On how important you are...

I was explaining to someone today about how having/raising kids is really hard, and how I wouldn't recommend they consider it as something to take lightly, whether they have a co-parent or not.  The attempt to raise good kids is one that always leaves me feeling like Im failing in one way and/or another, and just before I finally convince myself that I am - you do or say something new or when I'm certain I'm failing at being a parent, you run up to me with your amazing contagious smile and say, "mommy!" and give me a hug as big as you can, right when I probably need it the most.  So thank you baby, I love you so very much and I still believe that Sam hugs are the best hugs that have ever been hugged.

On Behavior

You're getting to an age and development point now where you're starting to observe and figure out your impacts on the world around you for the most part (you don't seem to be concerned about any impact to my sleep when you want to read books at 3am but that's another story).  Right now your go-to solution when you're not pleased is to scream your face off.  You should be impressed actually, your screaming set off our security alarm's window break feature, meaning the pitch of your scream actually impacted the glass in the windows so much that it was able to be detected by our security system and set it off.  Bravo, Sam.  I'm trying to teach you that screaming and pitching a fit isn't really a sustainable or optimal way to get what you want.  Often times it will actually get you the opposite of what you want.  Variations of this concept are present throughout life, and its a lesson we continually learn and have to re-learn as life and situations change.  I myself am in the process of learning this in that I need to be more solution oriented rather than here lets examine the problem oriented.  It's a hard lesson but hopefully I'm getting the hang of it.  I'll let you know more about what I learn if you promise to do the same.  I love you very much sweet baby boy. xo