It’s evident from our Easter photos, that Sammy’s one of the cutest babies in the whole wide world. It’s just as evident that he’s one of the sweetest little boys ever.

Yesterday, one of the children at his daycare dropped a cookie on the floor. Sam saw it lying there, picked it up and held it out to the owner. The other little baby started crying, thinking that Sammy was going to eat it. Sam stood there, confusion writ all over his face. He had no idea what he had done to upset the other child. He thought he was being a “good boy” by picking up the cookie and giving it back. Indeed he was, but the poor baby who dropped the cookie didn’t understand that Sam had no ulterior motive. LOL!

Sam is very generous. He’ll share his binky and his baba with you. He especially loves feeding other people. I’ve lost track of how many times he’s forced goldfish crackers on me. Such a sweetheart!

My little boy is absorbing new knowledge all the time. Last night, Robert taught him that water coming out of the faucet wasn’t called “bubble” even though it may have some bubbles in it. He told him that it was called “water” and repeated the word several times. Finally, clear as a bell, Sammy said the word “water.” And then he said it again and again. We were so proud! To continue the lesson, Robert gave Sam a cup full of water–not a sippy cup, but a normal, lidless plastic cup. I was worried that he was going to spill it everywhere, but Sam sat down and drank out of that cup as primly as a gentleman having tea with the Queen of England. You’d think he had been doing it his whole life. Mind you, I’m not going to start giving him cups of grape juice just yet, but I don’t think it’ll hurt to continue giving him “big boy” cups

When it comes to critiquing a movie based on a book, I don’t think the most important concern one should have is how faithful it is to the book. Comparing books and movies is like comparing apples and oranges. They’re completely different media, with different strengths and different weaknesses.

I think a more useful question to consider when evaluating a movie is whether or not it used the tools available to it in the best fashion possible to tell a story or convey a message. For movies, you would consider the filming techniques employed, the scripting, the casting of the characters, the timing, the soundtrack, etc. For books, you pay more attention to the subtleties of the language and all those other things your English teacher made you pick apart.

Time is a major limitation for movies. Of course a movie can’t cover everything that a book does–unless it were to last much longer than anyone would be willing to sit through it. For heaven’s sake, people complain that the installments in the Ring trilogy are too long! I too lament the fact that they left out the scenes featuring Tom Bombadil, but I think the editing made sense considering the limitations of film–nor do I think that made the movies any less effective. There’s quite a bit to recommend them over the book. For instance, there’s no way you could experience the impact of the landscape nearly as well in a passage of the text as you do in three minutes of the film.

As for the Harry Potter movies, several of you say that you like the first one better than the second. I’m using a different set of criteria for rating the films than you seem to be (which is fine and dandy by me). All I remember of my experience of watching the first one was a profound sense of disappointment. The film lacked the spirit found in the novels. (Spirit, energy, etc. are qualities that can carry over to a movie from a book). I didn’t like how stilted it felt. Moreover, the actors failed to make their characters seem more than two dimensional.

The second movie shared a lot of the faults of the first movie. And, as some of you pointed out, it wasn’t as faithful to the text as it could have been. But it was exciting. It made my son squeal with delight (he LOVED the flying car) and I enjoyed watching him enjoy it. I also think my expectations weren’t as high before we started watching the film, so I didn’t experience the same degree of disappointment as I did with the first.

I hate days like yesterday and today. I hate not being very busy–struggling to find enough work to fill up my time. I cleaned off my desk, filed some papers, eagerly leapt at the chance to do some quick projects for a couple of attorneys–but mostly just fidgeted, worried, surfed the ‘net, stressed out about the possibility of getting chewed out for doing so—argh! I MUCH prefer days where I’m so busy I hardly have time to eat lunch. Time just speeds by.

Isn’t it perverse that I’m more stressed out when the workload is light than when it is heavy and there’s a pending deadline?

I feel a little bit like a gerbil in an excercise wheel.

To unwind, I tried creating some graphics sets last night, but it was just more of the same. Create, create, create………DELETE. Create, create, create………….DELETE!!! Argh.

I need a vacation.