Scootching & Growing

Dear Miss Sammie,

Your days of being stationary are numbered. In the past week (happy 18 weeks, by the way), you’ve decided that laying there isn’t enough. You’ve also figured out that if you use your legs, you can get places.

So…you’ve started moving. It’s in little increments, but you’re moving nonetheless. When you’re on your back, you arch your back and use your legs to scoot your body in one direction or another to get closer to whichever toy or object pleases you at the moment. When you’re on your stomach, you lift up your upper body and keep moving your legs until you’re scootching off the blanket.

Gulp. I guess now we *really* have to make sure all of the childproofing we did last year with your grandparents and aunts and uncles is going to hold up, because you already like to get into everything.

And whatever you get ahold of, you put in your mouth. As in, one day when Roxy’s tail got within grabbing distance, you thought it might be fit for a snack so you started smacking away. Roxy wasn’t quite sure what to do with that, but since I took her tail out of your mouth, she’s been pretty careful to stay out of your grabbing zone.

In other news, I think I’m fooling myself if I think I can keep your four month self in the 3/6 month clothes for much longer…as in, through the fall season. The onesies that fit so perfectly back in August are getting harder and harder to snap. Sigh. I tried to be a good mommy and stock up on the clothes that were on sale—but I never anticipated a growth spurt of this proportion. So…the outfits that were supposed to last for a whole three months will likely only be used for seven weeks.

It should be interesting when I get the bag of 6-9 month clothes out this weekend. I thought for sure that we’d be well into winter when you wore this new batch of outfits, but as a result of this mistaken assumption many of the clothes that we’ve got for you to wear are for the cooler days and nights. I’m fairly certain that the oh-so-cute overalls and sweatshirt getup will not be oh-so-practical as the temperature outside continues to stay in the triple digits.

Nuts. Maybe your dad wouldn’t mind if I turned the air conditioner down to 50 degrees for a few hours so we could do a rapid modeling session—long enough to wear and photograph all of the winter outfits—like those butterfly overalls and sweatshirts? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

Can’t blame a momma for trying.

Love you tons,

Your mommy

Nothing New...This Week

Dearest Sammie,

Happy 17 weeks sweetie! There haven’t been a whole lot of major milestones going on this week (hey, every busy girl’s got to take a rest sometime, I understand). In fact, this past week has been kind of…boring. And given the excitement and craziness of the past month (heck, the past four months), I’m totally okay with taking a break from the chaos for a very lovely “boring” week.

As the school year goes on, I’m getting more settled and used to the idea that I’ve joined the working mom club. As in…I have to go teach while your father gets the joy of staying home with you.

I think it’s harder on me than it is on you, because frankly, you and your father seem to be quite content to be two peas in a pod. He’s still getting a kick out of watching you feed yourself from a bottle (last night he proudly proclaimed that you had fed yourself “95% of the time”). He’s also leaving the comforts of his chair more often and getting down on the ground to chat with you on the activity mat. For someone who teased me so mercilessly for saying “ooga booga” to you to get you to smile, he sure has been using that phrase quite often. He even wrote it on the bathroom mirror this morning, after wishing me a good day!

While your father’s been using what only can best be described as the new Vogt household catchphrase, you and I have settled into a (dare I say it?) ROUTINE. When I come home from school (seriously 2:30 cannot come soon enough), if you’re not taking an afternoon nap, I’ll pick you up and chat with you. Usually, you’ve got quite a bit of things to say. Then it’s time for a bottle followed by naptime for an hour and a half while I get dinner ready. Once you wake up, we chat and play a little more, hanging out on your mat and putting you on your stomach so you can continue to lift your head up and strengthen your upper body muscles.

Around eight, I take you into your bedroom where we begin our bedtime routine: onesie, diaper change, swaddle and book. The book part was a new thing. Your Nonni pointed out last week that you really like to be read to, so I’m trying my best to read to you every night. It’s amazing how you sit and stare at those books, taking each page in as I read to you from your growing library. This week, we’ve been reading Sandra Boynton’s ‘Going to Bed Book.’ The lyrical rhythms have been doing a pretty good job of lulling you to sleep, because when we finish and put you in bed with a quick kiss and cuddle, you’re usually pretty content to lie in your crib and watch your mobile for a few minutes before turning to the clown/star/blue thing next to you and falling asleep.

Note that I said *usually* it works. Last night, I came home from a late night of teaching my college class in Visalia and was surprised to see that you weren’t in bed yet. I guess you had gotten pretty used to our little routine, because when I came home, Daddy and Grandma Max told me about the fit you had thrown a half hour before. They couldn’t calm you down…but they also hadn’t gotten past step two of the onesie/diaper change/swaddle/book technique.

I picked you up from Grandma Max’s arms, and you pretty quickly woke up and proceeded to sigh and tell me how your day was. It was almost like you were saying “Mom, I tried everything to get them to listen to me and follow our routine, but it didn’t work. I gave up and just fell asleep in Grandma’s arms instead.” You melted my heart, last night, kiddo.

