August: The Novel

Dearest Sammie Girl,

CHAPTER ONE: WALKING

This week, the proverbial light bulb went on over your head. Walking, you realized, isn’t merely for the amusement of your parents. Walking can be used to get places. Quickly. Without getting your knees dirty (bonus for the laundress queen of the house, aka me).

With other milestones, your father and I made sure to make a huge deal about them as you were doing them so you would be encouraged to do them again. When you started signing back, we clapped our hands and did our own version of the red wave in the living room. When you crawled consistently, we jumped up and down and cheered as though you had just won the Superbowl, Nobel Peace Prize and an Oscar—in the same night. This attention made you happy—and more eager than ever to demonstrate your new skills on a regular basis.

We tried those same tactics when you started walking, but our two person cheering section backfired on us quickly. It went something like this:

You: *stumble, step, stumble*
Mamma: JAY! LOOK! SHE’S WALKING AGAIN!
Daddy: WAY TO GO, BABY GIRL!!!
You: *stumble, wobble, stumble*
Mamma & Daddy: YAY SAMMIE! YAY—SAMM…
You: *Right foot, wobble, wobble, sit down. Again.*
Mamma & Daddy: Nuts.

Now, in an effort to not distract from your ever-improving walking skills, we’ve got to do what we don’t want to do: we have to ignore you in what is surely your greatest milestone to date. It goes something like this now:

You: *step, stumble, step, step*
Mamma: *Tries to send telepathic messages to your father from across the room*: Psst! Jay! She’s walking!
You: *step, step, step, stumble, step, step*
Daddy: *Pumps fist and tries hard to contain excitement*

--two minutes later, after you’ve reached your desired destination—

Mamma & Daddy: YAY SAMMIE! LOOK WHO’S WALKING NOW!
You (realizing you have our attention): *smile, smile, giggle, grin then make the sign for “milk.”

Whatever the case, I celebrated this milestone until other mothers told me that climbing comes right after walking.

Really? I was under the impression that we were done with the childproofing thing. Now I have to actually make sure that all things OVER the three foot mark are baby safe, too? Good grief. Off to find a new place else to store our growing collection of knives, guns and broken glass.**



CHAPTER TWO: LEARNING

Raising a baby, I’ve learned, involves observing your child take on the world and learn in one of two ways: either overtly or covertly. For those who didn't spend a ridiculous amount of time in child education classes to get their credential, I'll break it down for you: overt learning is the obvious: “Look, Sammie! There’s a dog! What does a dog say? That’s right! Woof woof! Doggie says ‘woof’!!”

Covert learning, to wax educational for a moment, is what is subtly learned without our putting forth any effort to actually teach anything. Simply put: monkey see, monkey do. An example of covert learning: I put the bows in your hair every morning without fail so people know without a doubt that you’re a GIRL (because the masses of pink and purple you wear every day isn’t enough of a clue sometimes). Later on, when I ask your father where your bow is, you instinctively reach for your head.

I bring this up because last night I watched in amusement as you showed us once again that you knew how to properly use an object that you’d yet to receive “formal” lessons for. I’m referring, dear Sammie, about an object that reigns supreme in the Vogt households: the remote control.

I’ll suspect your demonstrating of your new skills had less to do with actual fascination with the TV and more to do with buying more time before you went to bed, but it still amused me so I became a one-mom paparazzi show as you tried in earnest to get the TV to turn on with the remote control.

Trying to turn the TV on by pushing random buttons and pointing it at the TV:

Hmmm…maybe you were too far away last time.

Let’s scoot closer and try the point and click method again.


Mom? It’s not working…hey! Why are you taking pictures of me AGAIN?


Well, while you’re looking at me, can I have some milk?


No milk? Nuts. Maybe if I just point the remote MORE I can see if it turns on.


Definitely need to be closer to the TV to get this thing to work.


Let’s just ditch the remote altogether and start pushing buttons on the cable box.


MOMMMM! Stop taking pictures and get this thing to work already!


*Warning* the following pictures show a clear lapse in judgment on my part: I couldn’t be the strict mommy and take a billion pictures of you trying to get the TV and then just pick you up and haul you off to bed. I gave in and let you watch ten minutes of the only show you’re allowed to watch-- Sesame Street. Then I hauled you off to bed.

Hey--wait a minute—I’ve got Big Bird here in my lap—

but he’s on TV, too—how did that happen?

