AC and I did one of those simultaneous parental double-takes two evenings ago in the back yard. Sam walked down a short flight of rail-less concrete steps all by herself and counted each step as she went: “one, two, three.” “Did she just walk down the steps all by herself?” “Wait, did she she just count to three?!” …

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We spent the morning of this holiday at the ER– Sam woke up with rapid breathing and lethargy. She’s had a cold the past couple of days and has been downright miserable. The doc heard wheezing in her lungs, and a truck load of phlegm. They also did this interesting test which measured the oxygen in her blood using a …

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At Mom-Mom and Granddaddy’s house, Sam has a giant plushy Penguin which she loves to hug, kiss, throw down the stairs, and generally push around. The other night, though, poor Penguin was falling a lot. Fortunately Sam was there to pet and stroke him. A couple of notes: At the beginning of the clip, I prompt Sam to …

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When I was a kid, my father, brother and I would spend summer evenings playing whiffle ball out in the backyard. Occasionally my mother would join us and we’d play “pitcher, batter, catcher, guts,” rotating positions after each out. Guts was the outfielder. No teams– it was each person for him or herself, and we used …

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Environment goes hand in hand with vocabulary. During our sojourn in PA, Sammy is picking up many new words. • Penguin (pronounced like “pigalle”)– she has a giant stuffed penguin at her grandparents house. • Lawnmower (“mow mow”)– she’s been enjoying playing with her Uncle’s old toy lawnmower • Piano (“pee oh”)– …

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During our visit to Virginia last month, we finally got to meet Benjamin, the 10-month old son of our dear friends. And Sammy got to kiss her first boy, supervised, of course, by her father. *”Bisous” = kisses. Benjamin is growing up in a bilingual French-English household.

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Friends from the east are often asking me if I’ve seen the famous San Francisco fog roll in off the bay. Other than one jaunt to the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog (described here) the answer was no. Last week, however, Sammy and I went to a playground up in the El Cerrito hills and I saw the fog descend down the …

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Sam’s current favorite pastime is to “read” books to herself in the morning. She’ll pull a book off of her bookshelf, put it on the couch, clamber up onto the couch, arrange herself with the book in her lap, then turn the pages while reading them in her most fluent gibberish. (Every now and then an English word will be …

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Our last couple of weekends have been quite enjoyable. The Friday after AC’s birthday, we hired the babysitter for Sam and went out for dinner just the two of us at our new favorite date night locale: Six Degrees on Solano.

The next day, AC and Sam went for a bike ride up to Arlington Park.

And I mean “up” as …

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If not, you can hear me announce her arrival on the carousel. (Anyone know how to edit sound out of a video in iMovie?) We took Sammy to the carousel at Tilden Park in Berkeley on Easter weekend. She didn’t seem to remember her first ride which was on her birthday. But 6 months later, her longterm memory is much …

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