Sign of the Times

Dearest Sammie Girl,

You, my darling, have exploded with developments in this past week. For the past several weeks, you've been creep/crawling and stopping to do what can only be described as the half sit/half lounge positition (really, it makes you look like some sort of bikini model--if bikini models had Buddha bellies and diapers). I half-seriously wondered if we'd have to give you intense sitting lessons lest you not pick it up naturally in the call of the wild/living room.

That changed a few days ago, Sammie dear, when you took the time from your daily creep/crawl/lounge lizard act to sit up. On your own. Several times. Whew. I guess we won't half to follow you to college so we can place you in a sitting position now--because you're doing that on your own now, thankyouverymuch.

You've also taken to learning new things to keep us amused. Previously, you were a two trick baby (raising your hands on cue to "sooo big" and giving somewhat reluctant high fives). Now, you can wave hello and good-bye on command (usually when the person's left the room--but better late than never), you stick out your tongue when we ask what the snake does, and you're using sign language during meal times.

I'm particularly excited about the sign language thing. I'm partially deaf, and if I don't teach sign language to my baby, the deaf community will take away my deaf card. Frankly, being deaf is the one conversation starter I've got left, so I needed to do whatever possible to keep the deaf card active.

I always said I'd sign non-stop to my children when I became a mom. Then I became a mom and reality/laziness hit. I started off with the best intentions, signing constantly, but then life got in the way and I just started talking instead of signing, even though you were already showing progress at six months by signing "bottle" to us. Guilt eventually got the best of me last month, and I took up signing with you again, focusing especially on "more" and "eat."

This past weekend, your short deaf wonder mama's chest swelled with pride when you first signed "eat" while I fed you your breakfast. A few minutes later came "more" when your daily dose of Cheerios ran out. Since then, you've signed these words on a number of occasions; apparently you're a Pavlov baby because food is one the thing that's conditioning you to use sign language as a means of communication. Yeah, baby!

I'm going to *try* to keep it up by adding a few more signs to our daily vocabulary: sleep, dog, mom, dad, book and no should keep us busy for the next few weeks. Hopefully it'll be enough to not bring shame to the deaf community.

In other news that's hardly news, we had a rather chaotic weekend, darling girl. The women on Nonni's side of the family thought it would be a lovely idea to get together for a weekend in the mountains.

And it was lovely...until nighttime, when certain babies refused to go to sleep. You--who has slept through the night since you were a mere few weeks old--stayed up until well past midnight and then woke up, inconsolable, every other hour for eight straight hours. So...I accidentally slept in past breakfast. Crankiness ensued all the way around, crankiness that didn't subside until you were down for a nap and I had a special beverage along with my lunch.

At least we got some pictures out of the deal:

With Nonni:


With Aunt Diane's *adorable* puppy:


Four generations of Willis Women:


With your cousins:


Sporting "half pint" and "full pint" shirts:


...and finally, on the way home:


I love you Sammie--even as you're screaming out your refusal to nap as you are right now, I love you,

your mama

PS. Got the pictures back from the Pullen Photo Shoot last weekend. What's up with the turtle face you're sporting in some of these pictures?









and lastly, my favorite:

Happy Happy Joy Scream

Dear Sammie,

While I'm on spring break (and pretending that I'm a stay at home mom), I've had the pleasure of taking you out and about as I run errands. Each and EVERY time, we get stopped by people who simply MUST tell us at that very moment that they've never seen a HAPPIER baby. I usually respond by smiling proudly at you, making some cute/gag-me-with-a-spoon-cheesy-fake-mom-voice-comment...and jetting out of there before the aforementioned passerby figures out that you aren't always that happy.

