Samantha at 42 Weeks

Samantha loves playing in her toy corner, although playing to her now is more like taking all the toys out of the basket or trying to pull herself up on anything she can.

Samantha also likes to play with our vertical blinds, knocking them around and watching them sway back and forth.  As you can see in the second picture, she also likes to "eat" and lick the blinds even though we tell her not to.  You can see her tongue poised and ready for her first lick.

Lately when we have been giving Samantha her bath at night, she has been completely turning herself around in the green baby tub we have for her.  Because of that she's been slipping and falling a lot more in an attempt to get out of her baby tub.  So, we decided to transition her over to the regular bathtub.  We tried having her sit in the regular tub awhile ago, but she seemed to just slide around a lot since she didn't have as much control over her body, but now she is doing great!  Here is a video of her first successful time free in the bathtub.

Samantha loves to play with the handheld water spout.  She loves for us to pour it right over her head and she loves to try and drink the water coming out almost as if it were a water fountain.

This past weekend my sister Christy and her fiance Matt came to visit.  We had a good time together, talking over wedding plans, trying on a bridesmaid dress, playing games, and spending time with Samantha.  The stairs have become more and more intriguing to Samantha.  In the past she has just looked at the them, but over the weekend she pulled herself up and then proceeded to pull her legs up to the next step.  I know this is just the beginning of her interest in climbing the stairs!

Over the weekend Samantha seemed to be a very sleepy girl, she slept for her normal time at night, but was also taking much longer naps during the day.  It seemed like she was constantly tired, even if she just woke up from a nap.  It's always a curious thing when things like that happen to babies because there's no way of really knowing what's going on.


On Sundays we take Samantha to the nursery while we go to church, and we always get good reports back about Samantha.  Sometimes it seems like she must be one of their favorites because they're always sad to see her go.  This past Sunday the nursery worker told us that Samantha "fell for" one of the older boys in the nursery room connected to theirs.  He was playing drums that were hanging on the wall, and apparently Samantha just kept looking at him, smiling at him, and "making eyes" at him.  They said that Samantha was falling for the percussionist.

It's funny how you always learn more about changes that are happening with your baby as you look back on things.  In retrospect things are clearer.  The reason I say this is because on Monday night when we were feeding Samantha her dinner, we noticed that she had another tooth!  Now she has seven teeth!  That explains why she was acting so sleepy over the weekend, and why she had such a rough time falling asleep on Sunday night.  She was teething and we didn't even know it!  I guess that's a good thing because she is so easygoing that we don't even notice she's having teething pain.  This is a trend we've noticed with Samantha, when she is not feeling well, she tends to sleep a lot more and overall become more lethargic.  Now, all she needs is one more tooth and then we will have to take Samantha into the dentist.  Our doctor says they need to see a dentist at one year old or eight teeth, whichever comes first.


Samantha is growing up so fast and I always notice it most when she is sleeping.  It's always a surprise when you go into her room to wake her up or get her when she wakes up by herself, to see what position she is in.  She always sleeps on her stomach, but sometimes she is curled up to one side, sometimes she is sprawled out, sometimes she lays across the width of the crib so that her head and feet are pretty much touching both sides of the crib.  When she wakes up on her own, most of the time she is standing up in her crib, holding on to the railing; however, sometimes she is just sitting there or laying down playing with her feet.  She also has been able to grab the animals that hang off of her mobile, and Ben has gone in in the morning several times and caught her playing with those animals.  We actually decided to remove the mobile from her crib just to prevent anything from falling or being pulled into her crib while she's sleeping.  


Even when I nurse her I notice how fast she is growing because she hangs off the nursing pillow, and she is so heavy when I pick her sleeping body up to place her in her crib.  It's funny to think about how we used to hold her in the "magic position" to get her to fall asleep when she was a younger baby.  Now, I feel like my arms would be sore if I had to hold her, walk around with her, or bounce her to get her to fall asleep.  Our little girl is growing up so fast.  Her year birthday will be here before we know it.