Thanksgiving Day went very well. Samantha, bless her little toes, slept at all the right times and for all the right amounts that made it easier to put on dinner. Dinner was still three hours later than I'd planned, but that's okay. Leslie and Matt seemed fine. Samantha enjoyed the bits of turkey, tsimmes and potatoes that we gave her, and loved chewing on Leslie's shoelaces. Samantha even was kind enough not to break Leslie's glasses. Ella kept Leslie's feet warm when Sam wasn't chewing on the laces, so we had excellent help in hosting our guest. (and a very tolerant guest. Thank you Leslie!) It was a quiet day, but a thankful one.

Samantha is on the floor pulling out catalogs and videotapes. She didn't eat as much for breakfast today, but I guess she is on her 'not eat much' kick again. She was up twice last night. Once at 11 pm and once at 5:30. Matt took over the 5:30 am wake up and he said it took an hour to get her back to sleep. She slept until 8:30 after that, which was really nice.

Things to be thankful for:

Husband naps, laughter, generous spirit and witty ditties.

Samantha naps, smiles, rampaging through the house investigating things, her health, grabbing her parents and smooching them, grabbing Ella and grabbing some more,

A patient puppy who puts up with all the baby grabbing and yelling with a certain equanimity I envy. Her joy and bouncies when she is in the snow or just dashing in the woods. The way she can drag me out to get exercise when I least want to, and get me to have fun anyway.

Kitties that are also patient with our little implet, and who know how to keep a nosy puppy in place when Ella deserves it. Hamlet that doesn't scratch Sam even when he is cornered and being mangled. Their soft fur and wonderful purrs. Their company while I was on bedrest. I could always count on them to keep a spot warm on the bed for me. Sometimes their purrs were the only thing that kept the antsies at bay during those long two months.

A loving household, good friends, and a great family.

Samantha starts off this day is the right spirit. I think it was very thoughtful of her to sleep through the night, from 8pm to 6am this morning. My brain doesn't know what to do with an uninterrupted night's sleep. It is responding by clamoring for more sleep. Not going to get it, sorry. She looked like she might sleep in bed with us for a few moments, but alas, not this time. She normally is very hyper when she is in bed with us, but this time she actually put her head down for a few seconds. Now she is banging on the stereo door.

It is 18 degrees (F) outside and too cold even for Ella to go play. I don't really want Sam out in it either. I think this may be a day when I take Ella by myself to the sheepfold. She is hysterically funny to watch bounding through the snow. She gets a snow mustache when she puts her head in the snow that is just clownish.

I have learned that there are a few things that Samantha is afraid of: Vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, and paper shredders. It is really hard to vacuum the house when Samantha has to be held by someone else or asleep. Oh well, having a clean house was never a particular goal of mine.

It's the night before her first Thanksgiving. The eaves have icicles on them, and the air is so cold that there are little snow diamonds floating in the air. There is lots of ice on the ground, since everything melted this afternoon and froze again.

We are planning a smallish but traditional meal tomorrow, and Leslie is coming to share it with us. That is great. We'll be having turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, broccoli, and tzimmes. I think Sam will really like the tsimmes. I call her the little implet lately since she is into everything and loves to smash around. Then of course she looks at you and gives you a heart melting grin. "I am having fun with this expensive wireless control box." She says with that grin. "please don't drag me away from something this great." Luckily she thinks a wooden spoon is just as great, and I can redirect her to something less fragile.

She is reaching for the keyboard, so any typos are her doing!

She woke up at 9 pm and 1 am last night. I fed her watered down formula at 1am, (half and half). She sucked it all down and it seemed to make her happy. She fell asleep right away. She may have been pooping at 1am, although I don't know if that would make her wake up and cry. I didn't check to see. She slept until 7 am and was happy playing when I went in.

I'm not so upset about larger diapers anymore. Sam has proved that she can blow through this size very effectively. And that's all I'm going to say about that topic. Except it is 8 am; I have washed my hands three times and Samantha has had a complete change of clothes.

She is hanging off the bouncy thing and playing with the toys. Two minutes ago she was trying to pull everything off the end table where we keep the remotes, and now she is working on pulling apart the oh so sophisticated Pottery Barn catalog. The light coming from under the bathroom door also fascinated her. Oh the simple joys of childhood.

