Some of the classes at Sam’s school visited Wiri Central School on Wednesday, and he’s been singing a few waiata since then. This is the first verse of his favourite, Ehara i te Mea, which I remember singing when I was in primary school.
Tag Archives: sam
Which came first?
So it’s been ages. Mostly I can’t remember how to use the website and I never use the big computer: I’m always using my phone.
Anyway. Hi.
Now that I can update from the iPhone, I hopefully will use this more regular-like.
Cute story time:
Sam and I went to the Matakana Country Park the other day (which is a fairly regular thing) to play on their extensive and muddy playground; a firm favourite with the almost three year old.
We were playing the climb in and out game when Sam suddenly became very excited and Mummy noticed the squawking was not just him but also a large black chicken, cornered inside one cubby house by said child. Mummy calmed the situation and released the frightened foul whilst trying to distract Sam from further terrorising the poor creature with a game of involuntary tiggy.
A walk to the other end of the park became the chicken’s salvation. Stopping to chat with the friendly cafe ladies, as per usual, Mummy relayed the chicken story. The staff remarked that perhaps this was where the chickens had taken to laying eggs, since no one had been able to find any eggs lately. Mummy agreed it was possible and left the small talk with a juice she hadn’t intended for Sam to have.
Back at the playground…
Mummy was fiddling with her phone and Sam was climbing about and chasing the bunnies. Next minute “Egg! Mummy yook a egg!” startled, Mummy looked up from Facebook and sure enough Sam was holding a perfect, brown, very fresh egg. It was still warm. He was inside the same cubby where we had earlier experienced chicken conflict. Mummy claimed the egg and thanked Sam for being so careful and decided to see if this was a one off lay.
Long story short (kind of) ten eggs, a bemused Mummy and delighted Country Park staff later, a very proud little Sam left the park, thanking the chickens for the egg hidey seek. 
Four Beaches and a Birthday
As most people (reading this) know, my 30th birthday was a week ago tomorrow. Samuel and I were in Whangarei that weekend (a story for another time), so I spent my birthday with my parents – I think possibly the first time in a decade.
We had a very nice day – I did a little bit of shopping in the morning (two bookstores and a video store – Whangarei is basically closed on Sunday!), then we went to Wellington’s Bay / Whangaumu for a picnic lunch. Many other people (I’m sure they weren’t all turning 30) had the same idea (the weather was fantastic and it was a long weekend) had the same idea, so the beach was very full, but we found a spot up the opposite end of the beach from normal and had a nice swim and then a picnic by the car.
Samuel was getting a bit tired at that point (he didn’t sleep on the way there, unfortunately), so we headed back home for a bit of a rest and then a nice evening meal.
I had my ‘official’ birthday celebration today – I decided that what I’d most like to do was spend 12 hours at the beach with Samuel and anyone else that wanted to come along. We would be there from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (including lunch and dinner) and people could come along whenever they liked, for however long they liked, super-casual style.
I didn’t quite manage this – it ended up being 11 hours over three beaches, but it was a nice day anyway. Although Samuel woke up at 6:30 a.m. we didn’t manage to leave on time, so got there a little late, but the beach (Campbell’s Beach) was great. The weather was again really nice, and the tide was quite far in, which meant that it looked great, but there was still enough room to play on the beach (when the tide is all the way in, there’s only about 1m of beach).
Samuel had a great time playing on the playground and on the beach (building castles, and reading “box”, “truck”, “car”, and “ball”, as well as individual letters). As usual, he got a bit grumpy around 9:30, so we had a nice walk along the beach from the boat ramp to the point and back again while he cheered up (the 9:30 grump doesn’t really need a sleep, just a rest). We then had a snack and Sam read me some stories (Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book and My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes, which are his favourites at the moment). Olyvia then headed back home to check on Sebastian, and Samuel and I had a swim, then I walked him around until he fell asleep. Sam tripped over while walking after the swim and got a few new cuts and abrasions, but he didn’t seem to bothered by it.
After Olyvia got back, we read for a while (Sam was still sleeping), and then Simon, Jolene, Adam, and Reagan turned up. Unfortunately, it had got quite windy by this stage, so much so that it was starting to get a little uncomfortable. To keep the peace, Simon and I checked out Baddeley’s Beach (not attractive at all, although sheltered), and Point Wells, and then we moved everyone there (including Olyvia’s parents, brother and brother’s girlfriend, who turned up as we were doing this).
Point Wells is ok – it has a small playground, and it’s probably nice to swim at (for adults), and it looks like a good place to launch a boat, but there isn’t really much in the way of beach. When the tide is out (as it was by now), it’s also not particularly attractive, although with the tide out there is a lot of mudflat that can be run around on. Simon, Adam, Reagan, Samuel and did some of this for a while, and everyone had a bit more to eat. The kids played on the playground for a while, and although it’s smaller, seemed to have just as much fun.
