Samantha at 48 Weeks

Last Monday, our small group from church got together for a potluck, and we decided to go to a park to share a meal since the weather was so pleasant.  While we were there, Samantha enjoyed the swing and the slide (of course we guided her down the slide, and it was the shortest slide on the playground).  She really enjoys the swings, which we thought she would.  She could hold herself up pretty well without flopping back and forth when we pushed her.  Samantha had an expression of pure delight on her face.

Samantha hasn't shown too much interest in walking yet, which we're okay with--believe me; however, when we take both of her hands in ours, she will take some steps.  She's not too steady on her feet and her legs are fairly weak and give in easily, but she has the general idea.  She can actually walk up and down the stairs as well if you are holding her hands.  Ben and I joke around that Samantha looks like a French soldier when she walks because she takes GIANT steps, lifts her leg up really straight and high, and then plops it down hard on the ground.  Not so much bending of the knee happening in Samantha's walking attempts.  However, it is very cute, so here is a clip of Samantha being a French soldier the night we were at the park:

One of Samantha's favorite pastimes is taking all of her toys from the basket and spreading them out over the floor, but she particularly likes taking all the books out from under the coffee table.  Sometimes she'll look at them, but I think she mostly likes to just be surrounded by her books.  Our little aspiring reader!  Here is what our living room floor looks like on most nights:

Samantha continues to sleep and eat really well on most days.  She goes to sleep between 8 and 8:30 on most nights, sleeps all through the night until I wake her up at 6:30 to nurse her before I head to work, then, most days, she will go back to sleep until about 8:30, when she wakes up for the day.  We have been trying to give her two naps a day still because it makes for a much happier Samantha, especially in the evenings.  Lately, she has been eating an average of four or five jars of baby food each day.  She even eats some of our table food.  We will give her small pieces of bread, bananas, noodles, or anything else we can break into small pieces that we think she might enjoy.  Wow!  What a change from the little girl who started seemingly uninterested in eating food.  

Well, now she has started a little "game" where she will eat her baby food, then spit part of it back out, grab it with her hand and offer it to us.  When she does this, we shake our head no and say, "I don't want it."  Samantha will continue offering her food to us just to get the reaction from us.  It's quite amusing.  She won't just do this with food either.  She'll play the "I don't want it game" with toys, and we think it's pretty cute, almost like she's sharing.  Sometimes she'll hand us a toy, we'll say, "Thank you," and we'll hand it back to her, repeating this over several times.

The other event I have to include from this week is intended just for memory's sake (not to make you feel bad, Melanie!).  On Thursday, Melanie took Samantha and her boys to our church because she is involved in a Mom's Rest Stop group.  On the way out after it was over, she placed Samantha in the car seat but didn't buckle her in and left the van door open.  Melanie went back to the church for just a minute to grab her two boys from the doorway to put them in the van, and when she got back to her van, another mom was holding a crying Samantha in her arms.  The mom told Melanie that she found Samantha laying on the ground crying, so she must have fallen out of her car seat.  Who knows how it happened, Samantha might have been trying to climb on the car seat like she tries to do on her high chair or stroller at home, lost her balance and fell onto the floor of the van and then tried to crawl out of the van, not realizing there was a drop down to the ground.  Needless to say, Samantha had a small bump on her forehead that was gone within a day and a few small scratches that were barely noticeable.  As soon as they got back to the house for lunch, Samantha proceeded to crawl around and play immediately, showing no signs of discomfort or pain at all.  I just had to share this story because I'm sure it will be great to tell Samantha of this someday!  All that matters is she's perfectly okay.  It's amazing how resilient little babies can be!

On Fridays Ben stays home with Samantha, and this last Friday she decided to sleep the day away.  She slept in until ten o'clock that morning, and took a two and half hour nap.  Saturday morning it stormed, the wind was blowing the rain around pretty hard, and there was quite a bit of thunder and lightning.  Right around 6:30 (the usual time that I wake her up to nurse her before work), she started making noise in her crib (doesn't she know you're supposed to sleep in on Saturdays?)  When I went into her room, I picked her up from her crib and she immediately pointed at the window almost like she was saying, "The lightning woke me up, Mom!"  It was pretty adorable.

She has been pointing at a lot of things lately, normally saying "da," almost like she wants us to name the object for her.  She notices and points at everything, people, fans, toys, plants, animals, anything that catches her attention.  Well, this past week Samantha has started pointing at a picture on the wall in our dining room of Ben and me.  She will point at Ben and say "dada," and then point at me and say "mama."  We love that she recognizes us and will, most of the time, discriminately say mama and dada in reference to us.