Our little sweetie has been very busy the last few days. She has figured out how to get water out of the water cooler tap. (the hot water tap is child proofed) She knows how to work the swing door. She's not dropping much food at all when she eats. There was something else, but I don't remember what it is. Oh, she is very good at getting her arms in and out of her shirts. Yes, the other thing I was trying to remember is she knows how to take off her diaper. She loves ripping off the Velcro tab. That must be why she was so good at taking off the Velcro that Matt put on the entertainment center equipment to child proof it. The center is only childproofed because Matt put another piece of Velcro on the top where Sam can't reach it.

It is hard to keep one step ahead of her, and she is just starting. I can't imagine her when she is older. We are about to start using the next size larger diaper, #3. It makes me a little sad to realize what a big girl she is. She will be ten months old in a few days. When I hold her in my arms, she is a real handful. She now holds onto my hair and holds onto me more when we are going up and down the stairs. She holds herself differently. Matt and I were wondering if she isn't sleeping well because she is starting on a new developmental leap again. She seems close to walking. She lets go and stands pretty well holding on with one hand, and every day she lets go with that one hand a little longer before plopping down. My big girl.

We all went to the sheepfold this afternoon and watched Ella run around the park and play. It was chilly, so we just went for a short walk and then went home. Ella is a joy to watch when she runs and is silly. Samantha did very well in the backpack, although her hands and feet were pretty cool by the time we got to the car. The rest of her was very warm. Oops. Ella is on the floor with her tummy bared, gotta go scritch it for her.

Today was a good day, mostly. Samantha went down for a nap around 11am. I got to rake the driveway so my car won't slip on the leaves. I also got to rake the patio in back so the leaves are all in a pile and Ella will not be confused about where the lawn begins. It felt good to be outside. I got a lot of other stuff done too, and made a nice lunch. I woke Sam up around 1pm so we could go to the park. It was pouring off and on all morning, and had finally seemed to lighten up. Ella was wandering around all morning whining to go run and play and driving me insane. I fed Sam her lunch and we all hied off for the park. It was foggy, that sort of spitting rain but not quite raining kind of fog. It was unearthly in the woods. I know the paths really well, but they were still hard to recognize with all the leaves down and the colors so different. The sound was off too. Noise really is different in fog, amplified. The phrase "I wandered in vaulted silence through the pines" kept running through my head. The little brooks had gone down a bit. Not many birds out in the rain. I felt like I was the only creature left in the silence. Ella was a comfort with her exuberant presence. Samantha was asleep almost immediately in the backpack. She looked really uncomfortable and had a big red spot on her face when we were done, but it didn't keep her awake. She slept a lot today. Probably because she slept so little last night!

Samantha loves tissue boxes. She finds one and just starts yanking the tissues out and throwing them up in the air with great abandon. I am torn between laughter and frustration, a state of being I am experiencing quite often lately.

Any tight spot seems to be a magnet for her. She gets stuck, though, and yells for me to rescue her. I left the box from her stroller on the floor and she has started to go in there and squirm around a bit. She also seems to like banging on the cardboard. It gives a nice loud boom when she hits it. All in all, the box is good for some great entertainment.

Just came back from shopping with Samantha. It is amazing how people respond to a baby. She gives nice big smiles back too. She is a very friendly sweetie. The check-out people in particular are helpful and love to play with her toes and shake her rattles for her. I love watching her reaction, that instant of indecision, then the slow lightening up of her face. She is gorgeous.

She was up every two and a half hours last night, or it felt like every hour. 10pm, 12:30am, 3:30am, 7am. I am exhausted. Matt was up with her at 3:30am. I was awake the whole time, but got to stay in bed for the most part. Now I think she was pooping at the 3:30 am rising, but that is just a guess. I know part of this is my fault because she didn't have a regular nap hour yesterday afternoon, but I tried! She just screamed for a half hour. I just want her to sleep through the night.

We had a nice morning walk and visited a neighbor who also has a 9-month-old baby. He was asleep, but their dog was awake, I mean, really awake. He and Ella played like mad. Samantha played with Cole's toys while the pups rampaged around the room, and Becky and I got to chat for a bit. Becky recently bought a cover for the car seat that makes them easier to carry. It looks really useful for when we go traveling. She's the same person who told me about the used kids clothing store, Kids N Caboodle. A great person to know! And she's fun too.

