18 month update

Dear Samantha,

Yesterday you turned 18 months old. It’s amazing to think that you’ve only been part of our family for a year and a half, because already I find it hard to remember life without you. It’s hard to recall how different our family dynamic was back when Lana played subdued games of hide and seek with the adults in the house and took splash-free baths all by herself. Or to remember how we went out to dinner and everyone remained at our table throughout the meal without getting up to make friends with all the other diners. Is it even possible that we once averaged only a couple of bodily injuries per week? You’ve brought excitement to our lives!

All kidding aside, it’s been a delight to watch your lovely personality grow and develop new dimensions with each and every passing day. You have such a kind heart and like everyone you meet as soon as you meet them. Unlike your sister at this age, you have no intrinsic fear of strangers and are more than happy to be picked up by the kindly mother in the booth behind us at dinner so you can get a better look at her baby. This obviously means I have to worry about you a bit more than Lana, but I like the way you show no fear in new situations and assume that strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.

You don’t limit your friends to humans, either. You are a natural animal lover and enjoy nothing more than encountering a dog while on a walk or at the playground. Your father has developed a new interest in fish over the past couple months, so we’ve spent a lot of time at pet stores looking around while he buys fish and then again when he returns them after they die. One day we arrived as the store employees were setting up for pet adoptions and found a couple of tiny kittens in a carrier. Lana zeroed in on the kittens immediately, but you were distracted by the fish and joined us after a few minutes. When you finally wandered over and peered down into the carrier, one of the kittens looked up at you and meowed in his tiny little kitten voice. You snapped your head back to me with a look of utter amazement and said to me, “MEOW!” in the cutest way imaginable. It was so cute that you actually out-cuted a kitten, so that’s really saying something.

It turns out that animals don’t even have to be cute for you to like them. You show just as much interest in the creepy crawly variety and don’t seem to understand why those aren’t welcome in our home. One day your Granny caught a spider in our house and transported it to the nearest toilet. You followed merrily along saying, “Hi!” to the spider and “Bye!” once it began the ride down the drain. And then the realization hit that the spider was GONE and you cried like you’d lost your best friend.

You are talking more and more every day now, and by talking I mostly mean barking out one word commands: “GO! MAMA! JUICE! CHEESE! GOLF CART! SHOES! LANA!” and the like. (That’s right, “golf cart” is one of the first things you’ve learned to say. We are SO Peachtree City.) Your favorite television show right now is a Nickelodeon program called Bubble Guppies. It’s about a bunch of singing mermaids (merkids?) that explore new things like camping, sports, space, and marching bands. When you’re in the mood to watch, you grab the remote and wave it around while yelling “BUBBLE!!!” at the top of your lungs. With your sister, we tried very hard to avoid all television until she was two years old. That’s proving to be harder with you for a couple of reasons. First off, you want to do whatever your sister is doing, and sometimes that’s watching shows like Bubble Guppies. Secondly, you spend a big part of the day careening through the house looking for the most dangerous activities you can find, so a few minutes in front of the television feels like welcome relief. Besides, Lana has learned all about the solar system and air travel from Bubble Guppies, so it can’t be that bad!

We concluded the month with a trip to your pediatrician for your 18 month checkup. Dr. Leard asked me if you were having any problems, but I didn’t mention the fact that I can’t open the dishwasher without you getting your hands on a steak knife or how you try to climb on everything in our house, including the dog. Instead I said, “Samantha is absolutely perfect and I’m totally, head-over-heals in love with her.” Because I really am, my beautiful baby girl.

Love,
Mama

Ten Month Update

Dear Samantha,

You experienced some big changes in the past month, not the least of which was turning 10 months old in a new house. If it sounds sudden, well it kind of was. You see, in mid-June your father and I went out with my second cousin and local real estate guru to casually scout out homes and neighborhoods in Peachtree City. We checked out three houses that ran the spectrum from sort of gross to not bad and then, BAM! We walked into the fourth house and instantly fell in love. It was a house that had everything we wanted and then some. A house that we could see you and your sister growing up in. A house that had just been listed at a bargain foreclosure price and, even in this terrible market, was sure to sell quickly. So, your father and I did something that was kind of crazy for us. We made an offer before even putting our old house on the market. Then we made another offer when a bidding war ensued. And we walked away with the keys to the house of our dreams.