Samantha will pull herself up on anything she can get her hands on, but hasn't shown too much interest in cruising along furniture.  However, this past week she did it just a little bit.  She was standing, holding onto the coffee table and switched herself over to the couch without sitting down or putting her hands down on the ground.  We can also get her to cruise more if we provide a strong incentive, like some electronic item, for example, the remote control or a cell phone.  We held the remote control out for her to get, and she succeeded in cruising down the coffee table in order to get to the control.  So, we know she can do it, we just have to have a strong motivation for her.  :)


On Saturday, we decided to make a quick trip to Upland for the afternoon and evening because Jeni and Alaina decided they were going to come down.  It was a little crazy for one day, and we probably won't do that short of a trip again because it threw off Samantha's whole schedule.  We left around 11:15 or so, and Samantha had already been up since 8ish, so we figured it wouldn't take her long to fall asleep.  Well, we were wrong about that, and she only slept about an hour in the car.  This resulted in a very tired girl, but she was doing pretty well because she loves to be around people and is happy as long as she is free to move about and play.  Later in the afternoon she was acting tired, so we set up the extra pack n' play that Ben's parents keep at their house, and tried to lay her down for a nap.  Needless to say, she screamed and screamed!  I don't know if it was because it was a different pack n' play or maybe because we didn't put her in her sleep sack, who knows, but she was not wanting to nap in there.  Our little girl, who normally naps around two and a half to three hours a day, only took one one hour nap all day long.  Our plan was then to leave Upland around Samantha's bedtime, have her already in her pajamas, and hope that she would fall asleep in the car for our trip back to Bloomington.  She has done this before when we've been close to her bedtime.  However, just like the rest of the day had gone, she refused to nap for quite a long time in the car.  When she finally gave up and fell asleep, she still woke up and cried periodically throughout our ride home.


The best thing that came of this whole ordeal of very little sleep for Samantha was that I got to rock Samantha to sleep once we got back home.  She was asleep in her car seat when we got home, but of course, doesn't stay asleep after being unbuckled and carried inside the house.  I changed her diaper just for good measure and could tell she would not be happy if I just laid her down immediately.  So, I decided to sit in the glider (which is one of the best and most useful things as a mom!) and rocked my precious, little girl to sleep.  She calmed down instantly as we reclined and rocked together.  I held her close and she buried her face into my shoulder, occasionally rubbing her face back and forth, and quickly falling into a deep sleep.  I haven't had the joy of rocking my baby to sleep like this for many months and holding her close to my chest like that almost brought tears to my eyes.  I never knew my heart could be filled with such great love for such a little person.

To leave the blog on a lighter note, one of Samantha's favorite after meal activities lately is to crawl up onto her high chair after we unbuckle her.  She will pull herself up on the back of the chair and play around.  We also like to play a little game with her, kind of like peek-a-boo.  Here is a video of Samantha playing this game with Daddy.  Her laugh is so contagious!

Samantha is playing peek-a-boo quite a bit lately.  She'll hide behind wall corners and pop out just like her Daddy.  She will hold her toy blanket in front of her face, and I will ask, "Where's Samantha?"  Then, she'll pull the blanket down and I'll say, "There she is!"  She loves it and will repeat it over and over again.  What a happy, easygoing baby God has blessed us with!

Samantha at 47 Weeks: Her First Easter

We've had some interesting weather here in Bloomington, changing from cool to warm.  So, last Tuesday after I picked Samantha up, I decided to attempt to put her hair in pigtails.  It is really hard to put rubber bands around the hair of a moving object.  It took me about ten minutes to corral her enough to get them in, and they weren't exactly even, but they turned out pretty cute!

Then, the next day when we were playing upstairs at home, Samantha was showing a lot of interest in our electric piano, so I took off the cover, placed her on the seat, and let her bang around.  She was very interested in it, and then reached for the hymnal, almost like she was trying to choose a song to play.  Who knows, maybe Samantha will play piano like her mommy some day.

Samantha continues to be a good eater.  She generally eats four jars of food a day, plus we give her some finger foods because she loves to feed herself.  One of her favorite foods are bananas.  Sometimes she has a hard time getting the slimy pieces into her mouth, but she sure gobbles them up.

I had the day off of school on Good Friday, so we decided to take a family trip to Louisville.  We went out to eat at our favorite restaurant from Texas, Chuy's, swim in the hotel pool, and visit the zoo.  Samantha loved the pool.  She splashed her hands up and down in the water, even splashing water into her eyes didn't phase her at all.  We figured she'd like it with how much she likes baths at home.  Her bathing suit from Aunt Christy was so cute on her and fit her perfectly.