Samantha got tired before Ella did, so we had to leave. I brought her home, changed her, and she was asleep before she finished her six ounce bottle. Those are sweet moments, when she snuggles in tight. Last night we went to dinner at a restaurant and she was tired. I walked around with her a bit to soothe her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and ran her fingers through my hair at my nape. I put my nose in her hair and just kissed her for a bit. She really is amazingly sweet. I am a very lucky mom.

Last night she woke up at 1am, but not at 10 am. We gave her a slightly watered down formula, and it seemed to make her happy enough. She slept from 1:00 until 7:00 am today without any yelling at all. I only woke up because I am used to waking up at 7 and I could hear her playing with her book and the musical toys in her crib.

Teeth and Eyes. Samantha new favorite things to explore are teeth and eyes. She shoves her pointy nails on my teeth and scrapes along the gums, and then rams a finger in my eye. Nothing compared to giving birth to her (the spinal really hurt going in!) but still nasty. Oh, and she wants to see what each ceiling is like. Where ever we go, she flings herself backwards and stares at the ceiling. Good thing I expect her to do it, because otherwise she'd end up on the floor.

She went to WW with me today. The ladies in the meeting are really nice, and there is a lady there who has a 15-month-old boy that she tells me about (he is in day care). The leader is really nice about me bringing her, and I am careful to not stay on days when she is about to be fussy.

Samantha's screeching is not any closer to abating. It is actually painful if you are sitting next to her. I am not sure I want her to be a dulcet type of girl, but not sounding like a banshee would probably be a good thing.

Well, Samantha woke up again last night at 10pm and 1am. I tried just giving her water at 1am as Dr. Pangburn suggested, and she had a hard time going back to sleep. I finally got her sleeping again, but she started crying before I left the room. I left anyway, figuring she'd go to sleep eventually. So we are both laying in bed, listening to her scream and neither of us getting any sleep. Matt gave up before I did and went in, and I went in a few minutes after him. Nothing we did would console her, so Matt came up with the great idea of giving her watered down formula. We tried that. She sucked down 4 ounces of formula, yelled when it was done, sucked down the next bottle of two ounces, rolled over and was asleep in minutes. She sucked down the 6-ounce bottle when she woke up this morning at 7am too. I doubt she'll eat much breakfast, but we needed sleep! I'm surprised she didn't sleep later when she was so well fed, but maybe her very wet diaper kept her up this morning? It must have been cold.

We have plans to wean her off the bottle this weekend. Plans for two very tired and grumpy parents. And somehow in all this we have to get the yard cleared up for the winter.

Today is cold, upper thirties, and very dark grey. I put Samantha's heavy snow suit on her and off we go. Ella is just thrilled to be out, and I have to agree with her. We went around the reservoir and had a very nice walk. The leaves are all down, and there are lots of streams and puddles that have never been there before. The rushing water made me realize what a dry spring we had. Samantha seemed to adjust well to the backpack, and I walked just fine, meaning my hip stayed in its socket. I do wish I had the walking stick, but I couldn't find it in the car when we got to the park. We went on a new loop that was very pretty. The woods are very dramatic in the late fall, with the bare trunks and dark branches outlined in the gray sky. What leaves are left are very bright yellow and really stand out. Everything is very crisp and stark. It is beautiful.

I gave her a nice warm bottle of formula when we got home and put her to bed. She yelled for about twenty minutes and finally went to sleep.

She is very interested in teeth right now, which is a bit painful. She is also back to using her pacifier. She will crawl across the room to get hers off the bouncy thing. She stuffs it in her own mouth and is quite adept at turning it around so the rubber part is in her mouth.

Yesterday the two of them cracked me up. I was eating lunch and Samantha crawled over to my chair, hauled herself upright on the arm of the chair and stood there staring at me with her mouth opening and closing. Ella seemed to sense that there was food in the offing, so she came and sat right behind Sam. The look on their faces was identical. "Feed me" So I gave a piece of pita to Sam, waited a bit, and then gave a piece to Ella. Chimp chomp! Sam reaches over the arm of the chair and pulls on my sleeve, then opens her mouth again. So I give her another piece. Ella just stares very intently. She did try to lick off the piece that Sam hadn't eaten yet, but Sam knows that maneuver and forestalled her. Ella backed off when I told her "leave it" thank goodness. They went back to sitting in front of me begging again. They were hysterically funny.