HIIIII Big Bird! (You must wave hi to all of the major characters as you see them onscreen).


This is the BEST NIGHT EVER! I get milk AND TV before bedtime!

EPILOGUE

Yep, I have tried to explain to bubba here that Big Bird is Sammie’s toy and not a dog toy.

He begs to differ.

loving you tons,
your mamma



**This is a joke. We do not have a collection of knives, guns and broken glass. OK, well, that’s not entirely true. I do have knives. But they’re for cutting bread and meat—not for killing people.




PS. Doctor's appointment this week. STBPITW (Still the Best Pediatrician in the World) clocked you in at 30.5 inches and 27 pounds 2 ounces. Translation: you've grown since the last appointment, but I beg to differ about gaining 5 pounds since your last visit. Measurement gate continues...

What the Cable Guy Saw...

Dearest Sammie Girl,

Yay yay and triple yay, shortly followed by nuts nuts and triple nuts!

Allow me to explain the cheers: you took a step today. And another step.

Unassisted.

Loosely translated: you're a walking baby!

...but I'm a Pullen at heart, which means that Murphy's Law is the way things will happen EVERY SINGLE TIME. So allow me to explain the jeers:

I went back to school today for teacher's meetings. Several coworkers saw that I had Sammie on the brain and had the good graces to ask how you were doing. My answer remained the same "She's awesome and adorable and we're waiting for her to walk."

Seven hours later, I'm home again, feeding you goldfish crackers and watching the cable guy do his thing as he installed our new satellite dish. The bliss lasted for an hour. While online, I saw that the school powers that be had made an error in my schedule. Back to school I went in an effort to catch the guidance counselor before she left for the night.

It was a quick errand--from the time I left until the time I returned home, no more than 40 minutes had elapsed.

Sadly, in those 40 minutes, it was your dad and the cable guy that got to see history in the making instead of your mama.

Step, step, smile, sit down.

Facepalm, Facekeyboard, facetable.

Next time you reach a major milestone, try to save it for your mama instead of the meter reader or newspaper delivery boy, ok?

Thanks. I really appreciate it.

But congratulations on walking. Really, I mean it. Honestly.

Mumble groan sniff sniff.

Love you lots my toddler,

your mama

Beautiful Inside & Out

Dearest Sammie...

This is from your latest (and last, for a while) photoshoot. You were modeling bows :-)

The Saga of the Hand Imprint

Dearest Sammie,

Epic Fail.

On this, my second to last day of summer, I got the *brilliant* idea to try to do the plaster mold of your hand.



I had received the plaster molding kit for one of your showers, and was so excited to capture this part of your babyhood. My parents had done the imprint of my hand when I was a baby, and I wanted to do the same for you. The box said infant to 12 years, but I was smart enough to wait until you were older.



Fourteen months seemed about right.

I dressed you up to match the colors that I planned to paint the mold, and made sure that my hair and face were somewhat presentable. I even turned my Pampered Chef apron inside out so you couldn't see the logo (not that I'm embarrassed of it, quite the contrary, I just wanted a classic picture of us placing your hand in the plaster to post next to your hand imprint so we could capture the moment).

Yeah, I know. Your mama's a bit crazy about these things.

We got off on the wrong foot right away--I misread the directions and tried to mix the stuff right in the flimsy heart shaped mold instead of in the bowl. I quickly transferred the goo to a bowl while your father tried to salvage the plastic tray by cleaning it. It was then that it dawned on me that it probably wasn't a good idea to put you so close to the green goop without putting some sort of cover up on you.

By this point, though, we were racing against the clock. According to the directions, I had exactly 90 seconds to mix the stuff into a "pancake like consistency" and another 60 seconds to place your hand in the gel mixture.

Yeah, you read that right. I was supposed to hold your hand in place in this pancake-like green goop for 60 seconds.

Let me remind you that on the box it says "for infants to 12 years."



We plopped you on the counter while your daddy tried to snap pictures of the momentous occasion.



It, um, didn't exactly work out as I had planned.

It 2.2 seconds flat, you were covered in green goop and not a happy camper.



So much for keeping your hand perfectly centered in the tray for a full minute.

So much for keeping you perfectly clean in your perfectly coordinating red watermelon outfit (with perfectly matching bow to boot).

So much for having the perfectly captured imprint of your hand, painted in red and white polka dots, with the perfectly posed picture framed nearby.

