Samantha's first blog

pamelamyers | April 21, 2010

Mark and I were in a local toy store recently (which Sam LOVED – she was so happy to be in there, she kept laughing and smiling) and Mark decided that Sam needed a ball, since she doesn’t have one.  He has been playing with her rolling the ball to her to see if she can understand the concept of rolling it, or even kicking or pushing it, back to him.  So far, she doesn’t quite get it, but she seems to like it all the same.  Here are some pics of her playing with it the other day.

In the second picture she is so obviously watching Zephyr.  It is funny how just recently she has become so aware of the cats in her life, Zephyr of course, and also my mom’s two cats, Blackie and Bella.  When they come into the room, she actually sort of squeals in delight.  She does that now with anything that she is especially pleased with.  She used to just smile at things, but now she actually makes the cutest noises.  It’s like she can’t contain herself.  Sam seems to like animals of all kinds (which Mark and I are thrilled with!).  She gets excited by not only the cats, but the birds and squirrels that are all over the yard.  My mom has bird houses hanging on her porch awning and Sam gets so excited to see the birds flying in and out.  We have so many bunnies in our yard, but I don’t think she has noticed them yet.

One of the cutest things is how Bella has finally taken to Sam.  Blackie always sort of hung out near her, but Bella, who is more skittish, used to basically run away.  Now she is used to Sam, and I think kind of likes her.  Just this week, Bella was on the bed, and I brought Sam to see her.  We take Sam’s hands all the time and help her pet the kitties.  She is very gentle and the cats don’t seem to mind.  Well, Bella this time not only let herself be petted, but she rolled her belly into the air, and even rubbed her head on Sam’s hand!  Any cat owner knows that is a very big deal, and a big sign of acceptance and trust from a cat. I was so happy to see it, since Sam spends so much time at my mom’s house.  I knew Sam would be a cat lover (how could she not be?) but I am glad the cats like her too.

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pamelamyers | April 18, 2010

Finally!  Sam took an actual bath sitting in the water.  You have no idea how big a deal this really is.  Sam has never liked baths, ever since she was a newborn.  She would scream and cry for each bath for months, even the littlest sponge baths.  I tried everything — is the water too hot, too cold, is the room too cold, is she uncomfortable, etc.  Nothing made her happy.  Eventually, she stopped crying for baths, but it was obvious that she was not loving it.  I tried using a baby bath tub so many times, and every time her butt would hit the inch or two of water she would start crying like I was killing her.  So I found this bath sling type chair that I started using. It is a mesh chair that she can lay back in and the water and the suds just go right through.  I thought this would never end.  I mean, she  is almost 7 months old and I still couldn’t put her in the tub.  It was getting ridiculous.

Yesterday, I was giving her a bath in the kitchen sink, in her sling chair, like usual.  About halfway through her bath, she sat up in her chair (now that she can sit up on her own, she loves doing it).  She sat that way for a long time, and was really interested in grabbing the bowl of soapy water I was using, and she kept trying to grab at things to play.  I ran the faucet over her back to see how she would react to having a lot of water pouring on her, and she didn’t seem to mind at all.

So, I moved on to phase two of my experiment.  I stoppered the sink and started filling it with some water while she was still in her chair.  When the sink was ready, I lifted Sam up out of her sling and sat her in the water.  She loved it!  She started playing with a bottle lid I gave her, and splashing the water.  I kept her in there for a while since she was having a good time.  I am so glad my little one is finally ready for a big girl bath.  I’ll probably keep giving her sink baths for a while until I try to graduate her to our actual tub. 

It’s so funny how quickly she went from hating it to loving it. Just last week she was still miserable about her baths. I was just telling Mark’s mom on Friday about our bath issues.  And now look at little Sam!  Here is a picture of her having some fun.

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markmyers | April 17, 2010

This morning I was trying to photograph Sam using the natural light in our family room. The sun wasn’t cooperating, as soon as some nice light came into the room I would jump to the floor with my camera but by the time I got a good composition, the sun would peak behind the clouds. I kept at it though and was rewarded with this:

I made it larger than normal so you can see how beautiful her eyes are. When the sun hits them right, they simply sparkle.

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pamelamyers | April 12, 2010

Things have been going pretty well in the last week.  Not that things don’t usually go well, I am just saying that everything seems to be running very smoothly. I think the warm air, green trees, and budding flowers are doing us all some good. 