The toy of the hour is light switches. Interestingly, she can flick them down, but has a hard time flicking them up. She reaches for them every time we enter a room, and she now knows where most of them are. Nothing misses her eagle eye.

She yelled quite a bit early last night around 10 and then midnight, the kind of ear splitting, "I'm in pain," kind of cries. We gave her some Motrin and a bottle of water, and she slept for the rest of the night. It feels wonderful when she does that.

Samantha cracks me up with Ella's dog bed. She crawls into the middle of it (no small feat in itself) and sits up. Then she starts bouncing up and down as though she is waiting for it to take off. Or she is wondering where Ella is.

I have the yellow and white blanket in the car now. It fits the new car seat really well, and that way I always have something warm to wrap her in.

Some days Samantha is just too cute for words. Last night was one of those days. I was giving her a bath around 7:00 or so and she was having a grand old time -- she loves her bath and is a real water baby -- when suddenly she decided she'd had enough. She tried to stand up in the bathtub (a big inflatable duck that sits on the bathroom counter) and grab onto my shirt to tell me it was time to get out of the bath.

So into her room we went, by which time she decided she was very tired and the best way to express this was to scream bloody murder and thrash around on the changing table while I tried to get some clothes onto her. Big fun for all involved, I tell you...

Finally dressed, I picked her up and let her lay across my shoulder with her pacifier (she's taken a sudden liking to them in the last couple of weeks after nine months of complete disinterest). She calmed down pretty quickly and I sat down in the rocking chair to read her a story and go through the bedtime ritual. As we finished the book her eyes started to drift closed, at which point she took out her pacifier, stuck the end of it in my mouth, smiled at me, gave a big yawn, and went to sleep in my arms.

Do nine month olds usually try to share their bottles and pacifiers with their daddies, or is she just special?

Samantha has been climbing up my pants leg for a while now, holding on with both hands. Lately she has been letting one hand go and just using the one hand. Today she let go with both hands and stood there for a second before gracefully sitting down on the floor. She astonishes me.

Samantha has figured out how to play the music on her tower toy that Kelly and Alan got for her. She keeps pressing the button on the top. She doesn't have the face on it. She just presses the little button, over and over, and over. She is getting more finger control every day.

She woke up last night around 3am ate and fussed until about 4am. Then she was up again at 6, but Matt says she fell asleep again? Or at least stopped fussing until about 7. I was comatose and didn't hear a thing until Matt came in at 8am. I am so grateful for that extra 2 hours. It felt wonderful.

We sat on the sun room for a bit while the plasterer went over the house with Matt. (We had two leaks this summer, unrelated, and are trying to get someone to fix the ceilings and walls.) I put her on her tummy on top of the exercise ball (21 inches in diameter). She seemed to really enjoy it. She bounced, and when I put her down, she tried to crawl back on top of it again. This is a good toy!

I did my first append to Samantha's web page last night. It was pretty fun. I can think of all kinds of fun things to do with it, now I just need the time.

Samantha went to a "Nurturing Room" in Cambridge with me today. Basically it is visiting an elder home. The ladies (do all the men die, or are they just not interested in babies?) sit around in a circle and the moms and babies sit on the floor with the toys. I felt a bit like a specimen in a zoo, but the leader was very welcoming and the ladies were obviously delighted to see us. Sam was the only baby for about a half hour, until a boy named Owen arrived. He is three months younger and 4 pounds heavier. He is longer too, just a biig boy. Pretty cute kid. Samantha managed not to poke his eye out or pull his hair, but not for lack of trying. There wasn't much interaction with the residents, which surprised me, but maybe they just don't hear well enough to chat? I hope to change that a bit next time I go. It was fun for us, so I think we will go again. I wish there was one in Arlington.

When we arrived, Samantha just sat in one spot and chewed on some toys. After about 20 minutes, she started crawling to the leader and poking her. She seems to like to sit and watch things for now before diving in. She is pretty cautious. She climbs the stairs next to the handrails, and won't climb down without me being near. She feels like an old soul some days.