I’m still not sure how things worked out so perfectly, but we sold our old house in record time, managed to paint the bedrooms in the new house (with help from Poppy!) over the course of a couple weekends, and found ourselves packing a moving truck by early August. We sent you to Granny and Poppy’s house the night before the big move so we could disassemble your crib and keep you out of the moving day chaos. Lana, on the other hand, remained at home so she could witness the move. She had lots of questions for us and the movers, like what kind of foods do the movers eat to get so big and strong? The answer? Vegetables, of course! She was also more than happy to help unpack all the toys in our brand new playroom.

By the time you arrived to the new house in the late afternoon, we had all the furniture in the house setup and the upstairs rooms all ready for you and Lana. The very first move you made was toward the stairs, of course. You climbed straight up them like an old pro and then crawled as fast as you could to the playroom. I wish now that I had videotaped the look on your face when you entered the room with all your toys, many of which had been boxed up due to a lack of space at our old house, spread out around you. Your squeal of delight made all the stress and turmoil of the preceding months completely worthwhile.

It took us no time at all to feel at home in our new place and, for you, that meant spending a LOT of time climbing the stairs. You were really great at going up the stairs and I’m sure you could have gone down even faster, but my strong desire to keep you in one piece forced me to gate them off as much as possible. This just forced you to seek out other sources of danger, though. You became increasingly fascinated with the toilets in the house. The little stools positioned in front of each one (for big sister) made them far too accessible. One day I caught you standing on top of a stool with your head half way in the toilet bowl, just centimeters from touching gross toilet water. Did I mention that your sister is also not the most reliable flusher? Such a bad combination!

Since I kept foiling your attempts to play in the toilet, you tried very hard to make the most out of your baths each night. You splashed until every surface in the bathroom was soaked and you made a game out of repeatedly standing up and sitting back down very quickly to make even more bathtub waves. During one round of this, you managed to lurch forward and catch the corner of a bath toy directly with your face. It left an instant black eye and slowed you down for almost an entire minute. Then it was right back to splashing.

Your black eye lasted for almost a week and was far more traumatic for me than for you. Every time I took you to the store I feared judgment and accusatory looks, but apparently many of the kind folks of Peachtree City have similar experiences with kamikaze babies. I got lots of sympathy and “been there, done that” stories from other parents and grandparents. Days went by and the Department of Family and Child Services did not come knocking on our door. So I was feeling pretty good as we finished settling into the house and began preparing Lana for the start of Pre-K. One of our assignments was to record her responses to a questionnaire about her likes and dislikes. When I asked her to respond to the statement, “I feel sad when…” she looked me square in the face and responded, “I feel sad when no one will give me anything to eat.” NO SHE DIDN’T. Your ridiculously skinny sister, who would probably be the only kid starting Pre-K at barely 30 lbs, was asking me to write down on a school form that no one would feed her. My head swiveled from her skinny frame to your shiny black eye and I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I did not spend the last three years begging Lana to eat, the last three months moving you kids to a house in a good school district, and the last month rescuing you from the toilet to have you become wards of the state. So we wrote that she feels sad when we won’t let her watch television. Because that thing will rot your brain and we never allow it unless Shrek, Tinkerbell, Yo Gabba Gabba, Monster’s Inc., Madagascar, Word Girl, or one of those awesomely bad Barbie movies is on.

This will have to go down as one of the craziest months in the Mayes family history, but we survived it (mostly) intact and ended up settled in a home that we can enjoy and grow in for many, many years to come. Just keep your head out of the toilets, my sweet baby girl.