Unfortunately, I was distracted by Reagan (the kid can climb!) and Sam assumed that I was ready to catch him (which I wasn’t) and jumped off the top of the playground, right to the ground (probably 1.5m high). This won’t come as much of a surprise to those that have seen Samuel play – it was bound to happen sooner or later (and may well happen again) since he has no fear jumping and does not always announce that he is going to do it. Happily, he just got a fright (hopefully encouraging him to make sure someone is ready next time) and wasn’t hurt in any way (the earlier stumble did more damage). After a cuddle he was quite ready to play again.
Olyvia and Jolene headed back to our place at that point, and the rest of us did more walking, splashing, eating, and playground’ing. Eventually Tim (+1), Liv’s parents, and then Si/Adam/Reagan headed off, leaving just me and Samuel again. We had a bit more of a walk around Point Wells – I discovered that the spot where the kids swim when the tide is low is not safe to walk – I got sucked down to my thigh (which would be Samuel’s neck – I swung him back to steady ground before he sunk) in the rather smelly muck. That rather put me off any more exploration of Point Wells, so we headed off to Omaha Beach (Google Maps doesn’t really show much of the beach!) for a final swim (which I needed to get clean at that point!).
We had a reasonably nice swim, although the waves were pretty strong, so we didn’t go out far and mostly I stayed on my feet. Samuel started to get tired (it was around 7:15 p.m. by this stage), so we headed back to the car, stopping off at the playground for a few more slides before arriving home around 7:30 p.m.
Now, I suppose, I ought to get to work!
Flashback #3
One more for today – there are two more prepared videos, which I might get to tomorrow.
This is a little flashback to when Samuel first started walking. The video quality isn’t great, since it was taken with the still camera rather than the video camera (and whoever was shooting it – I don’t remember if it was me or Olyvia) wasn’t aiming that well). It shows a lot of change over the last year, though!
Caught red, blue and green handed…
Last week, Samuel figured out how to climb out of his cot (he was back in the cot for a while after we moved, to makes things easier during the Internet drought of 2008). His room at the new house has a door that he can’t open (actually, no-one can open it from inside), so when he goes to bed he can climb out and complain at the top of the stairs, but that’s it. We’ve been leaving him there, and eventually (sometimes over an hour, sometimes just a few minutes) he gives up and climbs back into bed. He’s learnt not to do this at night, but it’s still a regular occurrence during the day.
Today, he had an attempt at a nap around midday, but I gave up after an hour and a half (he was in bed, but not making any attempt at sleep) and let him out for lunch. I tried again an hour or so again, since he was obviously very sleepy. After half an hour it seemed likely that he wasn’t going to sleep (and if he did, he’d wake up too late for dinner and the evening routine, so I headed back to let him out).
He doesn’t spend the whole time complaining at the (glass) door – he also plays with things in his room. As soon as I saw him I knew that there was a problem, because his mouth was much more colourful than normal…
In his room, there’s a box full of craft material (paint, pencils, pens, colouring books, and so on). He knows how to roll it out from under the table and open it, and really likes drawing. He’d helped himself to the paint and done some drawing. Unfortunately, he’s not always accurate, and had painted most of the table. And himself. And then with painted hands walked around his room touching things. Then walked upstairs touching the wall to steady himself (his walking upstairs is good, but he likes to stabilise himself sometimes). Paint on his stuff, paint on the wall, paint on the door, and paint on Samuel.
Thankfully, this is paint that you can just wash off, and I think I’ve got rid of it all. And moved the box of drawing material into the garage.
I guess at least it’s an accident (he was just trying to amuse himself by drawing) rather than deliberate (‘if you won’t let me out then I’ll draw on everything’) while he’s this age.
2
Samuel is two years old today! Still no Internet access at home (and it may be two weeks yet before there is), so photos and so on will be late arriving, sorry.
This morning he got up around 7 a.m., where he found all the toys that live at Grandma & Granddad’s (we are staying here at the moment) and started playing with them before he could get to any presents. Eventually we were able to get his attention long enough to give him his presents (“wow” to pretty much everything), and he seemed to like everything (including the train & book from Grandma & Granddad).
Unfortunately, I had to work today, so Liv dropped me off while Samuel stayed with Grandma. Later on Liv and Sam visited (Great) Granny for a while, and then had lunch with me at Raumanga Valley Park (a bit boggy, but nice). After a nap in the afternoon we had a little detour looking for a new bed for me & Liv and then came back to Grandma & Granddad’s for dinner. Sam had a swim in the spa, then a good dinner, then blew out candles on his cake (another one!) before having a story and heading off to bed.
