Twelve Weeks (and Changing)

Dearest Samantha,

Happy twelve weeks! It seemed that you were changing as often as your diapers were this past week...

But I digress. We began with a weekend in the mountains with Daddy's cousins and their kids. It's amazing how much change a mere year can bring to a family. Last summer, your father and I were childless, your Auntie Bethany & Uncle Brent were "with child" (but didn't know it yet), and your Auntie Beth was about to get the surprise of a lifetime (Uncle Tom proposed shortly after last year's cousins' weekend). Fast forward to this summer: the family got two new babies, and Aunt Beth & Uncle Tom joined us as husband and wife. All of this talk of change makes me wonder what cousins' weekend 2010 is going to bring!

Craziness abounds when the Patzkowskys are around!

The time spent in Shaver Lake was fantastic--the "girls" went on walks (you enjoyed being carried in your Baby Bjorn Disneyland style) and the "boys" went fishing and dirt bike riding. I had a great time--and I was especially excited to see baby Keston (who we hadn't seen in all summer!).

This was your first meeting. You were a week old and he was two months old. You tried to eat his ear shortly after this picture was taken.

And here you are, two months later (he's four months and you're two and a half months). No ears were harmed in the taking of this picture.

We came back from Shaver and headed home...right into some major changes for you. For starters, we didn't put the portable pack in play back up when we returned from the trip. We decided to actually use your nursery and let you sleep in your crib. Although it took a little while to get you used to sleeping in your own room, I think it's better for all of us. At least, you're not complaining much--once you go to sleep, you're out until the morning...and you're still sleeping 8-10 hours a night...but we're still not talking about that because we don't want to jinx it. But way to go, Sammie!

The next morning, I decided to institute another change: your bottles. We had been feeding you four ounces out of the smaller Avent bottles...but in the past few weeks you've just been acting like those smaller bottles aren't cutting it for you. You were getting fussier sooner between feedings (and getting frustrated that the formula wasn't coming out fast enough)...so, I brought out the big guns: the mamba jamba gigantor Avent bottle:

I took this picture for comparison's sake. The bigger bottles holds more than two times what the smaller bottle. It's insanely huge next to your little head. I would've taken that picture, for kicks and giggles, as well, but you're sleeping (on hour one of what will hopefully be a nine hour night)
and I don't want to wake you up.

At any rate, taking 6 ounces (two more ounces than you were used to) in a bigger bottle with a faster flowing nipple proved to be too much for you, because on Sunday night you were NOT a happy camper. Your daddy's friends came over to meet you for the first time and they must've thought we were lying the whole time we were telling them that you were a happy baby because your miserable little stomach was definitely communicating otherwise to our dinner guests.

On Monday (my first day back at work...but more on that in a moment), I tried to remedy the situation by scaling back to five ounces a feeding. I kept the big bottles, but replaced the newer nipple with the same ones you had been using for the past month and a half. I think this may have done the trick...because come Monday night, you were a much happier baby and I was very tempted to put you in the car and drive you over to your daddy's friends so I could hold your smiling face in front of theirs and say "See?!?! We're not crazy lying parents--she really is a happy baby!"

I managed to keep my "I told you so's" in check that night, but it sure did take a lot of self restraint on my part.

I was partially able to keep myself in line because, as I mentioned earlier, Monday was my first day back at school. We had meetings on Monday and Tuesday and yesterday (Wednesday) the summer really came to an end when the students walked through the doors of my classroom. It was very difficult to leave you at home (and in the care of your Auntie Beth, Nonni, Grandma Max & Daddy), but I had to go back to make some money so you have a place to continue sleeping in your nursery and with the mamba jamba bottles to drink out of.

I'm hoping that the 7AM-2:30PM time frame goes by really quickly each day, because I gotta tell ya, each time I look at your little face in the pictures that I've got ALL OVER my classroom*, it takes all I've got within me to keep from getting in my car and driving home to hold you and kiss you and tell you that I love you.

Well, it's getting late, and I've got to *groan* get up early tomorrow morning, so I'm going to sign off. I love you!

Sending you tons of kisses,
your mommy

*PS. When I said that I have pictures of you all over my classroom, I mean that literally--I added over 50 pictures of you to my bulletin board. I will try to get a picture of that for next week's update. I also shamelessly put your pictures in the power point that introduces the class syllabus.