My Morning Glory

| November 21, 2012

Sam looked so darn cute this weekend when she woke up that Mark had to take some pictures of her.  She is so beautiful, even when she is quite the mess.  I love this little girl so much.  Even first thing in the morning, she is all aglow, with a huge smile on her face.  A face that, when I see these pictures, I realize is not a baby face anymore, but that of a growing little girl.  She has lost the roundness of a baby.  Her face, her features, are becoming so defined. Her face is starting to look like what it will be when she is grown.  What a beautiful woman she will surely be.

I guess I’m on my own…

| November 21, 2012

The other day Sam and I were in the shed and I showed her where our Christmas tree was stored and started telling her that we were going to put our tree up soon and all of our Christmas decorations.  Sam cannot wait for Christmas. She is absolutely bursting at the seams and keeps saying, “Christmas is taking a long time!” so I knew she’d be excited.  I keep thinking we need to get some sort of lawn decorations for her this year, but am unsure of what to get.  My first thought is a snowman since she loves them so much, but I thought I’d see what she thought.  We have been looking at them in Target a lot.  I asked her if she remembered the big decorations at Target and this is the conversation that transpired:

Me:  Do you remember we saw all those decorations at Target?  The snowman with earmuffs like Daddy?  The penguins?  The train?

Sam: Yes.

Me:  Which one was your very favorite?

Sam: The penguins.

Me:  The penguins?  Really?

Sam:  Yes.

[approximately 5 second pause]

Sam:  Mommy?

Me:  Yes, Sam?

Sam:  What is penguins?

Sigh.  So much for asking for her input.

Clean up, clean up!

| November 21, 2012

Sam loves playing outside and when Mark was out in our yard trying to clean up the leaves, she couldn’t resist going out to help.

Of course, Sam’s idea of helping with the leaves involves running around like a maniac through them, kicking them in the air, and otherwise destroying the neat piles.

But she has fun, and who can resist that face?

She looks so mischievous, doesn’t she?  Actually, she was just really excited because she saw me coming with Zephyr.

I asked her if she would like Zephyr to come play with her in the leaves and she kept giggling, Yes!

I don’t know that Zephyr loved the whole idea, but she was a sport and hung out for a few minutes with Sam.

Zephyr went in, so Sam had time to examine her treasures (which is what she calls them).

And she’s off!

I love that look, like, “what?”

Mark finally got ahold of her long enough for a quick hug….

…before she was off and running again!

The things they say…

| November 20, 2012

Well, it’s been about a week now, and she hasn’t stopped.  Ok, it is my fault, so I can’t blame anyone but myself.  But it was an accident!  I swear!  I have been cleaning up/cleaning out our house for months now and our basement was sort of near the bottom of the list. One day last week, I spent quite a lot of time down there cleaning up and Sam was hanging out with me. I dropped something (according to the story Sam tells everyone) and must have yelled G*D D****T! because now Sam says it all the time. In fact, she thinks it is just a wonderful thing to say.  And she uses it perfectly, in context.  When she drops something, when something goes wrong…I tried being very stern and telling her not to say it, that it was a bad thing to say, then I progressed to just ignoring her, but no go.  She still says it.  Today, in fact.  Great.  Just great.  It is hard not to laugh, because she has such a tiny, cute little voice, and hearing something like that come out is hysterical, but….I guess I should be happy my trucker mouth didn’t say something worse!

Babysitter

| November 18, 2012

Last night, Sam had her very first babysitter!  Other than her grandparents, that is.  My friend, Alice, has been volunteering for a long while now and we have been anxious to take her up on it.  It just hasn’t happened. Not for lack of trying, mind you.  It just never seemed to work.  When we had time to go out, Alice was busy, and vice versa. Finally, the stars aligned and Alice came over to sit while Mark and I saw a movie (our second theater movie this year – whoo hoo!)  We went to see the new James Bond flick, Skyfall and had a great time.  We didn’t really prep Sam that much for Alice coming over because we didn’t want her to get upset, but the day before, I casually mentioned how Alice (who Sam has met at least 3 or 4 times) was going to come over to play with her.  Strangely, Sam asked me, “are you going to go drive?” which I took as her way of asking me if I was going out.  I told her yes then dropped the conversation.  The next day when Alice arrived, we were all prepared for the meltdown that would come when Mark and I left.  I told Sam that she should show Alice her room (which was my mom’s idea) because Sam loves to show off her room.  Before I knew it, Sam was just about dragging Alice upstairs. We could hardly finish talking to Alice without saying, “I want to show Alice my room, right now!” over and over again.  (She says Alice’s name like “Owiss” which I think is adorable).  Anyway, they were headed toward the stairs and Sam did turn around to take my hand and I just told her no, that Mommy was going out, she could go on her own, and she just….went!   Just like that.  Mark and I quickly left and hoped for the best.  After the movie was over, a few hours later, we called home before going to eat dinner just to make sure everything was fine and it was totally ok. Sam was great. When we got home Alice said that Sam and she played the whole time, Sam never asked for us once, and even told Alice she loved her. 🙂  Well, needless to say, Alice will be coming back again soon!  Mark and I can’t wait!