Forty things I like about Sam

It's been awhile since I wrote about how much I like Sam! But not for lack of material.

• I like how he makes sandwiches. With salt and olive oil as well as turkey and spinach, of course.
• I like the way he skips rocks. ("It's more about choosing the right rock than about your technique.") 
• I like how he never swears (not even when caught off guard).
• I like the way he refers to baby noises as "creaking." "I heard Ziggy creaking in the other room."
• I like the way he imitates a French accent.
• I like the way he quotes old church movies. "This-here pump works just fine!"
• I like the way he reads the Bible and the Book of Mormon (making charts and graphs out of the Hebrew parallelisms, and so forth).
• I like how indignant he got about the fact that two crabs in a bucket do not, in fact, just keep pulling each other back in.
• I like the way he tucks a baby under his arm and then just goes about his day
• I like how he gets out of bed and fixes the sheet when I kick my feet around and make feeble, discontented noises about how wrong everything is.
• I like how even with valiant effort, he can't get the pronunciations of EXtract and exTRACT straight (EX-tract is the noun version, ex-TRACT is the verb, in case you're wondering. Following the same pattern as address, eclipse, permit, conflict, and so forth).
• I like the efficient, no-nonsense way he navigates DVD menus.
• I like the multi-chocolate hot chocolate he makes.
• I like the way he does pushups with children on his back.
• I like how he grocery shops. Cheese counter first.
• I like how he gets the mail (with a child holding each hand, and at least one other child yelling "I want to come with you TOOOO!" while hopping toward the front door trying to pull his or her shoes on).
• I like the color of his eyes (brown).
• I like the robust, brazen tone in which he'll suddenly break out with a phrase like "the cut of his jib."
• I like how he eats tiny muffins in one bite and then looks guiltily around.
• I like how he becomes impassioned about design principles.
• I like how he asks me, in all seriousness, as if he really believes I will know, if he has taken his aspirin yet. (He has to take aspirin at every meal because of an allergy.)
• I like the way he says "bless you, bobber" when a baby sneezes.
• I like his phobia of sponges being left in the sink.
• I like the eager way he talks about rockets/black holes/meteors/graphene.
• I like the way he cooks crêpes—three pans at once! 
• I like everything he draws for the kids during church.
• I like the way how every so often he stops working to pet the bunny.
• I like how on Wednesday evenings, he stops the car in the driveway, rolls the garbage cans into the garage, and then drives the rest of the way in with one of the kids on his lap.
• I like how he says, "That doesn't need to be augered."
• I like how easily and sincerely he asks people about themselves.
• I like his homemade milkshakes.
• I like the apologetic way he says "tweak."
• I like the serious way he considers problems like which donut to eat first.
• I like the way he always grumbles about how long the children take to come to the table for meals after we call them.
• I like how much he likes clouds.
• I like how hopefully and innocently he believed that once he bought a huge package of pens, he'd never have to hunt for a pen again.
• I like how he can let his lower jaw go slack and go "bliggababliggababliggaba" while he wiggles his head.
• I like how he's a patient driver—the worst thing that escapes his lips is a "Hey, that's bad!" at someone every now and then..
• I like how he comes into the kitchen and says "What can I help with?" as soon as he walks in the door after work.
• I like how horrified he is about bad kerning.