I spent the remainder of the time frantically scrubbing what was left of your clothes with a brush in your bathroom. As I type this, your clothes are soaking in the bathroom sink while I hope and pray they're not ruined for all of eternity.

So...like I said, epic fail in the arts and crafts department for 14 month olds.



The End

Loving you,
your mama

Oopsie Doodle

Dearest Sammie,

So much for writing every week. I was doing great for the first 13 months and then summer hit and life happened and...well, the blog was the last thing on my mind.

Rather than writing a trilogy on what's been going on, I figured I would rather show you:

In the few weeks I've been off for summer vacation, keeping cool has been the name of the game. We've done everything but be at home. We've gone to the lake, used the pool at Nonni & Poppa's, visited the animals out the zoo, worn matching shirts for the Fowler Fourth of July celebration and played tourists in Monterey.

...and because I'm a mom and I HAVE to record these things lest I go down on record as being the slacker mom, I should mention that developmentally, you've grown by leaps and bounds in the past few weeks. In a nutshell, you're pulling up, standing unassisted (for a few seconds until you realize you're in unchartered territory and carefully sit down...but still!), signing like crazy, saying several words (Mamma, Dadda, dog, hi), imitating animal sounds (ducks, ponies, snakes and fish are your favorite ones to do), cruising around/getting into EVERYTHING you're not supposed to, applying for Harvard and translating the Bible into two new languages. Ok, so I may have stretched the truth on the last two, but the others are 100% true.

I'm going to sign off now--it's been a few minutes since I've seen you and at the rate you're going there's probably a new milestone I missed somewhere in the past few moments.

Loving you like crazy,
your mama

The Cupcake Saga

Dear Sammie Girl,

Last week, your mama was a slacker. Or a rebel. Whichever way you want to look at it, for the first time since your birth…I skipped a weekly post.

To be honest, I did sit down at the computer last Thursday to figure out something to write: maybe I should write about how you’re signing “more” like crazy whenever you want a little snack or nibble, perhaps how you’re enjoying the pool more, or maybe about the insane amount of teeth that have made their appearances in your mouth these past two weeks (total at the moment: eight and counting)…but the words just weren’t coming to me. So, I shut down the computer and got down on the floor to play with you instead.

Fortunately, I can make up for being speechless last week with tons of pictures this week.

We took you in last week for your final installment of the ‘Baby’s First Year’ photo package we bought when you were just a few weeks old. You started off strong, wearing the “Sammie” onesie and rockin’ the zebra hair bows that my hairdresser Tracey made for you.

These pictures melt my heart—I just want to reach through the computer screen and pinch your not so little cheeks!

Then, it was time to go outside and get some family portraits done. We did the same poses that we did a year ago so we could see how much you’ve changed over the past year:

...last year's shot (for reference)


…and we FINALLY got a beautiful family picture where all three of us are looking pretty good. This is what’s on my computer desktop now. Every time I boot up I can’t help but smile at your smiling face:





Then it was cupcake time. Before I can show you the results, you must know the chaos that went into the preparation of getting these last set of pictures.

It started a few months ago, when we took you in to get your nine month pictures. The photographer casually told me how it was so cute when another mom brought in white boxes and balloons and a colorful cupcake for her daughter’s first birthday pictures. I liked that idea and told her we’d do the same thing when it came time for your first birthday pictures.

Fast forward three months, and it’s the night before your photo session. Your mama is wiped from teaching the first day of summer school and we were celebrating your Grandpa Mike’s birthday at a restaurant. Halfway through my steak, it dawned on me: the packages. And balloons. And a cupcake. The pictures were TOMORROW, and I’d prepared absolutely nothing. To make matters worse, we had to leave RIGHT AFTER summer school in order to make the photo session in time.

*Insert one tired mama staying up until midnight wrapping boxes in white butcher paper and silently getting upset at myself for being too cheap to buy actual white wrapping paper because dangit if the butcher paper didn’t keep ripping here*

The next morning, while my students were working silently, I emailed the photographer and begged for a later slot—which fortunately, she was able to do. Then I texted your dad and asked him to go to Costco to get a pink or purple cupcake for the pictures—and wouldn’t you know it if Costco can’t make individual cupcakes. They also can’t do different colored frosting without a day’s notice. So he came home with twenty of the biggest white and chocolate cupcakes I’d ever seen.