Yesterday, while I had you in the shopping cart at Costco, we were stopped by a former co-worker of mine. You were VERY happy/borderline ridiculously cheerful, so I was feeling a little too good about chatting for longer than ten seconds. Here's the play by play:

Me: Hi *former co worker of mine* (FCWOM)
FCWOM: Hi, Sar--WHAT AN ADORABLE BABY!
Sammie: *giggle, giggle, lean pigtailed head on mommy's chest to up the cuteness ante*
FCWOM: I've never seen a more happy baby!
Me: (looking at you) Tell the nice woman thank you! Tell her thank you! You are a cutie little baby, aren't you? Yes, you're so happy! (looking back at FCWOM) We're really lucky, she's a very happy baby.
Sammie: *sit straight up and look at mommy, clasping hands and grinning to show your two new pearly whites*
FCWOM: Seriously, she is so cute!
Me: Yes, she's so fun. Her name's Samantha.
Sammie:*doing the shy smile trick thing again for more attention*
FCWOM: So...are you still teaching at Central?
---fifteen minutes later---
FCWOM: I'm so glad I got out of there when I did.
Me: Yeah, I'll be there until I die. But at least I really like the kids.
Sammie: *smile smile. wipe eyes, decide that you want a bottle* WAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

FCWOM: Wow she changed moods quickly.
Me: Yes...it's a bit Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Have a great week! (Run to make a beeline to the shortest line while avoiding eye contact with FCWOM)
Sammie: *look over my shoulder at FCWOM to resume the grinning position*
---two minutes later, in line---
FCWOM: (Pulling cart behind mine) I guess I'll get to spend a few more minutes with Samantha while we wait in line!
Sammie: *realize you still don't have previously thought of bottle* WAAAAAAAAAAUGGGGGGGGGGH!!!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHCKKKKKKKK!!!!!! WANYH-WANYH-WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
FCWOM: She turns the tears on fast!
Me: Yeah, she does that. *Nervous chuckle*
---five minutes later, paying for my purchases---
Me: (Yelling to be heard over the screams) See you later, FCWOM! Have a great week...again! (Mad dash to the exit)
Sammie: *smile, smile, grin*


I think in future years people will refer to similar mad mood shifts as "The Sammie." I think it'll play out like this:



Guy #1: So I went on this date the other night, with this really cool girl. Started out great, she was all fun and smiles. Then I mentioned my ex-girlfriend's name and she totally pulled a "Sammie" on me.

Guy #2: Yeah, better watch out for those mad mood shifts. Once they pull "The Sammie" on you, you just never know when it's going to come back again.



Or something like that.



In other news, we had a crazy busy weekend. It started off on Saturday, with the Pullen side of the family trekking down to Visalia to take some artsy family pictures. Your Poppa had promised Nonni TWO YEARS ago that he'd get family pictures taken for her for mother's day. Then came pregnancy/plans of adoption, then came baby, and baby again, then came the "let's wait until the babies can sit..."



Finally, your cousin started sitting a month ago, and Poppa had run out of excuses, so we booked a session with the same photographer who's been shooting your professional baby pictures. Nonni even bought you and Ben coordinating blue and yellow outfits, and made the rest of us wear clothes to match the two of you.



The photo shoot took place in a field/oak preserve, and it was freakin' cold. Which is a bummer when the usually-prepared-mommy forgets to bring a sweater for her baby girl who's wearing a sleeveless dress. Fortunately, you turned on the grins as soon as the camera came out. Whenever you weren't in a shot, we had you wrapped in a blanket and Nonni's sweater. I think the pictures will come out okay, but I won't know for sure until we see them for ourselves on Friday. I was hoping to get a good picture with the three of us, and I *think* we succeeded in getting at least one halfway decent shot. Anywho, we capped off the day by going to dinner and giving you spaghetti for the first time.



Um, I think you like spaghetti.

The next day was your very first Easter. You started the morning off by perusing what the Easter Bunny brought you in your Easter basket (plastic eggs, some with cheerios, some little toys, some just empty).







The Easter basket kept you entertained for quite a long time when Daddy's side of the family came over that afternoon. Uncle Tom got at least fifteen hours worth of footage out of you exclaiming over each and every egg as you pulled it out of your basket.

I managed to finagle you away from your admirers long enough to get some pictures of you outside with your basket (again, it was super cold--seriously the coldest Easter I can remember in a loooong time). Fortunately, you saw the camera and gave me a few good shots.





After a too-quick afternoon nap, we shuttled ourselves off to Nonni & Poppa's for Easter #2. You and Ben seemed to hit it off. Literally. You sat there and hit each other on the head with your Easter eggs. I channeled Uncle Tom and took a bazillion pictures. Bummer that all of the sixty something pictures are blurry.






Love you, my Sammie Girl,

your mommy

DAAHH-g!