Love,
Mama

Nine Month Update

Dear Samantha,

Nine months old already! Once again, I’m amazed at how quickly nine months goes by when you’re not pregnant. Nine months as an uncomfortable, enormous pregnant lady seems like an eternity, but nine months as the mother to a baby as precious as you can never last long enough.

You spent the last month following in the footsteps of your favorite character, Dora the Explorer. You explored every inch of our house, mostly by crawling to and fro shoving everything you could find into your mouth. I don’t even want to think about how much BPA you ingested from the enormous amounts of plastic toys and packaging that you gnawed on. Or, what kinds of grossness might have been on the shoes I was constantly prying out of your mouth. You loved, in particular, shoe laces. Untying, twisting, pulling, and sucking on them -- it was all good as far as you were concerned.

The one thing you did not stick in your mouth last month was a blankie. THANK YOU FOR THAT. I spent at least three years of my life cleaning disgusting, germ laden bunny blankies soaked wet from your sister stuffing them in her mouth, so it was a huge relief to me that you did not begin sucking on cloth to soothe yourself. For your money, nothing was better than your left thumb. And why not? It was just the right size and it never ended up dropped on the side of the road or left behind at a wildlife refuge with free-roaming Llamas. Or left under a table at a restaurant. Or in a cubby at school. Oh, the drama we endured with sister’s bunnies… but I digress. Where were we then? Oh yes, thumbs. They rock. Your thumb-sucking habit was nice not only because your thumb never got lost and was easy to clean, but also because it was a reliable indicator for when you were tired or hungry. If the thumb was in your mouth, it was time to eat or time to sleep. Everything in life should be so simple.

To distract you from the many delicious shoes and plastic bits around the house, we took you to our neighborhood pool for the first time. Walking through the gate, I was immediately reminded of the first time we brought Lana to the pool three years earlier, and not just because you wore the same bathing suit. Your reactions really could not have been more different, though. My 10 month old Lana took in that enormous body of blue water and looked at me like, “That can’t possibly be safe. Are you sure that water is properly cleaned and those lifeguards are adequately trained?” And you, my dear, looked at me like, "HELLS YEAH! Let's do this thing!” Lana couldn’t be forced into the water and you couldn’t get in fast enough. Your big sister eventually grew to love the pool, but it took multiple trips and many baby steps to get her comfortable in the water. You, on the other hand, just jumped right in and splashed until I thought your little arms would fall off.

I’m sorry to hijack your update with another comparison to your sister, but I’m constantly amazed by the dramatic differences in your personalities. You are both very much your own people, even at this young age -- a fact that both amuses and thrills me. Before you were born I envisioned raising a little Lana clone, which makes you quite a surprise. A wonderful, fearless, adorable surprise. I love both you and your sister dearly for the different people you are and can’t wait to see what you do next.

All my love,
Mama

Eight Month Update

Dear Samantha,

Your eighth month went by in a blur – a blur of arms and legs, knees and hands. You learned to crawl this month and took off with the enthusiasm of a teenager who had just received her driver’s license. The freedom! The need for speed! The look of terror on Mom’s face!

You crawled from room to room as fast as your little limbs would take you, exploring and doing your best to keep up with big sister. Unfortunately, like a teenage driver, you were also prone to accidents and experienced more than your share of face plants and wipeouts. The spills were not enough to temper your enthusiasm for crawling, though. After the harder falls, you would pick yourself up and crawl over to me crying or chanting “Ma, ma, ma, ma, ma.” I would hold you and let you nuzzle into my neck and in no time you were hurling yourself back down to the floor to start going again.

You were in such a hurry to get moving that you began to sit in a sort of ready position, with one leg extended in front of you and the other folded back like a sprinter stretching her quad out before a big race. From that position you could sit and play with a toy or whatever random thing you uncovered that you really shouldn’t have and then launch into a crawl in an instant. It was rare to find you sitting any way other than this. Come to think of it, it was rare to find you sitting at all this month.