She just woke up a minute ago and screamed at poor Matt for about ten minutes. He walked her, bounced her, rocked her, and the screams just got worse. I decided to see if I could help, and she kept screaming when I walked in. Then I pick her up and walk her around like Matt does (I'm more of a rocker than a walker mom) and she just fell asleep. I feel a little like a hostage. When she wakes up in the night, she won't go back to sleep unless I hold her. I do not want to encourage this! There are a few times in the middle of the night when I have tried everything, it's two hours later and Matt walks in and she collapses with him. I think sometimes it is just the change in person, not the specific person that helps her to relax. Matt gets up with her a lot, so it not like she isn't used to him being there.

Whew! It is 4pm and she finally went down for a nap. She took a brief one this morning at 9:30. I am so tired, but our little bunny is raring to go. I waited today until she was pretty tired to put her to bed. She starts climbing my leg and she gets more fussy about little things. Little bunny just cried a couple of minutes, flung an arm out and fell asleep. I don’t get the arm flinging. It looks pretty uncomfortable, but then I noticed I did the same thing last night. I keep finding things like that. She does something, and then I realize I do the same thing, things I’d never noticed before.

We went outside today. I put some socks on her and a fleece jacket and watched her roam among the oak leaves. She didn’t even eat any. Sweetie loves being outside. She and Hamlet sit next to the screen door in the kitchen and just watch the leaves fall. Samantha giggles just looking out the window. This is an outdoor girl. Anyway, she had fun rummaging around the wet leaves and splashing in the puddles. We weren’t out long of course, but it doesn’t have to be a long time. She is amused easily for now.

Samantha was up last night from 1:30 to about 3:30 screaming most of the time. If I put her down, she yelled, but if I held her she'd laugh and babble at herself, well, laugh after I gave her Motrin. Her teeth really are bothering her, I imagine. She didn't do anything projectile this morning, not yet, so I imagine her tummy is doing better. We'll see if she eats this morning. Matt was pretty sick again by yesterday afternoon, and he was up with Sam for most of the yelling, certainly awake through all of it. He's the one who actually got her to sleep at the end. I kept putting her back down last night when she had calmed down enough to start giggling. The minute I left the room, she started shrieking.

So when does the monkey wake up this morning? I walk by on my way downstairs to let Ella out at 7am, and Samantha is singing to herself. By the time Ella is done and we go back upstairs, Sam has started to yell for company.

We are all pretty tired, even Ella this morning, and it is my fervent hope that Samantha is tired too and will soon take a nap.

Two new accomplishments:
She is standing now holding onto things with just one hand and is very steady with it. I can't believe how strong she is. I think she is going to start walking really soon.
She's clearly working on the pincer grasp. She presses her thumb hard against each finger in a pattern. She looks like she's knitting or something. Then she presses her thumb to her forefinger very hard, the pincer grasp. She is able to do it willfully yet, but I noticed that when she is truly hungry, not much food ends up in her bib. She is very good at getting the food from the tray to her mouth.

Ella and I walked in the Fells without Sam today, and I felt guilty. It is about 70 degrees, but Sam was napping and I didn't want to wake her up. I was happy to be able to go off trail and over hills, but I kept seeing things that Sam would have loved to touch. I'll be out again, I'm sure.

Sam is climbing everything. There is no redirecting her, we jsut have to say no to her. I will move a toy and hide it, and she will pull things off to get to it. Especially keyboards, which she wants desperately to destroy.

Samantha continues to develop new skills and confidence at what seems to me like a remarkable pace. There's something new every day. She now stands up effortlessly (pulling herself upright on whatever happens to be handy), and usually manages to sit back down again with no trouble at all.

Her ability to pick up pieces of food and actually get them into her mouth is improving daily. She's pretty fond of most of the foods we've offered her, including such unusual items as water chestnuts and straw mushrooms from last night's pan fried noodles with vegetables.

She navigates the two steps down to the living room better every day and has been able to climb most of the way up the main staircase to the second floor (with me or Amy sitting next to her making sure she doesn't fall, of course).

The biggest change I've noticed, though, is in just the last two days. There's a real deliberateness and intent to her actions that wasn't there before. For example, three days ago she'd look around a room and her eye would fall more or less by accident on some random object, which she would crawl toward.

