Samantha's first blog

pamelamyers | August 22, 2010

This weekend was a very busy one, but a lot of fun.  Mark’s co-worker, and our dear friend, Teresa, was here from the U.K. working and she spent the weekend with us.  One of the many places we went was the Tyler Arboretum.  It is one of our favorite places and we thought Teresa might like it.   One of our first stops was the butterfly house which Tyler has every summer.  We actually visited it earlier this summer, but since the butterfly house had just opened, there weren’t all that many to look at.  There were certainly a lot now!  They were flitting right by your face and were all over the many bushes and plants inside. Sam loved them!  She was so fascinated by these delicate little bugs.

Some plants were just covered in butterflies.  It makes me want to plant a butterfly garden at home.

One of the biggest things I tried to teach Sam was to look, and not touch.

After we left the butterflies, we went to the pond.  Turtles!  This little guy came swimming right over. It was like he came to say “hi”. 🙂

Teresa took this picture of us on the observation deck in the meadow.

Our last stop there was the fragrant garden.  As you are encouraged to stop and feel and rub the various plants there to release their scents, we thought it was the perfect place for Samantha to explore.  Here she is checking out all the plants she could get her hands on.  She is so cute to watch doing things like this.  She loves to feel new textures and sensations, but she touches everything she explores so gently, so delicately.  She is such a sweet little girl.

One last pic, and NOT of Tyler, that’s for sure. We also took Teresa to the pool this weekend.  I thought I’d share this one last picture of us having fun.  By the end of the weekend, Sam was quite enamored of Teresa (and her iPhone…).  I think Sam has a life-long friend across the pond. 🙂

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pamelamyers | August 21, 2010

Sam learned stairs!  Today we were at Mark’s parents’ house for dinner and while we were sitting around chatting, Mark was helping his dad mark off the location of studs in the stairwell so they could put up a new railing.  Sam crawled in and stood holding onto the bottom step like she always does.  She saw a piece of blue painter’s tape stuck to a step a little way up and she must have wanted it really badly because up she went without any hesitation!  She went up about 4 or 5 steps before she stopped.  Mark kept moving the tape up and up and the futher up the tape went, the further Sam went.   Before we knew it she was at the top of the stairs and crawling off into the hallway.  She looked so proud of herself, but not as proud as we were of her. 🙂

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pamelamyers | August 19, 2010

Lately I have been lamenting about Sam’s lack of desire for actual food. I swear, I was starting to think she was going to be on baby food, or a bottle, for the rest of her life.  Every bit of actual table food we give her, she has no desire for except for her Cheerios and her veggie sticks, which are these puffed potato things the consistency of a cheese curl, but with no cheese on them.  At any rate, it is very frustrating.  Last night, we ordered pizza for dinner and I was sitting on the couch eating my two slices.  Sam came crawling over, and stood up holding on to my legs peering over at my plate to see what I had.  In and of itself, this is a pretty big deal, because she usually could care less what we are eating.  So, I gave her a tiny piece of pizza crust.  She ate it. So I gave her another one.  She ate that too.  The next thing I know, she grabbed my half-eaten slice of pizza right off of my plate!  She looked at it kind of funny, ripped the cheese off and chucked it on the floor, then proceeded to chomp away with her four tiny little teeth.  Very quickly I realized this was going to be a huge mess, so I took off all her clothes and let her sit on the floor in her diaper.  It’s a good thing too — by the time she had enough, she had sauce on her face, her hands, her chest, and a little on her leg.  She looked so cute.  I thought about taking her picture but I was frankly more concerned about not getting tomato sauce on my rug than snapping any photos.  It was a very big deal, believe me, that she ate table food on her own accord without us having to shovel it into her unsuspecting mouth.  Hopefully, it is a sign of things to come.  Tonight we made pasta and I gave her one dry rigatoni and she picked it right up and started munching away.  She did pretty good, she ate about half, and was smiling most of the time.

One other big thing is that she sort of is figuring out how steps work.  Sam is always standing holding onto our steps staring up looking like she wonders how in the world she is supposed to get up there.  One of her big things is that she sits on the edge of our living room, at the edge of the single step that leads onto the porch, and she cannot for the life of her figure out how to get down.  I usually go out onto the porch myself just in case she starts to fall but then she gets mad when I won’t take her and help her down.  I always tell her I am not helping her because she needs to learn.  Yesterday, she was sitting there in crawl position, again trying to figure out what to do.  She finally sat up and extended one leg, then the other. I dragged her over so that her butt was on the edge of the step and she was basically sitting on the step with her feet on the porch.  I kept trying to help her understand that she needed to put her hands down but she wasn’t getting it. I finally took her hands in mine and lowered them, then she was able to get all the way down.  So far so good.  In about 3.5 seconds, she was bored, and wanted back in.  Of course, she couldn’t figure out how to go UP the step now.  DOWN was bad enough.  She kept looking at me, but I didn’t want to help her.  Mark walked by in the house and I told him to talk to her, to encourage her to come to him, but it wasn’t really working.  Well, he then grabbed a cat collar with a tag that we have had hanging on our porch door forever and started jingling it.  Sam went into the house so fast, I don’t even think she had time to realize she pulled her little knees up onto the step.  Hopefully, she will be able to do it again.  I plan on practicing tomorrow.

Keep up the good work, Sam!

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pamelamyers | August 16, 2010

I forgot to mention in my last post about our weekend — we lowered Sam’s crib on Sunday to the lowest position.  She is getting so big.  Mark saw her in there the other day and commented on how she seemed to grow a foot overnight.  It was not that long ago that we lowered her crib to the middle position and it was perfectly fine for her.  The top of the crib came up to about her chin, I think, and she had to look up at the video camera for our monitor which we had placed on the edge of the crib.  I think I have mentioned in the past that she has started standing in the crib and playing with the camera when she doesn’t want to sleep, tipping it up and down so we can’t see her.  It used to be kind of difficult for her to do.  Not so much now — she is so tall that she almost looks DOWN at the camera, not up.  So, we lowered the crib and the top rail is just about at shoulder height, or maybe a little higher, so she is safe.  I think if we didn’t lower it soon, she’d be on the verge of escape!

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pamelamyers | August 15, 2010

This weekend we had plans to do a million things, and well, best laid plans….you know how it is.  We did manage to go to the pool yesterday, even though it was a bit cool out, and today we were going to hit the park.  We never managed to go to the park because we had so much to do at home.  But we did manage to get some pictures, which is what we really wanted to do anyway.  Here are some new pics of our little Sam.  I just love how smiley she is, even though she is about 1/2 hour from going to bed, and was pretty tired.  In the last 3 days she hasn’t been napping in the afternoon, and she started waking up once at night again, so she was pretty worn out.  But she always lights up for the camera! 

Sometimes the cutest pictures of her are when she is looking away.  Her eyes are so big and bright.

Check out those teeth!  She was cracking up over some toy I was waving in front of her.

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