I didn’t want what happened last night to happen again next Wednesday night when I teach again, so I had your father watch as I executed our bedtime ritual. This would be why I said that *usually* you like to be read to at night. Last night, of all nights, you decided to fuss as I read to you. With your father watching. So now he doesn’t believe me when I say that you like book time. Hmph. At least you fell asleep fairly quickly—I don’t think you were awake 10 seconds after I put you down.

So…that’s the boringness that was this week. I did spend sometime last weekend sticking you in your bumbo and taking what can only be described as an insane amount of pictures. I think you like getting your picture taken, because when I moved the camera over your head to get a picture of the bow you were wearing, you moved your head to face the camera. So then I moved the camera to the right—and again, there you were following the camera. This went on for a while—camera shy, you definitely are not. You really are my daughter!

You enjoyed making funny faces...

...and flashing the camera...

Notice that wherever the camera is, your eyes are focused and ready for your photo op...

...and this would be my favorite picture that I've taken of you EVER:

I love you like crazy and can’t wait until 2:30 so we can have our afternoon chat,

Your mommy

Hey Honey, You Gotta See This!

Dear Sammie,

Today, you turned sixteen weeks old. To be more specific, you are 113 days, 10 hours and 41 minutes (as I write this). You’re my big girl now!

Last week, I wrote about you making the steps towards holding your bottle. This week, there’s no steps about it: you ARE holding your bottle. Daddy is so amazed with this particular milestone. Each time you grab your bottle and ferociously put it in your mouth, he yells for me to come and watch you hold (and devour) your full bottle. That’s pretty impressive for a three and a half month old baby, Miss Sammie!

Holding your bottle as a proud Daddy looks on.

That said, it’s confession time. I’ve been told by everyone (friends, grandparents, photographer…you get the idea) that I need to give you “tummy time.” I knew that I SHOULD be giving you tummy time, but I haven’t been doing it then requisite ten minutes a day (so you could do better at lifting your head while laying on your back). In a nutshell, you screamed like a banshee whenever you were placed tummy down. In my defense, I tried on more than one occasion to lay you on your tummy so you could continue to strengthen your already Herculean neck muscles, but my efforts were circumvented by the crying that inevitably followed when you weren’t on your back.

That WAS the case until this week, at least. A few days ago, I reluctantly placed you on your stomach…and waited for the tears. Only, the tears never came. Ok…this could work! I grabbed the toy keys nearby and started rattling them in front of your face so that you had to lift your head to see where the noise was coming from. I watched your face as the light bulb went on. Gradually, you planted your hands on either side and pushed not just your head but your whole upper body up so that you could see what these *magic* keys were doing now. This phenomenon continued for two whole minutes.

Things are looking up, baby!

Now it was my turn to excitedly shout for your father to see what you were doing…and we both watched in amazement as yet another milestone was crossed off of your list. Unlike the rolling over phenomenon that happened several weeks ago, this milestone is one that has been repeated several times in the past few days. Whew. Just in time for your four month pictures in a few weeks, too. The photographer will be pleased.

Love you lots,

Your mommy

PS You went to your first wedding last week (my cousin Diedra got married), and boy were you the looker! In fact, I think we all looked pretty good--in spite of the blurry picture :-)

Baby, Meet the Thumb. Thumb, Meet the Baby.

Dearest Samantha,

Really? 15 weeks? Can I use my magical Tivo remote and stop time? No? Nuts.

So, yeah, you’re the old baby on the block by now. Two other babies (Benjamin and Wendy Elizabeth) have been born since you made your debut last spring, thus making you the older, wiser, gigantor baby.

Seriously, you’re huge. I can’t pick you up (and hold you) with one arm anymore. You’re officially “two arms needed” Sammie now. This makes it a little difficult when I’m trying to walk and feed you at the same time. With two arms in use holding you, I’m left with my chin to magically hold your bottle in place to keep you appeased. I guess it’s a good thing that you’re making steps to hold the bottle on your own (although a little part of me is a little sad that soon you won’t need me to hold and feed you, as I rather enjoy our bottle/cuddle time).

In other milestones, you’ve discovered your thumb, or more specifically: thumb sucking. This momentous occasion happened when we changed you to the larger size swaddle last weekend. The smaller green one worked perfectly for the first few months, but in the past few weeks it required more than a bit of effort on my part to squeeze your growing body into a too-small swaddle. So, we handed off the smaller green one to your baby cousin and put you in the larger pink one.

Modeling the larger pink swaddle

Still, the new one is just a little too big for you because it doesn’t take long for you to work your pudgy arms through to the top so that they’re free…and ready for thumb sucking. Every morning, when I go to check on you before leaving for work, I find you sucking mercilessly on that little thumb of yours.

You're all thumbs in one of the last nights in the green swaddle.

Speaking of thumbs, you’ve got your father wrapped around your little finger. Nonni and Poppa babysat you last night (I had Bible Study), and when I brought you home he couldn’t get to you fast enough. I hadn’t been home two minutes before he had you out of the car seat and on the floor, chit chatting away with you. I know the look that he gets when you’re around—it’s pure love!

Love you lots,

Your mommy