Today I noticed that she was actively looking for specific items -- especially her favorite pacifier -- and going to get them when she wanted them. She'd play with them or chew on them for a while before putting them down again and going on to something else. But later you could really see her decide that she wanted that pacifier again, remember where she'd left it, and go directly over to it to retrieve it and stick it back in her mouth with an expression of great self-satisfaction. It's the first time I've seen her engage in that kind of directed, intentional action, and it's really amazing to see that sort of ability just appear one day.

That's the really cool thing about being a dad ... watching the development of cognitive capabilities, of choices and opinions and attitudes. A few months ago Samantha was a mostly immobile bundle of instinct who more or less relied on us to make all decisions for her. Then almost overnight she began to develop her own opinions about things -- about what foods she liked, which parent she wanted to hold her, what toy she wanted to play with at any given time. And it wasn't long after she started crawling that you could see conscious choices on her part about where to go, and what objects to get her hands on when she got there.

Once she makes up her mind, she becomes very persistent about reaching her goal, too. She'll go over, under, and around obstacles, and while you might be able to distract her with some other object or toy for a few minutes, it's never too long until she remembers what she started out to do and returns to her original course. She must get that from her mother.

Seeing these changes you have to wonder where these things come from. How is it that one day instead of crawling around at random she decides that she wants to go over there and pull all of the videotapes out of the TV cabinet, instead of going in the other direction and pulling all the cd's out of the cd tower, or decides that the pink bear that plays music is more fun today than the purple elephant that also plays music?

It's clear that these preferences have nothing at all to do with me or with Amy or our influence on her, whatever that might be at this point in her life, so where do they come from? I know, I'm hardly the first parent to wonder about this. Piaget did it first, and before him every parent back to the first Neanderthal who watched their kid crawl across the floor of the cave. It's the most mysterious, and the most magical, part of having a child.

On other notes, we installed the convertible toddler car seat in Amy's car today (what a pain in the butt -- Saab should really find a way to retrofit their cars with LATCH anchor points), removed the bases for the infant seat from both cars, and replaced the car seat carrier with a real stroller in the back of Amy's car. I guess this means we've taken the next step toward true toddler-hood. How scary is that?

And here I thought the mark of Super Daddy was getting your child to eat broccoli. Samantha will actually try most anything if you make the right funny faces and noises while feeding it to her. I was eating a sour green apple tonight, and she kept staring at it and opening her mouth until I gave her a (very) tiny piece. I expected her to spit it out, but as long as I was eating she, she ate hers as well. She even seemed to like it after a while.

Speaking of things Samantha likes, she just loves her new hybrid stroller. I put her into it this evening and wheeled her around the house, from the living room to the kitchen and back again. She grinned the whole time, played with the little steering wheel (with her feet no less), and just seemed to be having way too much fun.

Ella was fascinated by the whole process and kept sticking her face up into the stroller to sniff Samantha. They were very cute together. Maybe it's time to start augmenting this web log with pictures once I upload some of the newer ones.

Samantha also sat by the fire for a while with me this evening, and then proceeded to pull herself upright and stand up using every available piece of furniture in the room. She seems very pleased with herself when she manages it -- you can tell that she just can't wait to start walking. If only people would stop offering their condolences on having an early walker... I'm beginning to get nervous about it!

Now I know how to tell when you are in the presence of Super Daddy. First of all, his name is Matt. Then there is the super intuition that tells him not only what the baby needs, but when the mother really needs him too. That is when you know you are in the presence of Super, Super Daddy.

I had a tough day. My foot is not healing well, I had to harass the doctors to get any help, Ella has a bad scratch on her tummy that looks red and puffy too. Everything just takes longer when I'm tired and in pain. I finally got a person at the doctor's office and she asked me to come in right then. Samantha had just fallen asleep after a cranky morning with her new tooth obviously hurting. So I say "okay" since I am worried about the infection and go wake her up. She is already awake and goes along as sweet as can be. She was fine in the waiting room for about a half hour, but then wanted to crawl. She found people's offices and peeked around to smile at them. I think Sam was a much better alternative to whatever they were working on. Everybody smiled at her and this really hard-bitten looking middle-aged man kept waving at her to play and get her to smile. It is amazing how people respond to babies. Samantha breaks down racial and age barriers and we can talk about what we have in common. Just one of the magical things babies are capable of.