Dearest Sammie Joy,

If you look here, you'll see that several weeks ago I made the mistake of confusing your constant "mamamamama" chatter as saying "Mama." After hearing you call your shoes, toys, books, diapers, and random air particles "mama," I put two and two together and figured out that I mispoke. Rather than associating my face with the word "Mama," you were just babbling nonsense and "Mama" had no more meaning to you than your other favorite bable word "aaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHaaaaaaa" (your favorite expression of joy).

So forgive me for thinking nothing of it when you looked up and lunged at poor Maynerd while saying "DAAH-g!" last Thursday. I also didn't think too much of it when you did the same thing a few hours later.

When it happened again the other night after coming home from being out of town, I figured it was time to put my own reluctance aside and get out the congratulatory sippy cups.

Had it been written in a novel, the scene on Tuesday night might have played out something like this:

A tired and haggard woman desperately in need of a shower stumbles into the darkened laundry room from the garage, tightly clutching her equally exhausted ten month old daughter. Moving quickly so as not to trip over the two mangy mutts at her feet, the woman flips the light switch to find the young girl bouncing excitedly on her hip. "D-AAAH-g!" the girl shrieks happily, lunging anxiously while her mother struggles desperately to hang on, both to her daughter and to the baby she once was.

Or something like that. You get the idea. I was tired, it was dark, you saw the dogs and repeated the same phrase you first said on last Thursday (March 25th, if you keep track of that kind of thing). At any rate, you've since then repeated "dog" several times and both your father and I are content to write it down in history as your first (real) word.

I'm sensing a running theme here. The first thing you crawled for was the dog dish. The first thing you say is "dog" (or your own version of it--where the "g" is mostly silent). Methinks that when it's time to coax you into walking we should just grab the pooches and hold them a few feet away, like the proverbial dangling canine/carrot. Or, better yet, when the terrible two's hit, I won't have to say "Mommy says no." I can just say "Roxy [or Maynerd] says no," that way you'll be more likely to obey because clearly you view the dogs as higher up in the Vogt household food chain than your measly parents.

Loving you copious amounts, my little dog-lover,
your mommy

PS Here's a cursory look through the past 6 (dog) years of pictures. No wonder you're obsessed with all things "d-AAAAH-g."

A few days old: Roxy tries desperately to walk over me to give you the sniff-down.

A few weeks old. Roxy figures you're perfect for a good snuggle-buddy.

A few months old. Roxy continues the snuggling.

Month Four. Right about when you figured out that the dogs were fun to be around.

Month six. Rare shot of Maynerd generously sharing your blanket with you.

Month seven. You and Roxy are clearly two peas in a pod.

Month Nine. Roxy has what it takes to make you smile.

Month Ten. Waiting for the dogs to do something to amuse you.

Month 10: Life's Little Things

Dear Sammie Girl,

Another week of whirlwind activities has gone by, but I’m going to resist the urge to chronicle your first St. Patrick’s Day with my side of the family and I’m going to force myself NOT to write about the totally wonderful time we had with Nonni this last weekend in Monterey (and an even awesomer time on the way home stopping by the outlet mall in Gilroy). I’m going to make myself forget about all of the things that you did in the past few days; I want to take today and write about what makes you…well, you

No…I…will…NOT…write…about…those…things.

But….I will post pictures!

The before dinner Irish photo shoot with cousin Ben:


The screaming hungry baby photo:


The bottle after the pre-dinner Irish photo shoot:


Keeping Sammie occupied while Mommy & Nonni got ready to go hit Cannery Row:


The Nonni, Mommy & Samantha picture in Monterey:


The sleeping baby & Nonni:


Our view of you while we drove home (aren’t those pigtails ADORABLE?)


Ok, so I totally cheated. Those pictures pretty much say it all about what we’ve done these past few days. The thing is, I spent much of last fall waiting for the week when nothing significant happened so I could journal about that stray curly lock of hair that decorated the left part of your head (seriously—you were losing hair left and right but that long clump of hair remained…it was kind of charming in a unique/weird way). That empty week never happened, though, so I never got to write about your hair. Until right now when I was proving a point. But that doesn’t count because it’s five months after the fact.

