Sam wakes up every two or three hours all night long for the past three days. We are exhausted. I have to take Ella for a walk in the woods today, and it is 93 degrees out with high humidity. Ugh. On the good side, Sam looks adorable in her new Gap dress that Daddy bought her. She has outgrown most of her summer 3-6 month outfits.

We all went for a hike today, Sam, Ella and me. It took about an hour to go a route that Ella and I can do in about a half hour. Between the backpack with water and food and Sam, I was carrying quite a bit, going slower and working harder. We met some other people and dogs, most of them very happy to play, all of them friendly. I met a coupl of women who obviously were not thrilled with dogs, but Ella just waggled a hello and left them alone. Everyone thought taking Sam for a walk was a great thing to do and she gave them big smiles. Of course she gets big smiles back. Munchkin chewed on my fingers much of the way, when she wasn’t demanding a bite out of my walking stick handle. We had a fun time. I noticed Ella walks much closer to me when I am carrying Sam, and she seems to pay much more attention to what is ahead, standing and watching things very carefully. She is just as friendly and happy, just very aware. I am glad to see that, actually. Ella is a working breed dog, and I want her to know that she does have a job to do now that she is older.

Samantha and I have slept the morning away. She was tired from the party yesterday, so I put her down for her nap early. We both slept from about 9 am to noon. I feel SOOO much better. And a bit sorry for Matt because he must be exhausted.

Sam has this sweet habit now when she is going to sleep. As I hold her in my arms, she waves her hands around and roams them all over my face. She also takes her arm and wraps it around my neck and play with my hair with her fingers. Then she gives that little, I'm so tired sigh, and my heart just melts. Good thing I love this little tyke.

The name Samantha, or rather, Sam, seems to send some people into a froth, I'm not sure why. Complete strangers will ask me what her name is, and when I tell them Samantha, they feel compelled to comment. The sales clerk said she hoped I wasn't calling her that awful shortened name, Sam. I told her yes, we do. My neighbor is quite put out about it too. Humans are quite funny about sex stereotyping. I bought some clothes for her, a blue outfit with sailboats on it, and the lady behind me said, you know that's for boys, don't you?

I know Sam's a girl, and she'll know it someday too, no matter what her name is. I think Sam is an adorable name for a sweet little girl. I get tired of pink, and it isn't a great color for her anyway. Blue and purple are gorgeous with her blue eyes and red hair. Some people seem to have a very narrow definition of what is feminine that is very puzzling to me. I don't care what they think about Sam, but I am curious about what makes them so uncomfortable.

I’ve been singing to Sam a lot. Some of her favorites are, Oh What a Beautiful Morning, I Love You a Bushel and a Peck (with appropriate loud smooches exchanged and hugs), Eidelwiess, and lots of others. We have a routine for changing her diaper. She gets progressively happier the more clothes I take off. Then, when she has a fresh diaper on, I blow raspberries on her tummy. She sometimes shrieks in delight, or at the very least her whole face crinkles up in a smile. Her eyes literally sparkle when she is really happy. Sometimes she holds her feet up to my mouth, and I blow raspberries on those too. She also blows bubbles back at me. We have a lot of fun, and I almost sorry when we are done changing her diaper.

She loves getting kisses on her neck, the louder and wetter the better. Those kinds of kisses almost always elicit shrieks of laughter. I also dip her, then bring her close in for a snuggle, then dip her again. Also good for a few happy shrieks, but only if she isn’t tired.

I’m sitting on the sun room watching the sky turn black from the storm. We got back from the mall just in time. Sam has already outgrown many of her 3-6 months clothes. She is a very long girl. She is laying on the floor in her new floor gym that Daddy bought for her, rolling to her tummy but unfortunately not back again. (the sky is even darker now. Is the hand of God descending soon?) Wait, she just did it! Wow, I can’t keep up with her. So I found a couple of outfits for her, but not many. I can’t bring myself to pay $30 for a summer outfit that she won’t wear for very long. Adult clothes for summer go on sale in the summer, why not kid clothes?

Let’s see, what are the silly things going on. (flip, flip she goes) Sam is grabbing Ella’s ear and fur and twists. Ella turns around to see who has her in the choke hold, and then licks Sam’s face. (wind picking up now, breath of God) I guess she isn’t too bothered by it all. I don’t let Samantha get too brutal with her. Samantha also holds onto Hamlet the same way, and Hamlet just purrs the louder for it. Matt and I have discovered an amazing new building material, very cheap, completely renewable: baby drool and dog hair. I can’t get the hair off her for anything once it gets stuck in her drool. I have basically given up and resigned myself to the fact that she will probably have swallowed enough hair by the time she is two to have knitted an adult sized sweater. Yucky, but sane. Oh, now Samantha has decided that toes are better than any floor gym and is sucking on the big one with great relish.

She charmed everyone in the mall with her big grin. She loves being out. She smiles at everyone and turns her head around a lot to make sure she isn’t missing anyone. What a sweetie!

Thunder, lightning, dogs and cats sleeping together. Storm is really here. I am looking forward to watching the rain from inside my cozy porch.