My doctor saw us just before Samantha melted down. We were out of there pretty quickly after that, and I called Matt to ask him to go out again once he got home to get my prescription. We weren't home more than a half hour when in walks Matt, arriving home about four hours earlier than usual. I knew I was having a bad day, but I didn't realize how hard I was trying to cope until I saw him. I just burst into tears and grabbed him. Super, Super daddy, and best husband in the whole world.

Samantha and I shared an apple today. I think the cool apple felt good on her gums, and the apple had tooth marks on it when she gave it back to me. Tooth marks! She seemed to enjoy the juice that was released as I bit off a piece. It was fun sharing with her. I imagine that soon I will find her spit gross, but it doesn't seem like anything now. Tooth mark!

Samantha and Ella brought tears to my eyes this morning. Sam was waving my slipper around, and Ella was laying next to her on the floor, sniffing curiously. Sam kept holding out the slipper for Ella to sniff or chew on too. My slipper survived just fine. My heartstrings took a little longer, but they are also fine.

I went grocery shopping tonight, and she just charmed everyone. There were many tired, hungry people in the store, and they took one look at her and grinned. She, also tired, grinned right back. People just melt when they see her. It isn't just me she affects that way! I put her in the carraige and periodically lean over to smooch her. She grabs my hair and smooches me right back. Samantha is a very loving, lovely child.

There are days when Samantha is just too cute for words. The last couple of nights I've put her to bed after giving her a bottle. Both nights she has almost finished the bottle then grabbed it in both hands, given it a good shake (as she's seen us do so often), and then held it up to my face as if to offer me the last bit of it. She tries to stick the nipple in my mouth.

Do nine months olds typically try to share their food? She does it with Ella too, although in that case she tends to hold out a bit of toast or something to Ella then get nervous and pull her hand away if Ella starts to sniff at it too much. Ella, fortunately, takes this in stride and doesn't try to grab or snap at whatever Samantha is holding.

Sam definitely has a tooth coming in. You can feel the hard sharp little point poking out of her lower gum now. Cruising, outgrowing her car seat and stroller, and now teeth! Our little girl isn't so little anymore.

Samantha has one very sharp little tooth coming in. Do we call them milk teeth like you do for puppies? There is another tooth right next to it that is also coming along.

Hamlet is no longer the biggest bug in the rug. I just realized that in her last nine month check up, Samantha weighs a few pounds more than he does. She is a couple of inches longer too. Hamlet is much more graceful, and he is a gorgeous boy. Both cats go into hiding during the day when Sam is out, and the minute she goes to sleep, both cats come out and sit on me.

She is just hell bent on getting into the dishwasher. I am going to have to start loading and unloading only when she is asleep. She just won't listen to no, and I have to spend all of my time dragging her off the door instead of actually unloading it.

She wows me again. Samantha drank from her sippy cup by herself tonight. She's not steady yet, and I had to help her with most of it, but she did do a fair bit of it by herself too. Every day there is a little bit less food dropped down the side of the high chair too. Her fingers and eyes are getting more coordinated.

She also decided to climb the main stair case too. I was sitting on the stairs looking at a catalog, and I feel her crawl past me. Then there are little feet kicking my back as she crawls up the next few stairs. I am in front of her so she can't fall down. The little mountain goat climbed almost all the way to the second floor. She stopped just three stairs shy of the top. Whee! I am so proud of her, but it also scares me.

We were in the kitchen and she keeps grabbing onto my pants leg and standing up. I am concerned about her falling backward, so I grab hold of her and step forward to turn around and pick her up. She steps right with me. I hold her arms and she keeps walking. It looks pretty natural to me. She is just 9 months old! A friend of ours just told us what happened to his family of early walkers: they spent a lot of time in the emergency room. Do friends intend to scare new parents witless, like maybe they get to meet afterwards and go "chuckle, did you see the look on her face when I mentioned ?" Anyway, she is getting the walking part down pretty well.

Samantha is a sweetie. I put her down for her nap this morning, with great protest. She was tired but not ready to slow down. This is a common problem for her age group. Anyway, when I went into her room to wake her up, I found her sprawled out with one arm over a soft, pink teddy bear that plays "Teddy Bear's Picnic." When I put her down for her afternoon nap, she was already pretty much asleep from the car ride, but once again she throws her arm around the bear and pulls it close. She looks so sweet.

