Recap: First Birthday BBQ Shindig

Dear Sammie Joy,

We did it. We survived a year. You turned one last Friday without a whole lot of fanfare (save for your mama waking you up singing happy birthday and standing over your crib with a balloon and your dad surprising you with a rocking horse in the living room).


There wasn’t a whole lot of hooplah on your actual birthday because we were saving it for Saturday—the day of THE big party.

Only it almost wasn’t.

We planned to have the whole Sesame Street-themed BBQ shindig at the park by Nonni and Poppa’s house. It was the perfect location, and we’d scouted it out many times before. It had a beautiful enclosed picnic area, plenty of BBQs and eight picnic tables—just the right amount for the number of people we were expecting. We’d be able to focus Saturday morning decorating the area (decorations, cake and favors were my jurisdictions) and it was going to be perfect.

The only ‘catch’ in the plan was that the park couldn’t be reserved. Not a problem, we figured—we’d only seen it in use ONCE in the six months we’d spent stalking the place.

Then the weather started to not cooperate. The weatherman continued to give me bad news as the week progressed: what originally was predicted to be 78 degree spring weather turned into 63 degrees and windy. Wind is not good when you’ve got a massive butter cream frosting cake that’s set to be the party’s centerpiece. Figuring most people don’t want lemon cake with a side of gnats and dirt, I reluctantly decided to assemble the cake toward the end of the party, take a few pictures, and start cutting it before it got too bug infested.

Then the bad news turned worse when Poppa walked down to the park that morning to be first in line to use the picnic area.

There were two other parties already waiting for their turn in the same area. One had gotten there at four in the morning, the other had been there since midnight.

This. Was. NOT. Good.

After a having a slight panic attack and seeing visions of the perfectly planned first birthday party fly out the window, I went into decision mode and went for the never-before discussed Plan B: having it in Nonni & Poppa’s backyard.

Three hours and massive amounts of texts to the party guests later, I was running around like a madwoman trying desperately to straighten up, assemble goody bags and find places to put crepe paper (note: that crinkly stuff is great for outdoor picnic areas, not so great for a formal living room). Sidenote: your Nonni & Auntie Ashlea deserve gold medals for coming through in the biggest way to ensure that your party went on without a hitch.

Fortunately, the most important thing—the one thing I’d hoped for and planned for the party—was that you were miraculously able to get a two hour nap in before the party. I don’t know how you did it, but I was most grateful because I wanted you to be smiling and happy for your big day. Baby + sleep = happy, right?

Except for the part of the equation that I’d overlooked while trying to get everything JUST so (like suddenly deciding that the utensils HAD to be bound together with a napkin and curly ribbon—really? Just before the party? What was I thinking?). I’d forgotten that Baby Baby + sleep – food =grumpy.

Cue the crying baby for the first half hour of her big event.

After a quick and thoughtful prayer from your Uncle Grant, I was finally able to sit down with you and give you food. You must’ve been hungry because you gave us a preview of what was to come later on with the cake by alternating hands and shoveling the rice and hot dog bits into your mouth. Your Uncle Grant stood by, mouth ajar, not able to believe how quickly you were able to wolf down your food and still grunt for more.

Then the watermelon came out. Two weeks ago, you loved watermelon, so I bought several for the party so it wasn’t one solid carbohydrate fest. Then you decided last week that you wanted nothing to do with the sweet summer fruit. Apparently, on Saturday, you liked it again, because as your father held you and visited with the Pat side of the family, you proceeded do scarf down three massive chunks of the stuff. And you weren’t pleased when it was taken away.

Cue the time for cake.




The cake, I’ll be honest, I was rather proud of. Your Auntie Tamara and I spent the better part of Thursday evening constructing the four tiered “Old School Abstract Sesame Street” cake that I had dreamed up months before. Despite making a minor boo boo with Big Bird’s nest (who knew that the haystack candy had to be made with already cooked chow mein noodles?), it was delicious. And pretty to look at, too:



In the days leading up to the party, I had an epiphany of sorts: giving you the six inch Elmo cake to eat was not a good idea because your past behavior has indicated that you don’t like having food taken away prematurely. I decided to make Elmo gluten free for some of daddy’s family members, and settled for making a large cupcake for you to gobble down in celebration of the big event.

