17 Months Old

Sam is growing up fast, and learning new things every day. This is such a fun age! Some of the priceless things he does these days:

* He likes to hide behind doors and watch me through the crack while I "search" for him.
* He always has a cheese stick as a morning snack. He takes the wrapper from me and throws it in the trash. (This is the only thing he throws in the trash!)
* He could watch the kids at the park play basketball forever -- and loves to throw balls through the basket at Gymboree.
* He's a daredevil and goes down slides head first, although he figured out yesterday how to go down on his bottom all by himself!
* He holds his breath when he hammers (and he hammers everything!)
* He starts laughing whenever anyone else is laughing.
* When either of his grandmas arrive, he runs to find a toy to greet her with. (And if it's Grandma Marsha, he looks in her purse for her cell phone!)
* He always has to have a ball with him. When I tell him it's time to go upstairs, he searches for his Thomas ball to take with him. Most of the time, he just wants to throw it down the stairs and watch it bounce.
* He likes to put things on his head (this morning it was my hair band), and then he tries to look up to see what he has put on his head.
* He wants to be a big boy so badly, and loves to imitate grown-ups. He likes to eat snacks right from the box, and recently, he started insisting that he have cereal in a bowl with a spoon just like mommy. Here's a video of him eating his cereal... he actually does very well with the spoon, but he refused to cooperate on camera!

* He calls every animal with 4 legs and a cute face a "kitty cat". And boy, does he love our kitty cat, Toby. Poor Toby puts up with Sam pulling his tail and yelling at him like a good kitty!

* And he recently learned how to make the sign for "please," which he figured out gets him anything he wants!