All-in-all, he seemed to have a pretty good day. Thanks also to everyone that SMS’d or called him to say “happy birthday”.
Stay tuned!
In brief:
- We moved.
- I was promised a home phone line and Internet connection either the day we moved or a couple of days later. A week and a half later the phone line appeared and the Internet order has had to be redone. Moral: avoid TelstraClear at all costs. I’ll rant about them elsewhere, later.
- Samuel and Tobey (born on the same day) had a combined birthday party last Saturday, and then we went to Regan’s first birthday party at Butterfly Creek on Sunday. Sam’s actual birthday is, of course, this Thursday.
More on all of these exciting developments, including photos, once we finally get an Internet connection at home.
Sleep, or a lack thereof
So it’s been over two weeks since Samuel switched to sleeping in a bed. The first two nights went really well. Unfortunately, things haven’t really continued that way (at night; during the day has been ok, although we’re still staying with him until he’s asleep). On the Thursday he started getting up shortly after getting put to bed in the evening, and that has continued most nights since. We decided to let him get up once and then put hi back to bed and stay with him until he is (mostly) asleep. That works, but it takes 30 to 90 minutes, so we unfortunately lose a good part of the evening (and dinner is quite delayed). I tried just repeatedly putting him back to bed a couple of times, but after putting him back 20 or 30 times he was just getting more upset and therefore awake. We might change this system soon, since nothing really seems to be improving.
He sometimes wakes during the night, but when put back to bed goes back to sleep pretty quickly. I think this will stop on its own.
The mornings aren’t great, either. Sam wakes up between 5am and 6:15am pretty much every morning. We used to get up around 7:15am. It’s possible that he was waking up around that time before and just staying quiet in the cot, but I don’t think he would have been quiet for two hours. Maybe he woke up and went back to sleep, but he’s not willing to do that now. So this means that Olyvia and I are getting up some time between 5 and 7 these days. I still work until the same time at night, so this means some pretty short nights. We’re still trying to figure out what we can do about this.
Now, I understand that many people have things much worse than this. Until now, Samuel has always slept pretty well, and we have had over a year of 12 hour (7pm to 7am) sleep, with sometimes 3 hour naps during the day. We’re grateful for that, and just hope that we can get back to something close to that.
Bedtime
Samuel changed to sleeping in a bed yesterday. He had his last night in the cot on Monday night, and attempted to have a nap in the cot on Tuesday afternoon (turned out that there wasn’t any sleep). After that, we took the side rails off the cot, and swapped the foot for the shorter end. It’s not quite a ‘real’ bed, but it looks more-or-less like one, and we didn’t feel that buying a new bed for him made sense at this time (and anything bigger wouldn’t fit well in the room).
It was just me & Samuel home for the first try (Olyvia was at the gym). He’d seen the bed during the day (and found that it’s a good platform to jump off, and that he can now get to both sets of windows in his room), and didn’t seem concerned at all about the change. He said goodbye as normal, and apart from one little cry (which sometimes happens anyway) all was well.
I always check in on him just before I go to bed (11:30 or so) – normally turning him around, tucking him in, and so on. When I did this, I found that he’d fallen to the floor at some point, but hadn’t made (nearly) any noise doing so (or we would have heard him), and hadn’t woken up as a result. I’m sure this won’t be the last time!
I put him back in the bed (he didn’t wake up at all), and the rest of the night passed without incident. This morning he woke up around 7am as normal, and after talking for a little while he opened his door and came and found me (Olyvia was out again, this time picking up the Kelly kids). He was quite happy and the morning started off as well as ever.
I knew that the real challenge would be his nap, since the only time he has trouble going to sleep at night is when he’s sick, but during the day he’s not always convinced that he needs a nap. I put him to bed around the normal time (he was clearly tired), but he wasn’t happy about it. A minute or two after leaving the room, he came out, and so I put him back, explaining that he had to stay there. We repeated this with varying gaps between him appearing maybe a dozen times.
He was getting a little upset, so I decided that the tough stance could wait a while. I put him in bed, and read him a story (he happily stayed in the bed for the story). That mostly calmed him down, but I stayed next to the bed for a while until he was basically asleep anyway. Leaving the room, the squeaky door (I must remember to oil it!) woke him up, so we repeated this. Next time went fine, and he drifted off to sleep pretty quickly.
He woke up a bit over an hour later (a short sleep for him, but not completely unusual). I heard a thump (I work in the room next door) and went him to find him on the floor. I’m pretty sure he was getting up and slipped rather than falling out while asleep – he was immediately happy and awake.
All went well again tonight, so hopefully the transition continues smoothly!
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