You started with a nibble of frosting.


Then you ate ALL of the frosting.


Then you started in on the cake.


Sammie, it was like a sporting event. The guests crowded around and cheered you on as you ate handfuls of cake, barely coming up for air.


In fact, you ate it so quickly that your dad started taking it away because he feared you’d choke. On cake.

Who chokes on cake? We discussed the situation and he finally agreed to let me put the cupcake in front of you again.

Game on.

One minute later, that cupcake was a goner and you were covered in a mixture of chocolate crumbs and vanilla frosting.


"Operation Cupcake" was a success.

While the guests noshed on cake—which was amazing thanks to Auntie Tamara’s mad baking skills (and I should know because I had the leftovers for lunch and dinner for three days straight this week)—we moved on to the opening of the gifts.

I’ve never seen a baby do this before on their first birthday, but you took an interest in each and every thing I pulled out of the gift bags, and took time to play with each toy and article of clothing that came your way, much to the delight of the guests in Nonni and Poppa’s living room.



An hour later, the party over, the two of us schlepped over to the park with Melissa and her family. It’s a good thing we went with Plan B for your party—there were an insane amount of people (and a bounce house! Why didn’t I think of a bounce house?) in the picnic area.

Bounce house envy aside, it was here in the quiet moments of the park that it dawned on me just how lucky I was to be a mom to such an amazing little girl. While Melissa was off to chase down her little daredevils on the playground, you decided that I was your jungle gym of sorts: you crawled all over me and shook with excitement when I tickled your (very full) belly.

Yes, my darling Sammie—you may have turned one, but I got the good gift: a sticky, happy, and LOUD baby girl :-)

All my love,
your mama

One Year Old. Gulp.

Dearest Sammie Girl,

It’s amazing how much things can change in a year. You’ve made sure of that. You gave your father and I the title of “mom” and “dad” and we couldn’t be prouder. Thank you, Sammie girl, for making me a mom. We may have thought that our lives were full of blessings before you came along, but we hadn’t seen anything yet. You’re the blessing and joy that brings a smile to our faces 24/7.

Tomorrow at 12:02 AM, you turn the big zero one. As in, you’ll be one YEAR old.

A year ago tomorrow, we were listing your age in hours. Then we were stating it in days. Days gave way for weeks, and when weeks became too confusing to count we moved onto months.

Now, darling girl, we’ll be counting your age in YEARS. Gulp.

A year ago today, your birth mom went to the hospital to be induced because you were already a week past your due date. We packed up the car and drove the few hours to Modesto, a combination of anxiety, excitement and anticipation.



As you know, our patience was tested that day as you took your sweet time to make your debut. The four of us waited on pins and needles in the hotel room, only to find out from the social worker that you probably wouldn’t be born for at least another day or so.

Nuts. I tried to ease my disappointment by going on a date with your father to the mini golf place across the street from the hotel. I won—and I NEVER beat your father. Go figure.

I went to sleep that night heartbroken, because I was so ready for you to be here and my lack of patience was getting the better of me.

An hour after drifting off, your father got the phone call that would change our lives forever. He woke me up to tell me “the baby’s coming.”

That moment held the excitement of Christmas morning—times a hundred million. I managed to type up the conversation on the blog (don’t ask me why I did that—in retrospect I know that I wanted to write it down so I’d remember it forever. Buts seriously? Why did I feel the need to do it at that very moment?).

Ten minutes later, we were on our way to the hospital and making a pit stop at Taco Bell’s drive thru (Your father HAD to have a taco at that very minute. It was his own “Seriously?” moment).

Less than an hour later, I was in the hospital room, holding a tightly wrapped and VERY alert little girl named Emily.



Fifteen minutes later, I was holding the same baby, but her name was Samantha Joy.

“We’ll call her Sammie,” I told your father and Nonni.