I imagine that twenty years from now, you’re not going to care about your first St. Patrick’s Day or about how you watched cartoons in a hotel room. What you’re probably more likely to care about, rather, are the little things that are Samantha Joy. While it’s still fresh as I watch you grow up before my eyes, I’m going to put everything else aside and write about it while it’s still fresh. I fear that if I continue to wait for that “empty” week to write about life’s little things, you’ll be forty and the memories of your babyhood will be long gone.

I’ll start off with the object of affection that I’ve touched on in previous posts: your blue robe thing. Really, I don’t know what to call it. Robie? Blue thing? Piece of my robe? Blue fabric? Lovey? I’ve tried out each of these monikers but nothing seems to fit. Maybe I’ll just wait until you’re old enough to name it yourself. For now, I’ll just call it the Piece of Fabric Formerly Known as My Robe (POFFKAMR, for short).

POFFKAMR mania started last fall when I noticed that you held onto the sleeve of my robe after bath time. Each time, you grabbed onto my robe and held on for dear life so that you could suck your thumb. I don’t understand why my robe was the one thing that did the trick; you had four “lovies” (as Nonni calls them) hanging out in the crib—completely unloved.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised at the sudden robe attachment. You did go through a brief period where you were grabbing for anybody’s shirts or cloth spit up rags so that you could curl up the fabric into your fist and suck your thumb (you still haven’t been able to bring yourself to suck your thumb sans fabric in hand—you must have something in your hand to suck your thumb and soothe yourself).

Once you latched onto my robe, though, I took your cue and cut off a small swatch from the front hem of my blue robe. Something about the POFFKAMR’s softness did the trick for you, because it wasn’t long before you abandoned the cloth diapers entirely and reaching for a good thumb session. You love those things. Yes, I said “things” in the plural form; currently there’s six POFFKAMRs floating around the house. We got by on one or two of them for a while, but as your dependency on them grew, I had to keep hacking away at my poor robe because we needed more of them as they were lost/found again/lost again and getting dirtied/cleaned again/dirtied. My tattered robe has now been cut so much that it no longer has a hem on either side up to my mid-section. I still wear it every morning, but as soon as I can find a comparable robe for cheap, I’m going to snap it up and make the old one into a blanket or something.

Here's what the robe looks like now (the arrows point to where I've been cutting away):


This is what the POFFKAMR does for you, though, so I'm not complaining:


Putting the POFFKAMR to good use before naptime today:


If there’s one thing the POFFKAMR is good for, it’s calming you down. While so many people have commented on how happy you are (and you are usually a very happy baby), there is a little bit of another side of you that comes out, a side that usually screams to the high heavens while you throw yourself backwards…which usually results in more screams if your head hits something on the way down. Through careful observation, we’ve been able to pinpoint the exact causes of this sudden personality shift. You’re either:

a) Hungry
b) Tired
c) Desperate for a bottle
d) Upset because someone (usually me) took food out of your mouth after you’ve taken too big of a bite.

When any of the four things have happened (or heaven forbid, all four at the same time), the result is a baby that turns into a red-faced screaming machine. I’d like to think that ten months is too early for temper tantrums, but my gut tells me otherwise. Fortunately, the POFFKAMR is perfect for buying time while I do one of the following:
a) Carry you to bed
b) Get your food ready
c) Make a bottle
d) Distract you with toys (or safer bites of food)

If a POFFKAMR isn’t readily available, we’ve got the next best things: our dogs. Currently, you’ve got quite an obsession with all things animal, which means that we’ve got a three way love triangle going on in our house: We love and adore you, you love us but adore the dogs, and the dogs turn to your father and me for any semblance of the affection that they enjoyed prior to life with baby.

While we were waiting for you to come (and you did take your time in doing that, thankyouverymuch), I wrote about the dogs and how I imagined they’d be with you when you joined our family. I thought Roxy for sure would be your BFF and that Maynerd would be content to lay by your side and get scratched behind the ears. Well, that’s happened…to some extent. Roxy really does love being around you and gives you kisses now and then to let you know you’re loved. Maynerd, on the other hand, has figured out that he wants to be near your high chair during feeding times. Other than that, he’s still trying to figure out what happened to our family; I don’t think he’s grasped the fact that you’re here to stay. I suspect that will change once you’re old enough to scratch him and feed him.

