"Well, now, that doesn't make any sense. Eric, have you been drinking the Toddy coffee from the fridge?"

"Not since the first day."

"That can't be right...we're almost out, and the directions say that one pound of coffee is supposed to make about thirty-two cups. I know I haven't gone through thirty-two cups of coffee in five days."

Oh, but wait...I usually drink double-sized cups of coffee, so that would only be sixteen cups of coffee per pitcher. I think I'm making it a little stronger than they suggest, so maybe it would be a little less than sixteen, too. And after I read that the amount of caffeine per cup was less than with regular coffee, I guess I did start drinking an extra - double - cup in the afternoon...

Oh.

As long as it's not a problem for me, then it's not technically a problem, right?

Sam was on the phone with my mom while I was driving us to the store. He was chattering away about this and that, giggling at her jokes. I eavesdropped shamelessly, enjoying his half of the conversation.

"We're in the car," he told her.
"Mommy is."
"No, Gabey's in his carseat."
"Babies can't drive! They don't know how yet!"
"Well, they don't know where to go!"
"Mommy's taking us to my club."
"My club. You know, Sam's Club!"
"It's a kind of store. You know, a store."
"I think I'll have to talk to you later. Okay, bye!"

Gabe, the Über-Toddler, was once more fighting off sleep with everything he had. Sam was already asleep in the next room, and Eric and I were yawning, but Gabe was refusing to even consider lying down. I was inclined to play dead next to him until he got bored, but Eric kept forgetting the plan and being drawn into Gabe's games. Gabe knew his mark, and he would tickled and pat Eric until Eric would pick him up in the air over his chest, making him giggle.

For a while, Gabe found great entertainment in standing up at the head of the bed and patting the wall, jabbering away. He tapped, he poked with his thumbs, and he placed both palms against the plaster. After a few minutes, we realized that he was playing with his shadow.

"That's your shadow, Baby," Eric told him. "Sha-dow." Gabe nodded and babbled, returning to his explorations over and over. I tried gently sitting him down on the pillow, but he kept standing back up. Pat, pat, pat.

The next morning, I was changing his diaper on the changing table, hoping against hope that the neighbors weren't calling CPS to report a possible child-skinning; Gabe was hollering and shrieking as though I was removing his soul. He slapped the wall with his hand in anger, and suddenly stopped crying. He slapped again, and then poked the wall.

"Wall," I said to him.

"Da-dow," he smiled at me.

"Knock-knock!" said Sam.
"Who's there?"
"Jesus."
"Um...Jesus who?"
"Jesus you glad I didn't say orange?"

(Eric is increasingly bemused by what he says is a growing level of "blasphemy" from Sam, who also claims Jesus speaks to him on the subjects of what foods he should eat, toys he should have, etc. I reassured him that in my own childhood, I included Jesus among my imaginary playmates, right up there with Donald Duck, and I have yet to be struck by lightning.)

"Mommy! Gabe threw a piece of train track down the heater!"

I jumped up, ran to the living room, and found Sam nearly in tears. We have large heating vents, and we've been meaning to get some sort of metal screen to cover the tempting holes before something like this could happen. We hadn't done it yet, though, and now Gabe had taken advantage of that.

Eric went to the basement to see if the errant piece of track could be retrieved. Sam was flipping out, so I set him to picking up all the rest of the track and putting it away. Even when everything had been cleaned up, though, he was still in a panic, pushing Gabe away from the vent. He was horrified about what had happened, and I could see him doing this indefinitely.

"Here's some cardboard," I improvised. "Why don't you make a sign to tell Gabe not to do that anymore?" Sam leapt on the idea with ferocity, immediately asking me how to spell the words he wanted.

For the record, Gabe has shown no signs of being bothered the sign; in fact, he has taken to wandering the house with it, holding it out to us with smiles and nods. Sam felt much better having made it, and better still when Eric came back up the stairs with track piece in hand.

We should be getting that screen for the vents this weekend, hopefully.

One last Sammy-ism before I go!

In the bathtub: "Mommy, what do you call a big wave?"
"What?"
"A salami!" (splashing his boats wildly) "Oh, no! a salami! Help, a salami!"