You began pulling yourself up to a standing position within days of learning to crawl. Your dad found you standing up in your crib for the first time when he went to check in on you after putting you down for a nap. You were so angry that you should be expected to spend a perfectly good Saturday afternoon napping that you literally stood up to protest. And so it began.

With your newfound mobility came an intense distaste for anything that required you to hold still. That included diaper changes, nail clippings, naps, and changes of clothing. I would often break a sweat after baths in the evening while struggling to get you dressed. You would flip and roll and generally refuse to remain stationary long enough for me to close the exasperating snaps on your favorite pajamas. On one particularly challenging evening, I handed you off to your father and told him I’d rather try to put pajamas on a feral cat. At least then the scratches would be easy to explain.

You may have developed a wild streak, my darling, but you we no less loveable or squeezable because of it. In fact, with you on the go so much, the cuddles and hugs we shared were all the more precious.

Love,
Mama

Seven Month Update

Dear Samantha,

You turned seven months old today. Okay, I lied. You actually turned seven months over a month ago, but I am post-dating my blogs to mask the fact that I am perpetually a month behind on your updates. Life is so incredibly busy right now that I want to spend any spare moments I can find soaking up your wonderful baby smell, your wide, gummy smile, and gobbling up your sweet little cheeks. You are growing up so, so fast, my baby girl. I want to soak up every moment with you, not spend my free time pecking away on a keyboard.

But here I am, pecking away on the keyboard while you and your sister sleep because I know this time will pass quickly and by writing these posts I will always have reminders of you as my sweet, chubby-legged little baby. And when I look back on your seventh month of life I want to remember how you nestled into my neck when I held you, how you began chanting “Ma, ma, ma” when you saw me, and most of all how you wanted me, your Mama, more than anyone else. You began playing a game this month with your father and your grandparents where you would hold out your arms to be held by one and then just as quickly turn around to hold out your arms and return to the other. I think you enjoyed being able to control the game as well as your movements in this way. But you wouldn’t play the game with Mama because, for this month at least, there was no place you’d rather be than in my arms. Thank you for that, sweetie. I now officially forgive you for all those ninja womb kicks and the raging pregnancy indigestion.

Speaking of movement, you made great strides in that arena this month. You learned how to maintain a sitting position for extended periods of time and very nearly mastered the elusive art of reaching a sitting position by yourself. You made a few attempts to crawl but soon decided it was much easier and more efficient to just roll wherever you wanted to go. You rolled from one end of this house to another and formally kicked off what I’m sure will be an ongoing battle with your sister over disturbing her stuff. She talked a big game for the first six months of your life about how, when you got bigger, she would share this and that with you. She was not, however, prepared for you to get bigger so soon. And that makes two of us.

Lana also spent the last six months explaining to us that she can’t share food with you because you don’t have teeth. She won’t be able to use that excuse much longer, though, since you went ahead and sprouted two of them this month. They showed up one morning, practically out of the blue. Your Omo had just finished feeding you lunch and turned to me to ask, “Did you know she has two teeth coming through?” Sure enough, there they were. Two adorable bottom teeth like a baby in a magazine. Looking back, I should not have been surprised by the lack of fanfare around the emergence of those first teeth. It is so in keeping with your extremely laid back personality, your lack of DRAMA. That’s something I’m still getting used to, you know. I don’t want to label your sister a Drama Queen, but she did storm off to her room no less than three times today because the lunch options and/or selection of pre-recorded television shows did not please her.

