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Friday, March 25, 2011

A quick update on things.

Did you notice? I missed an entire week. I couldn't figure out why all my weekly emails were telling me that my baby was 46 weeks, when clearly she was only 45. My blog doesn't lie, right? And then I realized I was BEHIND. Can you imagine...the mother of a new walker was actually behind on her blogging!??! Unbelievable. So I did some quick fixing...and all the weeks are back up to date now. :)

(The thing that REALLY bothers me is that I had a folder of all Sam's weekly photos so I could easily make a book with them at the end of her first year, and now that folder is GONE. I must have deleted it, and I am so bummed. That's 46 pictures I have to go hunt down now!)

But anyway, here's a quick update on where we are, aside from the weekly photos and random mobile photo posts:

As you have seen, Sam is walking now! She waited until Daddy got home the other night, and decided to show us both that she has a new skill. Since that night, she has been walking every chance she gets! I keep turning around to find her walking towards me. She will pull herself up on almost anything, and walks several steps. She walked halfway across the living room yesterday. Amazing! When she is done, she always turns to us for congratulations. She is SO proud of herself, as she should be! She still crawls if she's in a hurry to get somewhere, but otherwise she prefers to walk along the walls and furniture until she can make a break for it on foot across the room. At this rate she'll be walking like a pro by next week!

She has also started demanding the spoon during mealtimes. She still makes quite a mess with it, but she's getting better with her aim, and can actually get 50% of the food in her mouth now. (The other 50% seems to end up in her hair, which is not very fun for Mommy. But at least she's trying!) Her other favorite thing to do at mealtime is to throw her food (or cup or spoon or bowl) on the floor. And then lean over to see where it landed, and then at Mom or Dad, expecting us to pick it up and return it to her. She is sure getting to be a handful!

I have been taking Sam to play at several different baby gyms, and she LOVES it! Now that she's mobile, she loves to move all over the place to check out new toys and people. She still is completely enthralled by older kids, and she has no fear, even when she's about to get bowled over by them. Sadly she keeps getting sick each time we go to one of these places. The entire month of March has been a cold for poor Sam. But she has SO much fun! Her new favorite toys are balls. She loves to use the large ones as a walker, and she has learned how to roll the small ones.

She is getting quite an attitude on her. It's hard to tell how much of it is just her being a baby and needing things, and how much of it is her just acting up. It's cute...but I can tell she's going to be a handful when she's a bit older!

We were trying to let her cry it out a bit, but when she got her cold we kind of fell back on that. She ended up waking every hour again, and requiring company all night long. I spent several nights on the floor of her room. NOT fun. Now that her cold is almost better, she is sleeping longer again, so I hope that's all the problem was! I got 4 hours of sleep in a row last night, and I already feel like a new woman. Imagine how I will feel when she actually starts sleeping ALL NIGHT LONG. I'm pretty sure I won't even recognize myself.

Until then...I better get some sleep before she wakes up. :)

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Forty-Six Weeks

Laughter (VIDEO)

Sam has started imitating us, and lately she's been doing this fake laugh thing. Of course she thinks she's hilarious! And check out her new expression. She totally got Mommy's wrinkle-nosed, squinty grin. Sorry about that, sweetie...at least its cute on a baby! :)
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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Ten Months


Dear Samantha,

I can't believe you are already 10 months old! You are getting so big now. This month has been a busy one full of learning for you. You have definitely mastered the skill of crawling (and you are getting FAST!), and you are getting so close to walking. You are able to walk while only holding onto Mom or Dad (or the furniture) with one hand, and even then you barely hold on. You take off so fast when you want to walk somewhere! It's only a matter of time before you realize that you can do it without our help. You can stand for a few second on your now now, and you are cruising all around the room along the furniture now.

Your new favorite things are BALLOONS. You discovered them at a birthday party, and now they make you happier than any other thing. Whenever you see a balloon, you start waving your arms around and making excited noises. We got you a few balloons for the house, and every morning you were thrilled to see them still there, waiting for you. You carry your balloon around all over the house!

We are still trying to get you to wave, or point, or sign, but you don't seem to be too interested in using your hands to communicate. Walking is still your number 1 goal. You are very good at imitating what we say though. You definitely communicate your irritation with your furious face. You get all red like you're going to explode as soon as you are done eating. I think it would be easier to sign "all done," but so far you seem to prefer the fury. I have a feeling you are going to be a handful!

You are so much fun at playdates now. You don't cling to Mommy anymore; as soon as we arrive, you want to get down and you take off crawling and playing with toys. You are becoming so independent!

You are a very good eater. You don't want to have much to do with baby food purees anymore, and mostly you prefer to feed yourself finger foods. You LOVE pizza and spaghetti (my kind of girl, for sure!), and you still love pears. We just discovered that you are a huge fan of green peas. They are the perfect finger food for you! You shovel them in as fast as you can. You also learned how to suck the food out of the little baby food packets, and you can go through them in just a few seconds now. You are getting to be so big! We are starting to wean you off the bottle now, so we give you your milk in a sippy cup most of the time now. You still prefer mommy milk before naps and bedtime, but you do great with a sippy cup of formula during the day. Just a couple more months and we can see how you like cow's milk!

You are doing much better with sleeping now, too. We hated to do it, but we started letting you cry for about 5 minutes at a time now to teach you to soother yourself. After just one night we started seeing improvements. You went from waking 6-10 times a night to waking only 1-2 times! And it's actually been with very minimal crying, too. You are doing very well with us putting you down awake, and you soothe yourself back to sleep most of the time when you do wake. You have been sleeping in 9 hour stretches, and Mommy and Daddy are THRILLED. Some nights Daddy is able to put you to bed without you needed Mommy and her milk. You are really growing up fast.

Your first birthday is just 2 short months away, and Mommy is working on your party plans! It's going to be so much fun to celebrate with all of our friends. We love you SO very much!

Love,
Mommy

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

And the winner is...

Comment #14, Rachel!!! Congratulations, Rachel - now you can buy that dutch oven you've been dreaming of. :)