“Sammie’s a boy’s name,” your father replied.

“Not when you spell it with an ‘ie’ at the end instead of a ‘y’.”

“I’m not going to call her Sammie. Her name is SAMANTHA.”

I can’t help but smile as I write this, because your father’s the one who calls you Sammie more than anyone. I’ll stick a “Samantha” in every now and then (usually when introducing you to someone for the first time), but I don’t think I’ve EVER heard your dad call you anything but “Sammie.”

Looking back, you soooo are a Sammie and you soooo are not an Emily. Emily’s are demure and quiet and dainty. Sammie’s have spunk. They say it like it is. And they’re gosh darned adorable.

And that, my darling Sammie, is exactly what you are: spunky, loud and ADORABLE to the umpteenth degree.

Those days and hours leading up to your birth may have been a frenzy of nervous energy, but they were nothing compared to the excitement we’ve faced over the past year in watching you grow from silent newborn into the sweet and determined little girl you are today.

This past year has been a series of firsts: first smile, first laugh, first time sitting up, first time creeping, first time crawling…

I can only imagine what milestones the next years will hold.

Gulp.

If this were a 1990s sitcom, this post would be my cue to sit with the rest of the family in the well-lit living room, cheesy music playing in the background as I recount my favorite mommy moments of the year while clips of past “episodes” of your life played onscreen. On sitcoms, they did flashback episodes because the writers/actors/producers were too lazy to come up with a new plot. In this blog, however, it’s because as your mom I just want to wax sentimental for a moment and reflect on the joy of this past year before the clock runs out on your babyhood in just a few hours.

*cue cheesy music*

My favorite mommy moments of this past year include holding you and reading, singing and talking to you that first night in the hospital’s conference room/storage room. I loved those first few months of last summer, when it was the two of us going anywhere and everywhere. Giving you your first Taco Bell burrito and seeing you creep around the room a few hours later was a particularly cool moment. Stumbling into the laundry room with you on my hip and hearing you point to Maynerd and exclaim “DOG!” (your first word) was absolutely awesome. Seeing you crawl perfectly across the room to me on Mother’s Day was just plain awe-inspiring.

My absolute most favorite mommy moment, however, are the low key ones. I will always treasure the memories of sitting with you in your darkened room as you slept on my chest, fist curled tightly around your Robey (POFFKAMR). The room was quiet, save for the deep breaths of your sleep and the piano sound of Mike Strickland playing “Sunrise, Sunset” on the ipod. We’ve played the same soothing tunes for you every night since you were born, but those nights as I held you, the lyrics of that song were never far from my mind:

is this the little girl i carried,
is this the little boy at play?

i don't remember growing older,
when did they?

when did she get to be a beauty,
when did he grow to be so tall?

wasn't it yesterday when they were small?

sunrise, sunset,
sunrise, sunset
swiftly flow the days.

seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers,
blossoming even as we gaze.

sunrise, sunset
sunrise, sunset
swiftly fly the years,
one season following another,
laden with happiness and tears.

what words of wisdom can i give them,
how can i help to ease their way?




Loving you, my Sammie girl—past, present and future,

your mommy

PS. This is post number 100--pretty cool the way that worked out, eh?

Dearest Sammie Joy,

You are, without a doubt, MY daughter: a drama queen with a penchant for demanding the attention of the audience, no matter where you are.

Last Sunday, your stage of choice was the living room at Nonni and Poppa’s house. It was Mother’s Day (my very first one, thank you very much—more on that to come later), and the whole Willis side of the family was there to celebrate. We’d already had our fill of corn burritos, and we were sitting in the living room chatting it up while you played with your toys on the floor.

Suddenly, you looked at me with an anxious look on your face and started “talking” to me. Loudly. I mean, you could give my drama students a lesson or two on how to project your voice. All eyes turned on us as we had this conversation:

You: Yeah!
Mommy: Yeah?
You: Yeah, YEAH!
Mommy: Yeah? Yeah?
You: Yeah, blah blah YEAH!!!