Finally, I cannot complete a summary of this month without mentioning that we at last got you sleeping (mostly) through the night without the help of a Miracle Blanket. This is one thing you and your sister definitely have in common -- you both slept incredibly well swaddled tightly in the Miracle Blanket and gave us hell at night when we tried to take you out of it. We finally bit the bullet and put you down one evening without wrapping you up. To my dismay, you immediately flipped onto your stomach. Even though you looked extremely comfortable, I was sure you would suffocate. So I tried to ever so carefully roll you onto your back. You just jammed your thumb in your mouth and rolled right back onto your tummy. After a couple more attempts, I finally gave up and spent a restless night worrying about whether or not you’d be breathing in the morning. You were kind enough to wake me up at 4:30 am shrieking to let me know you still had plenty of air in your lungs. Unfortunately, you continued waking up early like that for the rest of the month, long after I’d come to terms with your tummy sleeping preference. Granted, you almost always drank a bottle and then went right back to sleep, but waking up at 4:30 am is not okay under any circumstances.

It was another amazing month, my sweet baby girl. Every second I spend with you is special, even when it is before five in the morning.

Love,
Mama

Six Month Update

Dear Samantha,

Half a year has flown by so fast! To celebrate, we took you on your very first vacation to one of our favorite drivable destinations - Destin, Florida. As it turns out, the trip is considerably less drivable when you factor in spring break traffic, a restless three and a half year old who requires constant potty breaks, and a six month old baby who suddenly, inexplicably, refuses to sleep in the car. What should have been a five or six-hour trip turned into a nine hour ordeal. Thank goodness we arrived in time to enjoy a glimpse of the ocean in the moonlight and two sets of grandparents ready to take over and give Mommy and Daddy a well deserved dinner break.

The trip improved considerably from that point onward, although both you and your sister spent the first day or two with fevers and runny noses. We avoided a trip to urgent care this time around, though… so, SUCCESS! You were still a little too young to enjoy the beach and the pool, but you were incredibly content to sit out on the balcony with your Poppy and let the sound of the ocean lull you to sleep. You also had a blast hanging out with your Omo and Opop in the condo they rented in the same complex. For my part, it was such a pleasure to have a whole week with no work and nothing but time to spend with you and Lana. A little bit more time than I liked was spent awake with you in the middle of the night, but you were so sweet about it that I couldn’t even be mad at you. Also, your Granny rescued me early every morning and let me catch up on some much needed sleep. You’ve got some seriously awesome grandparents, my dear.

Speaking of amazing family, we should talk about the object of your adoration -- your big sister, Lana. You spent most of the month tracking her every move and basking in the warm glow of her attention. Lana was similarly delighted by your fascination with her. I heard, “Mom, she smiled at me!” more times than I can count. It is absolutely amazing to witness the growing bond between the two of you, even if it means you are unwilling to nap whenever she’s around. The two of you are the most special little people in the world to me and the fact that you adore each other just makes it all the sweeter. I hope you always remember how lucky you are to have each other, even when Lana refuses to share her Little Pet Shop toys and you refuse to keep them out of your mouth.

Thank you for another wonderful month, my beautiful baby girl.

Love,
Mama

Five Month Update

Dear Samantha,

We’ve reached the five month mark! You spent the last few weeks checking off a number of your developmental milestones, including the completion of that roll you’ve spent the past couple months attempting. You torqued your little body around until you at last made it from your back to your tummy, where you could finally view everything from right side up, push up a bit with your arms and then… wail because you realize that being on your tummy sucks.

And so went this month of frustration, this period where you are too small to do the things you really want to do like sitting up by yourself or crawling and too big to be content hanging out flat on your back on the floor. It seems to be made even worse by your supreme fascination with your big sister, that ball of fire who races from room to room leaving a trail of stuffed animals in her wake. I’ve heard before that second children try to do everything sooner in order to keep up with their older siblings, but I was not prepared for a five month old baby who so clearly wants to LET IT BEGIN! LET IT BEGIN! To run, dance, draw, and join the tea parties. To drink chocolate milk and eat Lucky Charms. To do anything that doesn’t require a Bumbo Seat to keep you upright.

