Orange Belt

Pete passed his test and graduated to orange belt on Saturday.

During the ceremony, Mr. Moss broke a board over Pete's head.

Sam Does What Pete Does

Sam generally does exactly the things that Pete does, regardless of whether they are reasonable things to do. Sometimes this can be good, such as when Pete is going upstairs to brush his teeth.

Other times, you get a situation like the one in this video.

Me Two

Dad: Pete, be nice to your brother. He's a little bit sick.
Pete: Sam, are you sick?
Sam: No, me two.

Too Close

Sam likes to crawl into bed with people. It can be a little surprising when you're asleep and you open your eyes and see this right in front of your face.

Chat Interrupted

Sam does not know how to send Instant Messages yet (like Pete), but he is still able to impact our chats indirectly.

Below is an excerpt from a chat yesterday between mom and dad:

Crib Crisis

Sam had an emergency last night. Pete and I heard him yelling about 5 minutes after I put him to bed. I went up there to see what was the problem. We had this conversation in the darkness.

Me: Hi Sam
Sam: Daddy, mine blanket is lellow
Me: Yes, your blanket is yellow. Good night
Sam: Night night

Another crisis resolved.

Sam's First Band-Aid

Sam had an unfortunate encounter with
the footrest for the glider in his room.

He wasn't too upset, though. He wanted
to keep playing.

Here is his first adult Band-Aid.

Eric B and Rakim

Driving in the car with Pete and Sam, I took out Pete's music to put in Sam's music for a few minutes.

Pete: Hey, Sam wants to listen to Eric B and Rakim
Dad: No, he likes Children's Favorites
Sam: Eric B Rakim
Pete: See, he said Eric B and Rakim
Dad: He doesn't even know what he's saying half of the time
Pete: Well, this is one of the half where he knows

Racquetball

I took Pete to play racquetball today. It went rather well. We played for an entire hour, with no frustration. It is helpful that you can hit the ball off of any wall and it usually comes back to you. Pete's backhand is not too good yet, his better shot is "fronthand". He wanted to play again on Sunday, but we will wait until next weekend. One nice thing is that in the new house it is free for us to play any time at the Pavillion.

Now that Pete doesn't get so frustrated, maybe he is ready to try some other activities that we have given up on in previous years.

Sam Frown

We took pictures of the boys the other day in various poses. We tried to take a picture of Pete and Sam frowning. But Sam would not cooperate. He would always change his expression right before we could take the picture.

Monopoly Jr.

It is fun to play Monopoly Jr. with Pete.

We don't worry so much about who wins the game, it is more about developing the appropriate cash liquidity in each of our transactions.

Sometimes, Pete likes to get all of the 1's. So, for example, if a property costs 1 dollar, he will give you 2 5's and ask for 9 1's back. Other times, he decides that he prefers the larger denominations. So if something costs 2 dollars, he will give you 6 2's and ask for 2 5's back. Sometimes he puts in 3 or 4 consecutive transaction requests, and I find myself aggressively working to meet his demands while maintaining the integrity of the bank.

Maybe some day Pete will be a banker, or one of those guys who asks for change at the counter and they somehow end up with less money than they had before.

A Regular Picture

This is likely our first (and last) picture of Pete and Sam standing nicely and looking at the camera.

A Rival for Pete

We now have a rival for Pete.

Pictured is the future master.
He possesses a special weapon,
which are Bob the Builder
shoes that light up.

Partners in Crime

No Fair

One night we were tumbling around and Pete and Sam bumped heads.

Pete: Hey, no fair!
Me: What?
Pete: Sam bumped his head into mine, and it didn't hurt him at all.

Glue on Fingers

One night I was helping Pete with a craft project which involved gluing together some felt ornaments. When he was brushing his teeth, I was peeling some glue from my fingers. He gave me some advice which seemed to be from personal experience:

"When you peel that, if it doesn't hurt, it's glue. If it hurts, it's skin."

Chocolate Milk

Sam saw Pete enjoying a quiet mug of chocolate milk, so he decided to grab a straw and join in.

Spiderman Triple Threat

Here is Pete fighting against Green Goblin in his Spider Man Triple Threat game that he got for Christmas. It is one of those virtual games where you put on gloves and a chest plate and punch the air. Pete has defeated all of the enemies.

Sam puts on the gloves sometimes to try. But he is not very good. Which is bad for Pete, since he is usually wearing the chest plate so he gets to feel all of the damage when Sam gets hit by the enemies. But he does not seem to mind.

Sam is also happy just to read through the instruction booklet.

Magic Rocks

Pete stayed up until about 11:30 on New Year's Eve.

One of the activities we did was Magic Rocks that Pete got for Christmas from Aunt Robin. She is good at getting Pete unusual and interesting gifts.

I like the little note Pete wrote, which says "Do Not Drink".

Air and Space Museum

On Monday after Christmas, we went to the new Smithsonian Air and Space Annex which is just a few miles from our house.

This picture is from waiting in line to go up to the control tower. The tower is pretty cool - you can see planes making their final approach and landing at Dulles airport.

The line was only about 20 minutes wait, but it was right around naptime so you can see we had to pull out all the stops to keep Sam happy:

Level 1 - binky
Level 2 - sit on shoulders
Level 3 - gouge dad's eyes

Overall, Sam had a good time at the museum. His favorite things were McDonalds, elevator, and looking for our car in the parking lot from the control tower.

Skyler

This is cousin Skyler.
He is the King of entropy.
His goal in life is to quietly
sneak away, locate an ordered
system of objects, and reduce
the system to a state of disorder.

Here he is holding one of those
locks that prevents opening
a cabinet containing household
chemicals. The device apparently
works by allowing the child to
rip it off and then play with
the device instead of the chemicals.

It was fun to have Skyler visit
us for Christmas. He left behind
lots of gifts for us, in the form
of little toy people spread
randomly throughout the house.

Me

Sam developed a habit of walking up to the Christmas tree and saying "Me". Pete and I finally figured out that he could see his reflection in some of the ornaments.