miscellaneous

Because I said I would: The rest of the Las Vegas trip was fine. We went to a children's museum that was raved about online, but getting there was an adventure... parts of Las Vegas are pretty sketchy, let's leave it at that. Upon arriving, figuring we'd at least take a cab back, we were informed by the nice folks at the desk that when they've tried calling cabs for people in the past, they never show up. So we had about 20 minutes at the (small, underwhelming) museum before we had to hoof it back to the bus depot. Friends of ours came from LA to see us (yay Brett and Val!) so we had a very nice time hanging out with them, generally one of us while the other was presenting/schmoozing at the conference. On the last night, we went out to one of the fabled casino buffets with J's lab and both kids... Sam had only adjusted a little bit to the 3-hour time difference, so as we stood in line at 7:45PM he was fading fast. At one point as he was eating I glanced at him to see him nodding off, eyes closed, while still chewing. I made sure he stayed awake to finish the mouthful, then hefted him onto my lap, where he sprawled, sound asleep, through the rest of dinner. Meanwhile, Bean jumped and socialized enthusiastically in the laps of various people around the table, being traded off while folks went back for seconds (and thirds) of ok-but-why-do-people-rave-about-this food. I never thought I'd say this, but I feel like I'd go back to Vegas again, given the chance (i.e. another conference there), just to have the grown-up version of the experience for a night or two... Cirque du Soleil show, nice dinner out, Bellagio fountains viewed not just from the cab window while driving by, etc. Eh, maybe someday.

Kid update: Bean is in full-on stranger-charming thousand-watt smile mode-- when I took her for a passport photo recently (upcoming conference in Montreal) she lay calmly on the white piece of cardstock they lay on the carpet for baby photos and beamed, until the Passport Photo Dude said she could come back any time. Her 6-month ped. appointment is this week, so we'll have an update on her stats. Sam, meanwhile, is full of clever, creative word usages, and is still notably sweet and affectionate. For the past couple of weeks, he has told me occasionally to guess how much he loves me, and then he'll answer extravagantly. Recently: "I love you as much as all the love in the world, AND all the love in your imagination, AND a truck full, AND a container full."

In the car, he'll announce, "An idea just flew into my head!" (And then expound at length on said idea.)

He asks about the meanings of words a lot. Recent curiousities: marvelous (from Big Bird's singing of abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz), and convenient. When I explained the meaning of convenient, Sam thought for a moment, then wanted to know why it existed when we already have the word handy.

He's also very sweet with Frida... he loves to entertain her, as shown in the previous post, but he also tries to help her out if she's unhappy (unless she's doing her patented Car Freak Out, in which case he zones out... there really is no other way to deal). A few days ago, he held out his hand to her, saying apologetically, "All I have for you is a handful of love!" Here he is entertaining her in a monster get-up. (Completed mid-way through with a John Deere cap.)




Sam's also loving his eurhythmics class, which seems much better suited to his temperament than the group piano lesson he was taking in the fall/winter... more movement and creativity, less sitting and attending.

I put together the crib this weekend (J. was gone, and I got tired of looking at the parts, brought up from the basement two weeks ago... and was pretty pleased with my solo Ikea-assembly prowess, I have to admit, aided only by Sam helping find the right hardware bits from the plastic baggy). So now Bean can turn over in her sleep-- that is, when she's not in our bed.