The Louisville Zoo was pretty.  We had a beautiful day, and because of the nice weather, there were quite a few families visiting the zoo that day.  Samantha definitely noticed the animals and was very intrigued by watching them move around.  She would point at them and say "da" which she has been doing with a lot of objects lately.  I think she really enjoyed her first experience at a zoo.

Our weekend culminated with the celebration of Easter.  Since we have a little girl, we of course had to dress her up in a cute dress for Easter and try to get a family picture.  Ben figured out how to set the timer on our camera, and we got several good family shots of Samantha's first Easter.

To end, I just wanted to share a cute story about Samantha.  When she nurses, especially before bedtime, she will hold onto her little animal blanket, rubbing her fingers on the soft, fleece fabric on one side and the satin fabric on the other.  She also likes to rub the tags between her fingers while we rock back and forth and she drifts off to sleep.  It reminds me of when I was little, and I would do similar things with my favorite stuffed animal, Snoopy, who had a red ribbon tied around his neck.  I would rub the ends of the ribbon between my fingers, just like Samantha is now doing, so much so that the ribbon turned into a tiny strand in some places.  


We. love. our. sweet. Samantha.

Samantha at 46 Weeks

I know I've mentioned this before, but Samantha loves taking walks in her new stroller that Grandma and Grandpa Toll got her for Christmas.  We try to go on family walks every night after dinner with Roscoe.  She really enjoys them, and it gets us out in the fresh air for awhile.  Here is Samantha in her stroller and also wearing her new outfit she got for Christmas.  It's twelve months, so it's a little big for her, but we wanted to make sure she had a chance to wear it before the weather gets too warm.

Now that the weather is getting so much nicer, we have been trying to spend more time outside.  One night we stopped at the swings at our apartment complex and pushed Samantha in a baby swing for awhile and we even let her experience how the prickly grass feels on her bare feet.

We love to just watch Samantha play in the evenings and try to give her lots of unstructured playtime.  It's amazing how she is learning the meaning of no, and things we don't want her to get into (like the cabinets on our entertainment center or side tables, or even the trash cans) she seems to just leave them alone because we have said no and redirected her so many times, it's almost as if she's listening and following directions.


This past week Samantha got her first real bruise.  She was pulling herself up on the side table by our couch, lost her balance, and fell into the knob on the door of the table.  She turned her face and knob got her square on the cheek, making it turn bright red and a very upset little girl.  Later on, after the redness faded away, she had quite a good sized bruise left on her cheek.

We think Samantha is cute in most everything she wears; however, this past week a parent from my school got her a new skirt and shirt, so we had to try it on her right away.  She kept trying to eat the shirt, so we took it off and it resulted in a shirtless girl in a skirt, quite the funny sight.

I think I forgot to write about this a week or so ago, but Samantha has started clapping now.  She went through a stint for a few days where she would clap all the time, when her diaper was being changed, when we clapped ourselves, in her carseat, or just random times when she feels like it.  Here is a video we got of her clapping.

Other new updates of the week are Samantha eating a lot more than usual and climbing the stairs!  Ever since her nine month appointment we have been feeding her breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and she would maybe eat around three jars a day.  Now, she eating around four and a half jars a day.  She'll eat a jar of fruit mixed with three tablespoons of baby cereal for breakfast, plus sometimes she'll even start another jar of food.  At lunch, she'll usually finish that jar she started of vegetables, plus eat a jar of meat or another vegetable.  Then, for dinner she'll finish anything from lunch and eat another jar, depending on what she's eaten throughout the day.  We were so surprised by this increase in her appetite.  It'll be interesting to see this continues.  We are also giving her a lot more of our food, if we can, like small pieces of bread, bananas, grapes, peas, plain noodles, anything we think she may like.  Also, like I mentioned above Samantha is now climbing the stairs.  She has climbed all the way up several times now, of course always with us spotting her from behind.  We have to watch her a lot more carefully now because the stairs are very intriguing to her.  She loves to explore!


A couple of cute things about Samantha are how she sleeps with her legs pulled up under her and how she moves around her hands.  Every once in a while I get the privilege of peeking in on her while she's sleeping or sneaking into her room in the morning (past the loud noise her bedroom door makes when opened) without her waking up first, and seeing what position she is sleeping in.  Of course she's always on her tummy, but lately I have seen her sleeping with her butt up in the air and her knees pulled up under her, as well as her arms tucked under her chest.  It is extremely cute, but of course, it's always too dark in her room to be able to take any pictures.  Also, almost everyone that sees Samantha notices how she moves her hands around.  She holds her arms out to the sides and almost rotates her wrists around.  It's hard to describe.  She does it most when she is excited about something, but she was also do it when she gets overly frustrated.  This little character trait of hers is very endearing.