One thing I never took into consideration was the level of fascination YOU would have for our furbabies. You live and breathe for these dogs. When I get you up in the morning, you look right past me and start scanning the hallway outside of your room for any sign of the dogs. If you should happen to catch a glimpse of a tail or paw, you start quivering in excitement and bouncing up and down as you shriek with glee. When we came home from Monterey last Sunday night—and you had to have been very tired—you practically lunged out of my arms at the first sight of Roxy.

Those dogs better start adjusting now, because now that you’re crawling (and getting better at it by the day), the only room that’s safe is the laundry room—behind closed doors. Fortunately for them, you are rather gentle with them (or as gentle as ten month olds can be).

A typical afternoon with the dogs looks like this (um, getting a picture with dogs AND a crawling baby is harder than I thought):


I’m not remiss of the fact that none of the things I’ve talked about this week—the POFFKAMR, the dog obsession, the three generation travels, the Saint Patrick’s Day pictures—none of it could have been possible had it not been for your birth mother and her selflessness in choosing an adoption plan for her. A little over a year ago this past week (on March 23rd, to be exact), we received THE call that your birth mom had chosen us to be your parents. (Go here to relive that day). That day began on a not so promising note (I had slept through the alarm and was late for work) but ended with such joy and excitement. I think about your birth mom a lot lately. Who would’ve known what a wonderful ride that phone call would start—it’s hard to believe the amount of (awesome) changes that have happened in our lives over the past twelve months. Your father often turns to me and tells me just how much you’ve changed his life for the better. I marvel at the sheer amount of love I have for you—I go to bed watching you sleep in your baby monitor and I wake up to sneak another quick peak before heading off for work.

I praise God that He spoke to your birth mom and told her that we were the ones that He had chosen to be your parents. I’m forever grateful to Him for speaking to the our hearts and telling us that He had chosen a baby for our family—a baby that would join us not through birth but through adoption.

With God’s Love,
your mommy

Milestones: Teeth, Crawling & Taco Bell

Dear Miss Sammie,

I’m getting a lesson, little one. NOTHING is ever boring in the life of a baby. I keep waiting for the week when I can write about the little things in your life: your blue robe thing, your knack for zeroing in on your books in your room, the way you eat anything and everything we put in front of you…but that week has yet to come because dangit if you aren’t hitting milestones left and right and I fear that if I don’t write them down right that very week I’ll kick myself because I’m doing AWFUL at combining my roles of scrapbooker and mommy and I’ve yet to do ANYTHING to your baby book. This blog has been my saving grace for chronicling everything you’ve done in your first year. Since you currently have no baby book, milestones will always surpass life’s little things in this blog (I still hate that word—BLOG—sounds so…BLAH).

But this weekly update isn’t about my hatred for random 21st century lexicons. It’s about you. Alas, the reason(s) have surfaced for why you hadn’t been sleeping so well at night. The first reason, as I mentioned last week, came to light last Tuesday when your first tooth made its debut.

The second tooth/reason made its appearance Sunday morning. We were in the church lobby because I didn’t want to run the risk of ruining our good graces with the church’s nursery staff by infecting all of the other babies with your evil cold. While I held you, you kept opening your mouth in excitement, and I, being the obsessive tooth-watcher-outer, kept looking proudly at your gumline and your new tooth. It was then that I saw that your new tooth had company: a little smidgen of white was protruding from your gums next to the other tooth (follows are the pictures from St. Patrick's Day yesterday--notice the two little teeth peeking through on your bottom gums!):



The close up efforts were less than successful...



Of course, I wanted to shout from the rooftops that my baby’s getting TWO new teeth, but I had to contain my excitement because they tend to frown upon that type of thing during church. Fortunately, I did have company to share my joy with: the entire Voetberg Family. They were our church’s worship guests that morning, having traveled from Washington state to perform foot-stomping tunes with their impressive musical talent. We were in the lobby (you made it through worship but just as the sermon started you decided you’d had enough of sitting down, thankyouverymuch) when you caught the eye of the middle daughter, Lilja. You had your own hand in getting her attention, of course—as soon as we sat down in the church’s comfy chairs you made eye contact with the teen and grinned and bounced whenever she looked your way.

