Day care and pictures

Sam had his first day at an in home daycare on Friday.  It went great.  The woman who runs it is a retired kindergarten teacher and the other kids' parents are all grade school teachers or staff.

Here are some pictures from the zoo as well as a shot of some old man mowing his lawn in the early morning wearing his bathrobe.

No-spray spray park

Sam and I went to a local "spray park".  We had visited before and Sam was a bit intimidated by the towers shooting water down.  There was nothing to worry about on this visit as the water was turned off on Labor Day.

Carpet Cleaning Mini-Vacation

We had the carpets cleaned on Monday.  It was quite a project with a van pumping cleaning chemicals in through one hose and another hose pulling dirty water out. The van mounted cleaning machine broke down so the guys got done later than planned.  When they were done the house didn't smell, but the carpets were still wet and I was a little nervous about Sam inhaling some crazy carpet sanitizer fumes.  So, we decided to stay at a hotel for the night.  

This should have been relatively simple as there are probably a dozen hotels within five miles of our house.  However, Epic is a huge local employer with a campus in Verona.  They write hospital records management software and happened to be holding a conference this week which filled all the local hotels.  Luckily one group canceled their trip to Madison and the hotel they planned on visiting had vacancies.  The hotel was packed, but Sam was the only kid (and Kate and I were two of very few not in business attire).  

The hotel is brand new and Sam loved the kiddie area of the pool. 

Hide the Women and Children

Sam took his first steps on Tuesday, September 2nd.  I came home for lunch.  Kate got really excited and said "Sam, let's show dad your new trick."  He is good for about a half dozen steps.   If you crouch down outside this range he will crawl to within the 6-8 step walking range and then stand and walk to you.

The day after he started walking he stopped eating baby food.  It was an immediate and definitive decision.  He bobbed and weaved to avoid spoonfuls of food he liked the day before.  Now he eats a lot of what we eat.  The only difficult part is if you are eating something he shouldn't eat, like an apple.   Sam is now confident he can handle any food we can handle.  If he sees us eating something he wasn't offered he starts reaching for it.  I've tried explaining that apple sauce is chopped up apples, but I'm not sure he understands quite yet.  The only thing he has tried so far that he doesn't like is cantaloupe.  He'd love to try chips and salsa, eat an apple, and have turkey with spicy mustard on it.