Sometimes the communication between Ella and Sam is pretty wonderful. I'll put Sam standing on the floor, and Ella will come along to clean off the dregs of milk off her chin. Sam thinks that is really fun and smiles pretty hard. I tried to get her to sleep today, and I noticed she kept turning her head around all the time. Ella and Hamlet were in the room, and she was following them around with her eyes, particularly not taking her eyes off Ella, who was in an odd mood. Just as I realized what puppy was trying to do, Sam started giggling. Sam realized Ella wanted to play before I did and was responding with delight. She giggled at Ella for a couple of minutes while Ella woo-woo'd at me and convinced me to play pat-a-cake with her. (I pat Ella's front paws, while she tries to bat her paws at me before I can touch her paws. It's pretty fun as long as I don't get caught by a claw. Ella is extremely gentle.)

I'm convinced Sam's first word is going to be "Ella."

Oh, and I had a nice chat with Dr. Pangburn. Samantha is doing fine with the amounts of cereal she is eating. He even said it was okay to have her eat other things now too. She is maturing so fast! He loves pears for babies.

Samantha may be eating too much cereal for her age. There is conflicting advice about how much she should be eating, none of them from particularly reliable sources (cereal box and a health web site). I called and asked Dr. Pangburn, but he didn’t call back. I’ll just cut back on the cereal, and we’ll all be happy. He better call back tomorrow, or he is really going to hear about it.

Matt and I were having a blast today watching the munchkin in her swing chair. Just today she figured out how to blow the horn and turn the mirror around. Of course, she did it over and over, which gave us a chance to sit and eat dinner. I get such a kick out of all the new things she can do every day. No wonder she gets so tired. She’s been really good about taking naps during the day lately, if I give her a chance to calm down. She slept for two hours this afternoon, and was ready to sleep some more at her regular time tonight, 8am.

I put a notebook on the table in front of her, and she pulled it onto the floor. She grabbed a pen and threw that on the floor too. She is just trying to pull it close and doesn’t realize she has to keep holding it.

The three of us, Ella, Sam and I, went for a walk this afternoon. (Very hot and muggy) I gave the end of the leash to Sam to hold and I held the middle. She chewed on it a lot, but she looked awfully cute holding the end of Ella’s leash. We had a lot of fun.

Samantha seems to be working very hard on sounds right now. When I feed her, she strokes my face with her hands, and if I talk, she keeps sticking her fingers in my mouth. It reminds me of how Helen Keller’s teacher showed her how to talk, by putting Helen’s hands to her mouth. Maybe all children start out that way? Sam can certainly see very well. She also makes squeaky noises that sound just like a parrot, which is ironic because parrots are capable of mimicking human speech.

Toes, though are obviously the center of her world. Any time she can reach them is a happy time in Sam’s life. I envy the kind of flexibility that allows her to grab her toe and put it right in her mouth.

Sometimes Samantha gives me hugs. When I pick her up in the morning, she reaches one hand around my neck and starts to play with my hair and squeezes for a second. I squeeze right back and smooch her. Of course, sometimes she extends that hug into a full blown hair pulling, but I know the sentiment is there. We all have to watch her with hair now, and I can’t wear dangly earrings anymore. I’m not willing to have a hole ripped through my ear. In any contest between my earlobe and Samantha, I’m betting on Sam.

Oh, Hamlet was shoving Sam and purring today. Sam grabbed a handful of his fur, and it just made Hamlet purr even louder. It was a very precious moment. I had to prevent Hamlet from kneading Sam, but other than that he was a sweet gentleman. Matt will never believe that!

Well, Sam has learned to roll both from back to tummy, and tummy to back. I got used to coming in and finding her three feet from where I put her. That’s a big adjustment, given that the first four months she could barely get her arm into position where she wanted it, much less coordinate everything enough to wiggle anywhere. Oddly enough, once she put all that together, she stopped doing it and seems content now to just lay there and play with her toes. I assume she mulling over what she has done and how to get to the next step. She did the same thing with sitting up. She was pulling herself up and sitting, but stopped doing that for a while. Now she does it, three weeks later, and she is much steadier about it. Can you tell she fascinates me?

When I put Sam in her crib tonight, she melted my heart (again). She sticks her butt up in the air, and wiggles a bit to get comfortable, then gives a little sigh just before drifting off to sleep. I have to pat her bottom softly because it is too cute, and I stand watching her for a bit. Just watching how amazing she is.

Where has our tiny little newborn daughter gone? I looked at Samantha sitting in her car seat this morning and she fills the car seat now! When she was born, just a few months ago, she was all but lost in it. She's wearing 6 to 9 month clothes now too, and has outgrown a remarkable number of things already. Every day she looks bigger.

She's developing better control over her hands every day, and has learned to work the musical crib mirror with her feet as well. She's chewing on everything in sight, and is much better at grabbing things and stuffing them into her mouth. She also has a new rattle that she seems to love (although she hits herself in the head with it from time to time, which I wish she wouldn't, because it's made of wood). She becomes more observant and more engaged with the world with each passing day.

As far as personality, she's a bright sunny baby most of the time, although she's still in a clingy phase where she cries if you try to put her down when she wants to be held, and she doesn't like us to be out of her sight for long.

