Well, summer is officially here! We have been at the pool almost everyday for the last couple of weeks. Sam has no fear when it comes to the water. He dives face first in and comes up laughing. We have some great neighborhood pools around here. One of them has a playground in the pool with slides and everything. The entire pool never gets any deeper than 2 feet, so it is perfect for us. It really wears both of us out completely! We spent a little over an hour there this morning and had a blast. Sam really thinks that he is 10, not 2. He will only go down the slides if he thinks I'm not looking. Of course, I'm always looking and right there at the bottom of the slide when he gets there, but he always checks to see if I'm watching him, and if he thinks that I am, he backs up and gets off of the slide. Weird. I really can't believe how independent he is and how over-protective I am. I didn't think that I'd be that way, but I am. I see other moms sitting in their chairs, reading magazines, and I'm right on Sam's feet in case he falls down. Anyway, he also went down the "big" slide all by himself today. This slide is like a slide at a waterpark. I think that 6 people can go down it at one time. It was absolutely hilarious today. I went down with Sam one time and then the next time, he said, "mama, stay down; i do it by self." So, I went to the bottom of the slide and stood next to the lifeguard to watch him. It took him over two minutes to get down the slide because he just inched his way down the whole thing. The line behind him got really long, but I thought that it was precious and he was so very proud of himself!

Another thing that comes with summertime is more injuries. Sam's knees are constantly bruised. It's just the way it is. The other day, Sam and Tex were playing ball and Sam was in his crib. Sam was trying to put the ball through the slats, and Tex was trying to help him get the ball through, too. Then, Tex's teeth caught Sam's little finger and there was lots of screaming. His little finger was bleeding. It was so sad to me because his feelings were hurt, too. I would normally get mad at Tex, but it truly was an accident. So, since it was bleeding, I said, "let's put a bandaid on it." This was translated to Sam, "let's torture you." Seriously, you would think that I was suggesting that we pour salt on it. So, I let it go for awhile. Then, we went on a bike ride and I told Sam that we were going to get special "stickers" for his finger. He picked out these car bandaids and I thought we were in. After we got home and bathed, David put the bandaid on and it was like he had hurt Sam. He kept screaming, "off, off!!" and tears were running down his face. Since it was bedtime, I knew that I was not going to fight this battle nor win it, so I let it go. His finger was still bleeding the next morning. I mean, I just wanted to help the little guy!

I will post some pool pictures soon, so look for them!