I became a one woman tornado after school, running to FOUR different stores in an attempt to get white shirts for your dad and me and white balloons filled with helium. I found the shirts with relative ease, but the helium—which I thought would be an easy task—was another story. Both dollar stores had run out of white mylar balloons the week before (stupid graduation parties), and their rules prevented them from being able to blow up the white latex balloons I’d bought at Target.

*Insert one frantic mama kicking herself for not ponying up the bucks to get the balloons filled at the overpriced party store that was in the same parking lot as the place I’d bought the shirts*

Finally, I struck gold: the drug store by our house agreed to fill the balloons, for pretty cheap (score!). When I realized that we’d need weights to keep the little suckers from flying all over the car, I was informed that the weights would double the price. When all was said and done, I would’ve been better off just buying their balloons instead of bringing my own. Grrr—and previous point removed.

So, that brings us to the cupcake pictures. The ones I’d been thinking about for the past three months, figuring out exactly how we’d carry it out. I pictured you covered in frosting and smiling at the camera with white boxes and balloons behind you.

I forgot to take into account that you’re all business when it comes to your food, and you don’t slow down for anything, let alone stopping long enough to smile at a camera:





Silly mama.

…oh, yeah, and you were eating it a little too neatly for my taste, so I eventually just picked up the cupcake and smashed it into your face so you’d get the frosting all over.





And did I mention that you don’t like food taken away from you? This was after we’d taken the bulk of the cupcake away. You were…um…a little displeased with us.



*Insert awkward transition here*

Father’s Day was this past Sunday, and we celebrated it in two parts over the weekend. Your dad wanted three things for father’s day: to go to the Pop Laval Gallery, get some frozen yogurt, and buy a shop vac.

We got a late start, though, so by the time we’d eaten dinner and spent what seemed like years at the various home improvement stores, the only thing he managed to get was the shop vac. And a very tired and cranky baby.

Sunday, we spent the morning at your Aunt Beth and Uncle Tom’s house eating waffles and white sauce (your dad’s favorite) and the afternoon napping. We headed over to Nonni and Poppa’s house for an epic barbeque with Fresno State corn.

You and Ben gave Poppa your father’s day gift:




Here's a close up of you holding one of the letters:

He loved it for the pictures of his grandkids, and loved it even more when we pointed out that you guys had spelled out Poppa.

Score two for Sammie and Ben!

Loving you lots,
your mama

PS Your dad's been hard at work redoing our front yard, and the other day he had me take pictures of the new tree he'd bought. I think it'll be fun to watch you and the tree get bigger!

The Numbers Are In!

Dearest Sammie Girl,

Last month, I would've sworn that you hit a major growth spurt. You were growing out of your 12 month clothes faster than I could say "pass the Cheerios, please" and my poor old back was having a harder time holding you for extended periods of time (see the Cheerios comment above). The change was so noticeable that I halfway expected you to have gained six inches and fifty pounds in the last three months.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

They weighed and measured you at your doctor's appointment yesterday; you're now nearly 23 pounds and 29 inches tall. As in, you've grown a measely inch and a half and have gained nearly a pound and a half in the past three months. Um...say what? How is it then that your onesies (that were loose in March) are now threatening to become tube tops?

Your father and I don't get it. We demand a recount. I'll keep you posted on what shall heretoafter be known as "measurement-gate"

In other news, last month's cold is now fully explained: teeth. Or, to be more specific, FOUR teeth. You've got two new teeth peeking through on the top of your mouth, and two more that are threatening to break through anyminutenow. The ones that are already showing aren't the typical ones in the middle--they're the ones on the other side of the middle teeth. It makes you look like a Vampire. But a cute vampire, if such a thing exists.

Lastly, and I am so excited to finally be able to post this, you're finally pulling yourself up. To be honest, I was a little worried. You were following every other milestone to the letter in terms of when "most" babies do various things: sitting up at six months? Check. Crawling by nine months? Check. Pulling up by ten months? Um...well, see...not quite.

Then you pulled yourself up on the makeshift drums I've made you with my kitchen bowls. And again on the tub when you were hanging out with me in the bathroom whilst I shaved my legs. And again in the crib when you disagreed with your naptime.

So pulling up is now "check, check and triple check!"

I'd ask when you're planning on walking, but I'm fully aware that when you start walking you're going to segue right into running--and Mama doesn't run. Ever. So, I'm not exactly anxious for the "running after baby because she's taken off yet again" milestone.

Be kind to your mama. Don't make me run too much--please?

Loving you like crazy,

your mama