Sam has been eating her solids really well now.  We try to give her 3 meals a day, and her bottles.  She seems to really be enjoying her oatmeal and most of the fruits and vegetables much more now.  She’s not too fond of the meats I have given her, even when mixed with vegetables, so I think I am going to hold off on them for a while.  I think it’s just too weird a taste for her right now, and there is no need to push it.  Also in good news (and progress) starting on Tuesday, Sam has been sleeping through the night!  It’s been 6 nights in a row.  I really thought it was only because of the air conditioner in her room (the combination of perfect temperature and the white noise of the machine), but even after we stopped using it, she kept on sleeping.  I hope she has finally reached the stage where she can sleep through.  It is so nice not having to wake up.  Between Muffin always waking me up and then Sam, I literally haven’t slept through the night in about 2 years.  It’s a little weird.  I don’t know what to do with myself!

Mark just got a new camera, which I don’t know if I mentioned before, so we were outside enjoying the sun and trying it out.  Here are some pictures we took on Wednesday and Thursday in our front yard. 

She loves to stand up, and sometimes won’t even bend her waist so you can sit her down.  So we thought we’d try to take a picture of her standing up.  Our grass needed to be mowed badly — you can’t even see her feet!

She seems so amazed looking at how green everything is, and the leaves in their full glory.

On Friday, Sam was really interested at the birds on our bird feeder. I sat her in the window so she could see.  The feeder is on a post about 2 feet from our bay window, and she was so entranced watching the birds flying around.  Just wait until she can see all the bunnies in our yard — they have come back in full force — every day I see about 3 or 4 of them hopping around.

Mark took some pics of us that night, right before Sam went to bed. I can’t believe how smiley she still is even when it is bedtime.  You’d think an exhausted baby would be grumpy, but not our Sam!

On Saturday, Krista and Maddox came over so that Mark could take some pictures of Maddox.  This is a cute one of them together.  I think it’s so cute that they can sit together now all by themselves.  The two of them certainly are checking each other out! 

While Krista was there, she saw Sam really pushing up strong on her arms during tummy time. She asked me if Sam has started rocking yet, and I said, no, she hasn’t really figured out the whole on her hands and knees thing. I swear, it was about 2 minutes later, we were watching Sam and you could tell she was trying so hard to get up on her knees.  You could just see how hard her body was struggling.  Krista and I couldn’t believe it.  It was like she heard Krista and thought, hey, I better get moving!  Pretty soon she will be crawling and I don’t even know what I will do then.  I better start looking at baby gates!

One last photo from Saturday.  I think Sam looks so cute and happy just sitting on her own, playing with all her toys.  That chime ball is exactly like the one I had when I was little that I loved so much. My mom found it for her on ebay and couldn’t resist. I certainly loved mine and Sam really likes hers too!

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pamelamyers | April 8, 2010

For our friends and family who are not in this area, you are probably not aware that the last few days here have been pretty hard to take, weather-wise.  It is only early April and it has been close to 90 degrees (32 degrees C).  Now, I do like the warm weather, but I don’t think anyone was prepared to deal with summer heat quite yet.  And our poor little Samantha really does not like the heat.  She never has, even when she was a newborn.  She hardly ever cries, but you can be pretty sure that when she does, if she is not hungry, it is because she is hot.  I don’t know how many times she has started crying and all we had to do was strip her clothes off, or open her pajamas, and she immediately stops.  She is just like Mark that way — he can’t take the heat either. It’s no wonder when I was pregnant I was so hot ALL THE TIME that I couldn’t stand it.  Mark was loving it — I wanted the air conditioning on constantly.  I think it was hot-blooded little Sam all that time making me hot.

Well, anyway, after Monday night with her not sleeping well because I couldn’t get the temperature in her room quite right, Mark put our air conditioner in her room Tuesday night.  I was shocked when I woke up in the morning that she had slept entirely through the night!  That was the first time EVER, and she did it again last night!  Two nights in a row of sleeping all the way through.  She has always been a good sleeper, only waking up once per night for a feeding since she was only a few months old, but she has NEVER slept all the way through, and now she has done it twice in a row.   She was so tired last night from not napping well at my mom’s because of the heat that she went to bed last night at 6:45 and when I went in to get her at 6:30 this morning she was out cold!  I don’t think she had any intention of getting up any time soon.

Boy, that kid really likes the air conditioner…. I don’t think we are getting it back…..

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