

New play place and lunch with daddy

Sam has been struggling with not getting as much of my one-on-one time because of the Christmas break.  He kept asking me when Megan would be going back to school.  Today was her first day back and he was so excited after we dropped her off.

I took him to an new indoor play area, one at our church.  It was nice to not be at one attached to a food place.  He had a ton of fun.  He loved all of the kids that were there and did amazing with taking turns, being polite, and watching out for the smaller kids.

When we left the play place I headed downtown to meet Will for lunch.  I didn't tell him where we were going but as soon as we got on the highway he said "we are going downtown to daddy's work. we going to have lunch with daddy and play?".  Such a smart little guy.

He loved getting to see Will and of course getting to eat tacos too.