Sam Helping with the Snow

    The snow is rapidly turning to water and fog, but a week ago we shoveled. Samantha was game to help, but acted in quite the opposite way she intended, netting an actual negative amount of assistance on my behalf.

Sam and Riley gettin' Clean

Sam the Big Girl

No, they aren't earmuffs, they are earphones.

Look Ma! Short Hair!

Samantha is six years old, four foot tall, and now has shorter hair.

    "C'mon, Sam! We're going out," said Heather.
    "Wait," I said, "where are you going?" Heather stood in the kitchen, purse already slung over her shoulder and sunglasses upon her face.
    "Not telling you," she told me as Sam put on her shoes, "Its a surprise!"
    Well, it sure was! Look at the HAIR! Short, but really very cute. This is the shortest her hair has been since she was three, and what a difference.
Here's a before and after:
Before

After

The Mall Standoff

The Mall Standoff. Click to ZOOM.
    This is an old picture, but I never did share it with you. This is from last year (my God, how Sam has grown since then!). Sam is on the right, traversing the incredibly oversized foodstuffs.
    Some strange child who apparently wished to act as a traffic cop is on the left. How DARE Samantha contemplate leaping onto the delicious frosted goodness of the massive cupcake!

Sam and Beans and Daddy

    A weekend that was warmer than the others came and Sam voiced a desire to "eat outside!!!" An indulgence I was more than happy to provide. I cleaned her little picnic table and warmed up some baked beans.


    Of course, I wanted something-something, too. Here you see SafeTinspector carefully eating chili and--notice!--nottipping over the wee little picnic table.

Barbie Torture

Not sure what Sam was going for here. She was asleep when I found this horrible tableau. I assume the Barbie had done something very very wrong.

Of Sam and Penguins

    Samantha knows that she is not to pet a strange dog unless Heather or I have given the go ahead and the owner of the dog tells her it's ok. Once unleashed by us, however, Sam charges the hapless animal and its shocked owner with a blood-curdling battle-cry:
    "CAN I PET YOUR DOG?!?"
    Most humans are fools, and most fools think its a fine thing for a beautiful little girl to pet their dog. And so it comes to pass that yet another animal learns about the terrifying brute force of Samantha Whited's rough affection.
    ...You can't see me, but I'm shaking my head ruefully.

    Recently, we went to the Detroit Zoo. Believe it or not, Detroit boasts one of the great zoos of North America, known for its excellent arctic circle, gorilla habitats, butterfly house, reptile conservatory, its fine blah, excellent blah-blah, and world-class blah-blah-blah. But I digress.

Sam and... Sam

As we walked along, Samantha chumming with a recently befriended little girl also named Samantha, Heather spied a little boy with a realistic plush penguin. Without consulting with me, my lovely wife leaned toward our daughter and made a quiet suggestion. Off shot Sam, yelling,     "CAN I PET YOUR PENGUIN?"

There are many other pictures from the Zoo. I uploaded them to my Flickr page, if you are interested. Oh, and if you click on the pictures above, they may take you to bigger versions of the same. I make no guarantees.

The Sam Blog!

I have a lot of pictures of my daughter. You probably are already familiar with her. She is, of course, the future benevolent dictator of Earth.
I'll be posting pictures here, and I may be posting interviews and Sam related stories here as well...

Chalk Art With Sam!

    Apparently she is diagramming a space duck. Possibly a quantum space duck.

Sam Shoots Zombies

Sam Steals a Buick

Sam's a BIG Sister!

There shall be a two RULERS OF THE FREE WORLD!


Let them take the world and split it asunder.
Between the two of them all of humanity shall be naught but a plaything.

Sam at the Carnival

Carnivals are lame, slightly creepy, and most of the 'attractions' are about as entertaining as a re-run of "Joey". This is the adult me talking.
But my daughter is now old enough to enjoy this sort of thing. Every time she's seen a carnival for the last year she's begged to go ride the ferris wheel.
So it was that last weekend we told her that she'd have a fun surprise after her nap, provided she behaved. Well, she behaved.
    "Where are we going, Daddy?"
    "You'll find out."
    "Mom?"
    "Daddy said you'll find out, you'll find out!"
    "Dad-dy! Oh, look! A ferris wheel!"
    A few moments go by. The ferris wheel grows large as we approach."
    "Are we going there?"
    "Yep!"
    "YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!"
Well, I got pictures. But I forgot to take them whilst riding in the ferris wheel gondola. Partly because I found the ride frightening, all the more so because Samantha did not. Click on the pictures to make them bigger. Enjoy!
First, the carousel.




The Roller Coaster Ride!
Sam felt like a big girl as she was allowed to ride this attraction all by herself! She rode this thing at least ten times.





The Dinosaur Ride!
Another ride she was able to go solo on. Fun!

Sam's Journal

My 4-year-old daughter has a journal that she keeps at school. In it the children are instructed to draw an image on paper and then a teacher transcribes the child's story underneath. The following are from my daughter, Samantha. The apple, as they say, doesn't descend far from the twisted tree from which it spawned. Click to enlarge!
This one seems pretty normal. Don't worry, they get worse.     This is a bunch of leaves. They stayed on the ground until someone raked them up. I raked them up and put them in the garbage bag. I put the garbage bag in the garage.
A simple, yet eternal story:     Once upon a time, there was a girl next door.
Like all love stories, this one ends in tragedy:     I love you. This is a beautiful garden. It was raining. There was a kite. I hit my head.
Waterfowl and frozen dairy don't mix:     This is a big circle. The ice cream is melting. The ice cream is strawberry. It is in the shape of a duck. The ice cream fell in the grass.
A tale of high adventure!     My Mom is in the park. She was walking and she got caught in the trees. The cowboys came and got her free. My Dad came to rescue her. He grabbed her and swung from the trees into our house.
Don't they all?     This is the road. It leads to Disney Land.
Look, this one is beautiful to look at!     It's about a big Godzilla and another person: 2, 5, 7 persons. Godzilla is in the Iron Giant movie that my Dad has. I watch it with Dad. Iron Giant starts to be by Hogarf. It stays O-B-Bay. Not sure what to make of that last sentence.