But she squeals with delight when she sees us in the morning or when I come home from work, and she smiles at everyone, even Ella. Except, of course, when it's time to go to bed. That's still a nightly ordeal for everyone involved.

Sam has soft down on her face now. She is a big girl. Her hair is growing in, and she has kept most of her baby hair, at least so far.

We had a party, more of an open house, on Sunday afternoon. Roughly 40 to 45 people showed up -- a mixture of friends, neighbors, Amy's family, and a coworker or two. It went very well. The food and drink were plentiful and well received (two pitchers of mojitos disappeared in short order), and everyone seemed to have a nice time. People who'd never met each other before struck up conversations and got along remarkably well. In the small world department, it turns out the Clare, my coworker, has been friends for some time now with Amy's friend Paula Folkman and her husband Judah.

Samantha was, of course, the star attraction of the day. She was passed around from hand to hand because everyone wanted to hold her. She seemed to love the attention, and spent the entire day either napping on someone's shoulder or smiling and coo'ing adorably. Jack, our neighbor across the fence who was grown children and grandchildren of his own, positively beamed when Amy asked him if he'd like to hold Samantha. She sat on his lap for almost an hour, delighted the entire time. Jack looked like he was enjoying himself too. Amy's brother Alan also spent a long time sitting with Samantha. He really seems to love babies.

Amy and I were both surprised and a bit embarrassed by how many people brought gifts either for us (housewarming gifts 2 years after you move in?) or for Samantha. We certainly didn't expect that; in fact, it never occured to us that anyone might do such a thing.

Ella was also very well behaved for the most part, although she's taken a serious liking to Ben, our friend Sam's son. Ben, however, is afraid of Ella. She doesn't help by trying to jump on him and lick his face every time she sees him!

Unfortunately, everything was running so late in the preparations and I was so frazzled by the time people got here that I completely forgot to get my camera and take some pictures. I guess we'll just have to do another one of these in the winter.

Samantha is sleeping peacefully right now. Last night she slept completely through the night from 9:45 pm (after another 2 hour battle of wills to get her to sleep) until 6 am. I hope she does the same tonight.

Today was a whining day again for Samantha. I wasn’t home with her, so I am getting my reports from Matt. I got to spend the afternoon in an MRI tube. Oh joy. I managed to get through the last bit by first pretending I was Jodie Foster in Contact, in a big tube with magnetic rings whipping around heading off to meet friendly aliens. That got me through most of it, except towards the end. Then I imagined Sam’s big grin and giggle, and I actually started smiling myself. I bet not too many people do that at the end of a half hour in the MRI! Not everyone has Sam’s smile to remember.

She was screaming this evening, so I decided to give her a bath, maybe it would help to soothe her. She stopped screaming the minute she hit the water, and started kicking and gurgling with glee. She is now the bubble baby, blowing lots of bubbles with her drool. Finally a use for it besides sliming Matt in the face. I am told that blowing bubbles is an early form of learning speech. I don’t know about that, but she is certainly having fun with it. When I blew bubbles back at her, she stopped and stared with such intensity, I could practically see her brain as a sponge, soaking up just how I make those fun sounds. She really is fun. She makes me think of Ella, that elemental joy in life that they spread around so effectively.

Samantha is just that far from being able to crawl.

She slept in her crib again last night, after another multi-hour effort to get her to sleep during which Amy and I traded off sitting with her. Twice during the night I went in to chech on her, and both times she'd rolled over and was sleeping on her stomach. When I went to look in on her this morning she was not only sleeping on her stomach, she had her knees tucked up underneath her and her hips in the air. She looked halfway to pushing herself up on all fours.

She did the same thing again just now on the floor gym -- flipped over to her stomach, pulled her knees underneath herself, and tried to raise her front half. If she'd thought to take her thumb out of her mouth and use both arms to lift herself she'd have done it. As it was she managed to scoot along using both knees and one arm, covering 4 feet or so more quickly than I'd have expected, ending up off the floor gym and on the carpet.

It won't be much longer before she's crawling all over the house and we have to start putting up baby gates!

Today's food adventure is bubbles. Yes, this wunderkind had a lot of fun with her food today. I accidentally made it a little extra soupy. As the spoon got into her mouth, she would blow out and make nice bubble with the rice cereal. As a result, lunch was particularly messy today.

Sam started the day by yelling at 5 am to be fed. I was so tired this morning that I couldn't see straight and I slept on the couch with her in my lap until 10 am. She didn't really sleep, fussed some of the time. She spent almost the whole day yelling or fussing to some degree whenever I wasn't holding her. I went to a weight watchers meeting, and she was completely quiet the whole time. I'm glad I got to attend the meeting, but I also kind of laughed when another mother came over to say how beautiful Sam is and what a good baby she is. Only for that one half-hour!

She does not want to go to sleep again tonight. She kept Matt up until 1am the other night when he was writing the log entry, and then she woke up again at 4am. I hope she doesn't do that again tonight. She went to sleep at 8, woke up at 8:30 and has just gone to sleep again at 10:30. Who knows when she'll wake up next. This is exhausting!