Before I knew it, Lilja asked if she could take you outside to play. Fifteen minutes later, you were back and were mesmerizing the rest of the Voetberg clan with your adorableness. They loved your chunkiness (I think their exact words were something to the effect of “chunky babies are cute babies.”) and said that they’d hire you to join their band if they could (of course, this came from an eight year old so I wouldn’t get your heart set on traveling the country with them just yet). The teacher in me was impressed with their maturity, the mom in me reveled in just how much they enjoyed YOU.

Enough about the Voetberg family; time to get on with the milestones. While teeth may be a big deal—especially when considering that you waited so long to debut your pearly whites—I’m talking about a milestone that’s even bigger than teeth.

I’m talking about crawling. You crawled for the first time this week (Tuesday, March 16th) when I came home from work. I had been playing with you on the living room floor, when you saw something you wanted—something you’ve had your eye on for a long time: the (insert drum roll and much fanfare here)….dog dish. I figured something was up when you didn’t do your standard “pivot, pivot, roll, roll” maneuver after eyeing the shiny bowl a few feet away (all pictures below are from a few minutes ago--I snapped them as you were showing off this afternoon):

Instead of rolling over, though, you put yourself into the push up position by planting your hands on the ground and straightening your arms to support your upper body weight; your little feet supported your lower body weight while your butt was straight up in the air:


Then, you crawled/dragged yourself towards the (thankfully empty) dog food dish.


It wasn’t quite creeping (that’s where babies do an army crawl of sorts by using their arms to move forward while their feet drag behind them), but it wasn’t quite arm/knee, arm/knee crawling, either. Rather, your legs were doing all of the work while your arms dragged behind and your chest stayed on the carpet. Honestly, it was kind of like you were swimming the breast stroke on top of our living room carpet:



As the evening went on, you “swam” the living room less and less and moved to more of the regulation crawl. The next night, after coming home from a night of teaching college students, your father was so excited to tell me about how much he’d seen you crawl. Tonight will mark two days from the time you first discovered that moving forward beats rolling side to side. I’ll bet that you’ll show us how you’re getting even better at your wicked crawling skills!



Of course, I have my own theories as to why the crawling just happened to have started last Tuesday. Something must’ve happened earlier that day to give you super human strength. Something must’ve changed to give you the courage to propel yourself forward and tick off another milestone on the list.

I’m talking about tortillas, chicken, beans and rice.

I’m talking, dear Sammie, about the wonder that is Taco Bell.

You ate your first Taco Bell burrito on Tuesday. *sniff, grin, sniff*

I promised you, darling Sammie, as I held you in the hospital last May and we memorized each other’s faces, that I would one day introduce you to the joy that is Taco Bell.

And that day came this past Tuesday, hours before you showed us your mad crawling skills. It started out innocently enough. I came home from work that day with my typical lunch fare: Taco Bell combination #2 (grilled stuffed burrito with chicken--no baja or fiesta salsa, nachos and a soda). I set you down on the floor next to me while I scarfed my lunch down…but you started giving me what can only be described as “THE” eyes.

You tried to crawl then and there by getting on your knees to move toward me, but you only succeeded in scooching backwards. Sensing your frustration, I picked out a piece of chicken and gave it to you. I swear, Sammie girl, your eyes about popped out of your head with glee. Before I knew it, you had your little mitts on my lunch and weren’t about to let go:





You definitely quiero Taco Bell and I, for one, couldn’t be more proud.

Te amo mi mija,

Tu madre

You're Sick, I'm Sick, & the Tooth Has Come In!

Dearest Sammie Girl,

I’b wriding like thisd because you got me thick with your code. Thanksd for that. Seriously, whatever immunity from all air-borne illnesses you had for the first eight months of life must be long gone because you’re currently recovering from your third cold in the past six weeks.

I blame the tables.

Whenever we go out to eat, you get so excited about the mere prospect of food that as soon as we sit you down in your high chair, you feel the need to lean forward and “eat” the table. Every. Single. Time.

We’ve tried using the yellow-rubber-hippo-thing-that-Nonni-bought-you-for-Christmas, but the YRHTTNBYFC is made out of rubber. Rubber is awesome for preventing the Cheerios from meeting their destiny with the floor, but it’s also not-so-awesome in that it attracts every little piece of dust and lint and (gag) hair. As soon as I clean it, the YRHTTNBYFC gets dirty seconds later and I kind of have a fear of rubber mats with stands of hair on it so needless to say, we don’t use the YRHTTNBYFC very often.