Then, without warning, you stopped yelling and graduated from creeping to crawling as you crawled to me from across the room. Perfectly. On your first time. Your stomach never touched the floor. With an audience.

I can’t imagine a more perfect Mother’s Day present.

The two of us just after our Mother's Day brunch with the Vogt side. My shirt says "Sammie's Mom:"

...and again at Nonni & Poppa's backyard for Mother's Day with the Pullen side:

Love you, daughter!

your mommy

PS. As you might have guessed from the above conversation, your favorite word is “yeah.” You use it a lot. You use it if we leave the room. You use it to talk to us. You use it to express your joy over whatever toy you’re playing with. You use it to interrupt our phone conversations. Yeah.

PPS. Your dad and I enjoyed a rare date night last Saturday when we chaperoned Central's prom. You didn't go (you had a date with Auntie Beth instead), but we did snag a prom picture first:

My Daughter, the 1980s Rock Star

Dearest Sammie Girl,

Last Friday, I simply could NOT take it anymore. I’ve spent the last month and a half trying to ignore it, trying to hold off for just a few more months—until I couldn’t anymore: it was time. Time to get your hair cut for the very first time.



A few hours after making the appointment (and after waiting a little while longer for Nonni to get there so she could take pictures of the momentous occasion), we were sitting in the chair in my hair dresser’s garage salon. The plan was simple: I’d hold you in my lap while Tracey combed and snipped away at the locks that had been growing since you were born. I didn’t want her to cut a whole lot, just trim up the bangs so they weren’t in your face anymore and take a little off the side to even it up a bit. Simple, right?

Yeah, right.

Ha, ha.

You squirmed, cried, twisted your head and tried to stand up.








As I held you, Tracey bravely wielded the scissors and snipped away, cutting randomly whenever you stopped wiggling for two seconds. She must be a hairstyling ninja, because now that all is said and done, you’ve got perfectly straight bangs and pigtails that are relatively even.





Monday night, you got to debut your new hairstyle at the restaurant when your daddy’s family took me out to dinner the night before my birthday. I don’t know where you put it all, but you started eating from the moment you sat down—and didn’t stop until we took the last bite of pizookie and ice cream.




Realizing that your meal ticket was about to come to an end, you opened your mouth wide, took a deep breath, and let out a scream that popped a few circuits in my hearing aids. I spent the remaining part of the evening keeping you placated on the benches outside.


On a completely random note, it dawned on me that, aside from the pictures above, I haven’t been taking very many pictures of you this month. This is a problem, because I’ve been putting together monthly photo collages of you to display at your epic Sesame Street birthday. Heaven forbid I should only get eleven out of the twelve collages complete! So I’ve spent the last few days taking pictures of you whenever possible.

This is what I got last night, just before putting you down for bed:

Showing me how you open the drawers:






Perusing the bookcase.



Reading to me.




Making a beeline for the hallway.


…and finally, down for bed. Note the similarity between your hair and the hair of the 1980s pop icon (from the band Flock of Seagulls):




Loving you lots, my little rock star!
Your mommy

One Trick--No--Make That a NO Trick Pony

Dearest Sammie,

What’s up with the learning-a-new-trick-dropping-the-old-trick-thing? Your first trick, raising your hands on cue to “sooo big” was replaced with waving good bye and hello. Waving lasted until you figured out that you could stick out your tongue when we asked you what a snake does. Now, you’re clapping and refuse to show us what a snake does anymore.

Nuts. The snake thing was a particularly fun thing to show friends and family at get-togethers. Clapping’s alright, I guess…but not nearly as fun. Good thing you still remembered how to eat once you figured out how to use a sippy cup, because that could’ve created all sorts of problems.

The highlights of your day continue to be breakfast, lunch and dinner time. If we don’t feed you fast enough, you start to grunt for more. If whatever’s on the tray isn’t what you want, you delicately pick up the morsel of food and deliberately drop it on the floor.

Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about the food dropping too much because the dogs have figured out that baby + dinner = table scraps for dogs; they’re never more than two feet away from the high chair during meal time. Unfortunately, you’ve figured this out and find it quite fun to lean over and feed Roxy a Cheerio or two. Fortunately, Maynerd doesn’t mind being left out—he just hops on my chair after I’ve gotten you out and cleans up whatever food you may have accidentally dropped on the high chair seat. Unfortunately, the dogs weren’t around last Friday night when Nonni & Poppa took you out to eat and you proceeded to put EVERYTHING on the restaurant’s floor.

Loving you lots,
your mamma

11 down, 1 to go

Dearest Sammie Girl,

We’ve made it. We’re in the home stretch. Only one more month to go until your father and I can look at each other, breathe a sigh of relief, and say “we did it—we kept an infant happy and healthy for a full year, now the hard part is over and we can just sit back and relax.”

*Okay…the cyber moms and dads of the world can stop laughing at any time now…really…you can STOP laughing and pointing your fingers at the computer screen…I know that it only gets harder from here. Kind of. We’ll see what the next seventeen years entail.*

I’ve spent much of the past few months planning/obsessing over your first birthday party, and so far, all I’ve got to show for it is a pile of plates and napkins in the spare room and the relief of having the invitations completed and in the mail. We’re going for the Sesame Street theme. You probably could care less, we could do the Dirt and Boogers theme for all you care at the moment, but I’d hate for you to have to look at your baby book** some day and see that the party consisted of nothing more than Dirt and Boogers.

So we’re continuing with the Sesame Street theme, and I’m hoping that the piece de resistance will be the four-tiered cake I’ve been mentally dreaming up for the past several weeks. Your Auntie Tamara is helping me, and I don’t want to give too too much away, but let’s just say it involves feathers, fur, and an edible bird’s nest. We’ve also had several *practice* runs that involve you eating cake, and I don’t think you’re going to be one of those one year olds whose parents have to prod them to eat the deliciousness in front of them. You’ve yet to meet a cake you don’t like. All I have to do is figure out how to distract you from the cake once you’ve eaten your fill, lest you get a case of the “Sammies” and turn on the waterworks when we try to take it away before you get a case of the “Ralphies.”

Enough about what will be…let’s chat for a moment about what IS. Namely, let’s chat about your tongue. More specifically, you like to stick it out at people. This is funny when said people know what you’re doing (which is showing the world what the snake does). It’s not so funny when random strangers think we’ve taught our eleven month old to be rude and stick her tongue out at them.

Fortunately, this past weekend’s guests (my former college roommate, Lisa, and her husband, Dave) knew that you were doing your snake impression, and didn’t shun us as parents. Rather, they joined in on the action:



While Lisa & Dave were here, Dave had fun with his super-fancy-camera-that-is-on-my-list-of-things-to-buy-when-we’re-super-rich-but-we’ll-never-be-super-rich-so-I’ll-probably-never-own-said-camera. I even managed to sweet talk him into taking a picture of us by the front door.



This may not seem like such a big deal—we weren’t even really able to get you to look at the camera and smile—but this picture is the LAST of the pictures I needed to finish the A-Z book I had started for you before we were even matched with your birthmom. It represents “H is for Home.” It was supposed to be a relatively easy project, but getting all of the pictures necessary proved to be more difficult than I had previously planned. So, it’s with great acclaim that I can say that I finished at least something** to represent your first year as a Vogt.

In other news, while you’re still not pulling yourself up to a standing position, you are able to STAY standing when I put you next to a piece of furniture you can hold on to. Standing has proven to be quite fun for you, especially when I showed you that you can make noise by banging on the top of the coffee table.

Yeah, I may regret that some day.

Happy Eleven Months, Darling!

Loving you, my spunky little girl,
Your mama

**Yeah, about that baby book…I’m still not done beyond the first few hours in the hospital—still hoping that ONE DAY I’ll have the time to scrapbook your first year like I’d like to. Any hopes for getting time to scrapbook over spring break were brushed aside in my efforts to get your birthday invitations done and in the mail. Maybe over the summer…yeah, right. Who am I kidding? That’s not going to happen, either.

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: