Fun times for Sam in Brazza

Sam has been having a run of fun days here.

First our friend Gibran got permission for Sam to visit the building site for the new US Embassy so he could ride on a bobcat. It turned out, that like so many other things that Sam talks about incessantly and is completely fascinated by, he was terrified most of the time.

Fear

Distress
Resigned despair
Seeking solace from his blankie
watching with interest from the safety of Dad's arms
Still scared

Wishing we'd let him get off

So I thought I'd never be one of those mom's that makes their kid do something that they obviously don't want to just because "it should be so much fun for him", but apparently I am. Eventually we got him on my lap to operate the forklift and he really liked some parts of that, but ultimately was still scared.

We've been having lots of rainy days. So we've made our own fun around the house. On Thursday, we built Sam's first fort. He loved it!


Then he finally got the hang of pulling his train behind him. He actually pulled it for 10 minutes without it falling over (not that you can tell from this clip)


We've been going to the pool lots and lots- Sam has started to "jump" (read 'fall') in to our awaiting arms. That's fun!


On Friday, John was walking with Sam and they happened to go by the door for the room where we have English-language worship on Sundays. Sam pointed to it and started to sing. Since then, he's sung many songs for us- they are always soft and high :-)


And here is that video about the big puddle during rainy season that I wrote about awhile ago- the video is in two parts. And, actually, they've fixed the problem so it doesn't flood so badly. Still, it was pretty intense...


We're flying to Pointe Noire tomorrow for meetings and to celebrate Thanksgiving. I told Sam about it and he was quite excited. Then I told him how in just a few weeks we're going on another plane and we're going to see Mimi and Papajack. I explained how they would be real people (as opposed to webcam people) and how he could give them real kisses and how Papajack would take him on walks and explain everything they saw and how happy they would be to see Sam. He listened.
Then this morning, I said something unrelated about Mimi and Papajack, and Sam made the airplane symbol. I think he gets it :-)