Fortunately, we were able to appease you a bit with the green light from your doctor to introduce solid foods. Your first couple attempts with rice cereal were clumsy and reminded me of Lana’s first meals, but by feeding number three you were downing the cereal like a pro and trying to grab the spoon out of your father’s slow, slow hands. It took only a couple of tries before you were polishing off an entire package of baby food at each sitting. Your favorites so far are prunes (Lana calls it your chocolate), pears, applesauce, and sweet potatoes. You’ll tolerate squash, carrots, and green beans. You will frown, gag, and refuse to open your mouth if we dare come at you with peas.

Speaking of refusals, what do you have against giggling? Mommy’s love nothing better than the sweet tinkling sound of their babies giggles, you know. WHY WON’T YOU TINKLE FOR MAMA? I did, at least, get to enjoy a couple of authentic giggles for the first time this month. The first one happened while I was getting you ready for bed in your room. You let out a dainty little sneeze and I responded with an AHH CHOO of my own. That struck you as giggle-worthy just long enough for your father to rush into the room and share in the delight of the moment. I spent days after that making sneezing noises like an allergic crazy woman, but got nothing more than a patronizing chuckle out of you. That’s your typical response now when something amuses you -- a quick chuckle that sounds like an old man reacting to a joke at his local Kiwanis Club.

You may laugh like an old dude, my dear, but you’ve got the most precious smile that is all baby. It lights up your whole face and melts my heart every single time I see it. I love you so, so much my precious Samantha Claire.

Love,
Mama

Four Month Update

Dear Samantha,

You turned four months old today and this will undoubtedly go down in our family history as the month of The Great Spit Up. Or, to be more precise, the spit down the back of our shirts, across our laps, on each of the 50 some bibs we own, all over the carpet… basically on everything and everyone besides Lana and Rico, who were wise enough to steer clear. It was a strange development given that for the first three months of your life we barely even needed a burp cloth, much less a tarp. It was also incredibly stressful to watch you go from a happy, content baby focused on learning to use your hands and trying to rollover to a miserable fountain of spit up caught in an endless cycle of eating, retching, and crying.

Your pediatrician diagnosed you with acid reflux and we began administering twice daily doses of Zantac. For another week we saw almost no improvement so I started contemplating radical diet changes including the elimination of all dairy products (the HORROR!). Luckily, the medicine kicked in on day number six and I got my happy baby back without having to sacrifice my love of cheese and ice cream.

Once you returned to us from the spit up-induced funk, you began testing your voice through increasingly loud babbling and squeals. You were eager to join in conversations and your father and I spent more than a few dinners caught in the crossfire between your squeals and Lana’s continuous stream of stories about the latest episode of Diego or the new Barbie and the Mermaid toy on television. I guess that’s what we can expect from dinners for years to come -- a cacophony of girl talk that ends only when you both become surly teenagers with no interest in speaking to us.



Your other main interest this month was the continued decimation of your poor little head. You rubbed it back and forth across your crib mattress, car seat, floor, etc., until the only hair that remained was a couple small patches at the base of your skull and the very top of your head. The sides of your head were often covered in scratches from where you clawed at yourself with those little fingernails that I can‘t seem to keep cut short enough. In fact, you tore at yourself so much this month that your father and I began calling you “Lady Gouga.” (I sincerely hope you won’t get that reference by the time you’re old enough to read this).

Head injuries aside, we ended the month in much better shape than we began it. I’ve spent a ton of time bragging about what an easy baby you are, so this may well have been the Universe telling me, “Don’t get cocky, woman.” I’m sure we’ll have more bumps in the road to come, but we’ll get through them as a family. A family that wouldn’t be the same without you, my precious Samantha.

Love,
Mama

Three Month Update

Dear Samantha,

You turn three months old today. Shortly after writing your two month update in which I complained about your reluctance to sleep at night, I gave my old friend the Miracle Blanket one more shot. I swaddled you up nice and tight, laid you down in your crib, turned on the Sound Spa Lullaby ceiling projection and held my breath as you squirmed around in the blanket. Darned if you didn’t settle down almost immediately and drift peacefully off to sleep. And you stayed asleep for a whopping SEVEN HOURS! I was a new woman after a full night of sleep and you were a new, much happier baby in the morning. Instead of screaming at me to GET YOU A BOTTLE NOW!!! you emerged from your Miracle Blanket stretching calmly and flashing your beautiful, dimpled smile.

