A few minutes ago, I clicked "purchase" on our tickets to Michigan for Christmas. Moments before, I had selected two adults, one child 2-17, and one infant in lap as the passengers for this itinerary. I shuddered visibly when I selected that last one, because...well, Sam in my lap for a two-hour flight? It's not the cakewalk it was a few months ago.

Sam is really into things. Like, he's both physically into things, as in the fireplace, the cupboards, the bookshelf, any open doorway, the dishwasher, etc. And he's also really into things emotionally, invested in them fully. I kind of think of babies at this age as being a bit like the dog in UP, you know, Dug, the nice one? He's totally devoted to you, really interested in what you're doing, where you are, until SQUIRREL! Except for Sam, it's more like BALL and WHOA A CLOUD and WIND and HOLY COW A FAN! His entire body arches and cranes to be near the newest object of his affection. He loves taking baths so much that he all but flings himself bodily into the bathroom as I walk past the doorway holding him.

And he's a big guy. At the last appointment, he was in the 97th percentile for height, but had slimmed down a bit to the 85th for weight. But he throws all 100 percent of that weight around, army-crawl grunting his way across the floor at a remarkably fast pace, just to arrive at his destination (two blocks stacked one atop the other), which he proceeds to decimate. Our motto these days is SAM SMASH. He really does delight in roughing things up, throwing things, grabbing glasses and hats off our heads and then flinging them underfoot with a cackle.

Tonight, and oh how I wish I had charged the video camera's battery, because this was a moment I need to archive and share simply so others would believe me...anyway, tonight he GRABBED the footstool his sister uses to reach the counters (she wasn't on it at the time), LIFTED IT UP (and bear in mind he is in a prone position), and CHUCKED it across the room. It was like a little WWF match between Sam the Brutalizer and the kitchen rug. After the stool clattered noisily across the kitchen floor, Charlotte backed tentatively out of the room. Sam, meanwhile, was on to bigger and better things, like determining how he could access the oven and maybe TEAR IT APART.

So, perhaps you can understand my trepidation about flying with this 24-pound, 32-inch chunk of pure unharnessed spastic baby energy. And to the passengers in row 25 of NWA 7470: I apologize in advance.