Sam and Her Hat

I'm so proud. My little dictator has embraced her destiny and created her own crown.

Sam at a Gay Wedding

No joke people. It was just like any other wedding. But it was Sam's first wedding, and here are pictures!

The picture above is Sam dancing with her second cousins Sarah and Emily, who came from California. Sam was so happy to find another little girl to play with, and they hit it off so well. Too bad they live so far away. Sam picked out her own dress and shoes for the event. She had so much fun that it completely made the weekend for me.

This picture was taken minutes after the two met:


Sarah's little sister Emily plays with Sam and Sarah as they find Waldo or some such task.

Here's the Sam a dancin' away the evening!

Sam and Sarah take time out from dancing to exchange a wedding invitation.


In the morning we all ate breakfast together and Sam hugged everyone goodbye. Someday we'll see these people again, and I hope Sam and Sarah and Emily have just as much fun as they did at their great-aunt's wedding.

Professional Photos? Well...Sears anyway.

We've recently went and had our portraits taken at Sears. Sam is, of course, the star. Click to enlarge!




And here's one of the whole family.


And one more!

Sam at Tomas' Park

    There is a wooden play structure near my house. It is about one block away from the spot where there once stood an apartment building where our friend Tomas once lived.
    Because of this proximity, Sam named it "Tomas' Park".
    Tomas has since moved to Portland, and they eventually bull-dozed the apartment building. But the play structure remains.

click to enlarge. Suitable for wallpaper!

The Only Picture from Holloween

On account of my reprehensible work schedule, I was only involved with Holloween from 6:30pm on, and Heather took this picture:

She's a cute little fairy, though, isn't she?

Sam and Odo the Tolerant

	My cat, Odo, is quite tolerant. I came upon the above tableau this morning when I approached Sam to notify her that breakfast was ready (she was watching "Higglety-Town Heroes" at the time). I got the camera, took that shot, and then told her to smile. She grabbed Odo's cheeks to force him to comply with my instructions and the result is to the left.

Aunt Vicky and the August Visit

These were taken in August, when aunt Vicky and her boyfriend Burt came to visit with Sam and we all went to the part in the Triple-B.

They are so sweet I need to brush my teeth. They are so cute I might just pass out.
Click on them to make 'em larger. These are all 1024X768, so all you future followers of her Benevolent Excellency can show your loyalty by choosing one as your wall-paper.

Gamer in Training

My daughter has stolen my Game Boy DS and is using it to hone her skills. I approve. A good dictator should have excellent hand-eye coordination.
As long as she only plays for a few minutes at a time. Not really an issue so far, since she has the attention span of a mosquito full of a meth-junkies blood.

The Evil Princess

And her Evil Dog.

As a Benevolent Dictator in training, my daughter often dons the accoutrements of royalty.
The trick is to maintain the benevolence.

The Dance

As far as we can tell, this is some form of Spanish dance. Possibly flamenco?







This all occured at the home of my mother-in-law (Nana). I took the picture with my cell phone.

Oh, yeah, DRESSUP TIME!

The DEMON PRINCESS arrives by the back door, and surveys the order she will corrupt with her chaos. YES!!!!

The Aunt and her Mad Science

My baby sister Vicky came home from college this weekend to spend time with her boyfriend and to shrink her little niece's head.

Sam is blurry because she is IN MOTION. You really can't do much about that sort of thing. A four year old is a high-speed version of brownian motion. Vicky was having her perform some kinda equivalency test involving quantity and mass conservation.


See, there are the same number of green as red chips. But when the red chips are spread out, the four year old brain thinks there are more red than green. Normal, but wrong.


See? There really are the same number of red and green ships. Mmmm..... makes me want salsa.


The happy, yet perplexed, Samantha.


Can you tell these represent the same quantity of play-doh? Moments before this shot they were globes. At that time, Sam noted they were the same size. Despite the fact that Sam participated and watched the modification to the shape of this stuff, she was incapable of understanding that the resulting shapes were still equivalent.




Next time, I'll try to get a shot of my sister.
I was already 13 when she was born of my mother, and she is now a strikingly beautiful almost-20 year old woman.
Weird....

"Duck Park" on Sep 18

When your daughter is four, you sometimes resort to verbal shorthand in order to get things across. We have a number of fun parks to play in around our neighborhood, and I like to give Sam her choice of destination when we depart for purposes of merriment.
"Duck Park" is our name for the Shelby Township Municipal park and garden. It is so named because it has a large duck pond surrounded by some woods, as well as a fine compliment of playground equipment.
The picture of me was taken by her with my camera. Nice!
The picture of my burnt hand was done by me because I thought it might drive away the voices emanating from the wound that keep telling me to take up croquette.
Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Finger in mouth because her hand got wet. We were there early, and much dew coated the playground.

Sam and Heather

This is Sam and Heather on Heather's birthday day!