Your amazing sleep transformation continued for most of the month, save for one night when you woke up at 3 am. I stumbled into your room and found you almost entirely out of the blanket, waving your arms around and grinning at me like a miniature Houdini. Anyone who has ever used a Miracle Blanket knows they are almost impossible to escape from since they use a baby’s body weight to restrain her arms tightly at her side. And no offense, Sweetie, but you’ve got a lot of body weight to keep that sucker wrapped up tight. Apparently you also have a lot of strength because I wrapped you up even tighter when I laid you down again at 5 am and by 7 am you had busted free once more. You seemed thoroughly amused by your new escape act, but I was downright devastated. Luckily, a switch to Lana’s old, magic Miracle Blanket (instead of the new one scored at a consignment sale) and some aggressive swaddling put a stop to your break outs and you resumed sleeping peacefully through the night for stretches up to 10 hours.

Sleeping through the night not only saved my sanity, but also provided you with the energy to spend more time awake and alert during the day. You thoroughly enjoy sitting in our laps and watching Lana run around, dance, and play. She rarely slows down enough to actually interact with you, but when she does you reward her with some of your brightest smiles. Lana’s done a great job of adjusting to your addition to our family and I know she's very happy to have a baby sister, even if she doesn’t show a ton of interest in you yet. One day we went to pick her up from school and I set you down on the floor in your car seat while I gathered Lana’s things. Several little girls crowded around to see you, and Lana proudly announced, “That’s my Baby Samantha. She’s so cute!”

You’ve also spent some time at the end of this month trying your hardest to roll from your back onto your stomach. You came dangerously close to completing the roll for the first time on my very first day back to work. I guess you were showing off for your grandparents, who were at the house watching you that day. Fortunately, I am still working from home where I can see you throughout the day and make a mad dash downstairs when you start attempting milestones like your first rollover. I’m also incredibly lucky to have some great family to care for you while I work. You have so many people who love you dearly already, my Moon Pie, and none more than me.

Love,
Mama

Two Month Update

Dear Samantha,

Two months old already -- where does the time go? It’s amazing to me that, despite the fact I’m up almost round the clock, the days and weeks are flying by. I spend a lot of time awake at 2am or 4am or sometimes both because you still insist on eating every three hours or so, and only occasionally reward me with a stretch of sleep longer than four hours at night. The old tricks that helped Lana sleep so well so soon seem to have little impact on you. We spike your bottle with rice cereal -- you wolf it down and demand more a few hours later. We swaddle you in a Miracle Blanket -- you grunt and groan until we free you and give you back your much beloved thumbs. You remain a lovely, pleasant, easy to get along with baby and settle down the second a bottle is inserted in your mouth, so I don’t dread the nights the way I did when Lana would scream until my ears bled. But sweet will only get you so far, kid. Mama needs to sleep.

The lack of sleep has, however, become easier to handle due to the emergence of your heart-melting, dimpled smile. I knew from past experience that the time would come when I would reach down to pick you up and you would grace me with a smile that says, “Hey, you’re that woman that pumps milk for me, stays up at night with me, and cleans poop off me. I think I like you.” Sure enough, that moment came at 4am on December 9th and it was even better than I remembered. It sure as hell made the 4am wake up call easier to swallow.

Since then you’ve smiled and cooed and made me yearn for more free time to spend gazing into your sweet, round face. I have no small amount of guilt about the additional demands on my time (most notably your sister) that prevent me from holding you as much as I would like. Fortunately, you demand very little and you have an amazing set of grandparents to help give you the extra attention you deserve. Please know that although I may not always have you in my arms, you are always in my heart.

Love,
Mama