Which is why we’ve been going mat-less in restaurants and you’ve been salivating over each table that we put you in front of. Sadly, we’ve been eating out more than usual lately because I’ve been rather tired/lazy and would rather dial/order than cook/clean each night after teaching. So, needless to say, we’ve been using a lot of the gift cards we got for Christmas these past few weeks…and you’ve been eating a lot of germ-ridden tables.

I thought we were staying ahead of the game by using sanitizing hand wipes on the table before plopping you down, but I guess we weren’t fooling the germs because you still managed to get sick.

Knowing misery loves company, you decided to share your cold with me. Thanks for that. Really—I thank you.

Fortunately, I know how to blow my nose and cover my mouth when I sneeze and cough. Unfortunately, you do not yet possess the knowledge or capacity to use a Kleenex and blow, which is why I’ve spent since Saturday chasing you down with saline spray, a booger-getter-outter-suction-bulb-thing, and either a Kleenex, washcloth, dishrag, onesie …frankly, whatever is available works fine—apparently I’m not as picky about where I put your snot as I am about hairy rubber mats.

In between suctions, you happily/miserably sucked on your bottle, with a deathgrip on your scrap of mommy's robe:


This past cold definitely has been worse than other ones. The cough that’s accompanied it is enough to make me tear up each time because you’re working so hard to free up the gunk in your lungs.

(Side Note: I’m avoiding the use of the word “phlegm” here because your Poppa HATES that word and it sends him into convulsions. I’m trying to be considerate should he ever read these entries—and I doubt he will because Facebook is just about all of the modern web stuff he can do. That said, by the time you’re old enough to read this, I think it’s perfectly acceptable for you to stop whatever you’re doing to call him up and scream “PHLEEEEEEEEEGGGGGMMMMMMMMMM!!!” in his ears. Because your momma has a sick and twisted sense of humor like that).

Right…back to the horrid cough. You were so congested and coughing so often that you started wheezing a little…which got me worried, so I did what I’d been avoiding for the past nine and a half months: I called up the pediatrician’s office and made a sick child appointment.

I’ve been so determined NOT to be one of those mothers that calls their pediatrician at every little sniffle. So…this was really your second “sick baby” appointment ever (the first was this last summer when you were a newborn and your little umbilical cord looked like it might be slightly infected—it wasn’t and your belly button as I’m sure you know by now is just fine). The office of STBPITW handled the visit beautifully, and we were in and out of there in fifteen minutes flat. The verdict? You have a cold, but it’s nothing that I should be concerned about because it’s not affecting your lungs. I should keep doing what I’m doing, which is basically chasing you around the house with that snot-booger-bulb thing.

Whew.

While we were at the doctor’s office, STBPITW looked in your mouth and noticed that your two front teeth are closer than they’ve ever been to breaking through. She also saw that the two teeth on the bottom sides of your mouth are going to be making their appearance quickly, as well.

STBPITW couldn’t have been more on the money because I felt your gums a few hours later…I’ll admit, it’s fast becoming a daily ritual/obsession to check your mouth for teeth because you’re getting them sooo late compared to the other babies we know… Oh. My. Gosh. Did I really just type that? How keeping-up-with-the-Baby-Joneses-was-that? *shudder*

Ramblings aside, because as of March 9, you have a TOOTH! I can’t yet see it, but I can feel it. It’s sharp and protruding through your gums. I called your daddy inside to have him feel your gums, and he felt it, too, so I know it wasn’t a psychosomatic tooth that I was feeling. Woo hoo!

I spent the rest of the evening taking pictures of your mouth, knowing that they are the last shots I’ll ever get of a completely gummy-smiled baby. Trouble was, you weren’t so smiley that night (I can’t really blame you, what with the obsessive mother, horrid cold and sharp bits of teeth ripping through your gums). All I got were pictures of you screaming.




The results were a bit of a dejavu from when you were a newborn…



At least you’re consistent!

All my love, my little tooth girl!
-your mommy

PS. Next time you get sick, feel free to NOT give it to me. Really.