After dragging her out to vote and meetings and shopping, I am definitely going to have to give her wiggle/climb time this afternoon. She needs to burn off some energy!

Today was another day of firsts for Samantha.

We spent the afternoon running hither and yon from store to store doing errands, among them the purchase of a new backpack carrier from REI that's much more comfortable than the Kelty Kids carrier we bought yesterday. That one will be going back to the store tomorrow.

In the middle of our journey we stopped for lunch at a Bertucci's and Samantha had her first experience sitting up in a high chair in a restaurant. Of course she was great, and practically charmed the pants off the waitress. She ate bits of bread, pasta, and broccoli, though the broccoli wasn't really received with much enthusiasm.

In addition to the carrier, we got a new car seat since Samantha has nearly outgrown her infant seat. Besides, she really loves sitting up now, so a rear-facing convertible seat should be more comfortable for her. We ended up with the much-praised and overpriced Britax Roundabout, though we got a good deal on it at Babies R Us because the box was opened. Too bad Saab doesn't have a LATCH retrofit for Amy's car -- it would be a lot easier than having to do the seatbelt thing again.

Wandering around Babies R Us, I actually carried Sam in the backpack carrier. It was more comfortable than I expected, and she seemed to really enjoy it -- in fact, in the REI store she was laughing with glee riding up there at the level of my shoulders. I was a little surprised no one at Babies R Us asked me about the backpack ... you'd think people would be at least a little curious.

Now we have to get a real stroller since we won't be able to use the car seat frame any longer. I want to try the Jeep Liberty stroller because it looks like a useful (albeit heavy, at 26 lbs) cross between a traditional stroller and a jogging stroller, and looks like it would work well on the trails in the Fells where we take Ella for walks. But no one in this area seems to carry them, so I think I'm going to have to order one online and then return it if it turns out there's something we don't like about it.

Off to scour the web for the site with the best return policy ...

After a wild day spent looking for a backpack/child carrier, car seat and stroller, we came home with a tired and hungry girl. We fed her. Thinking that perhaps she would like to wiggle a bit, I put her down on the floor in the living room. Bam! She's off! She crawls here; she crawls there. I am on the floor doing my back stretches, and I see her at the two step stairs. I put a dog bed at the bottom so she has something soft to land on if she goes down them. Up she goes! I watch her. She chews on stuff for a bit on the landing, then crawls over the edge of the first step to look over and giggle at me. Oops, she is back in the dining room. No, she's back on the edge again! I watch as she puts her hands down on the first step and glides down. Nicely done, sort of a controlled fall. She does the same thing on the next step, only this is onto the dog bed. I can see she is having the time of her life. She crawls around with me for a bit, then up she goes again! The amazing thing for me is watching how much better she gets at doing this each time she does it. The first time she descended the stairs, it was with a flip and a slide, not pretty at all. She was fine, but I made sure to put the dog bed at the bottom after that and put a gate up if I am not right there. These stairs are a great way for her to learn how to go up and down. They give her a relatively safe way to get some practice.

Up at 4:45 again this morning, only Matt got up with her today. I did get to sleep until 6am, but then I couldn't sleep anymore. Now Sam has *me* in the habit of getting up early! Those of you who know me will realize what an impossible thing has happened.

Her current favorite things are to hide her face for a second when someone new greets her. She also loves examining teeth. I can't say I always love having her shove her fingers in my mouth, but that's parenthood, I guess. She also has started to notice ceilings, particularly the cut glass light fixtures in the hallways. I have to move fast to catch her when she flings her head back to examine the pretty light patterns. Sunlight is also fascinating. Samantha gazes at sunbeams and moves her hands in and out of the sun. I don't know if the heat is interesting or if it is just a visual interest. Maybe both? She is fascinating to watch, can you guess? Oh yes, and keyboards are always high on the fascination list. She's gotten to three of them that now sport missing keys. The keys pop off very easily, actually.

Holy cow, she's cruising!

This morning Samantha pulled herself upright against the sofa in the den, then edged sideways all the way down it to get closer to Ella, who was lying on the other end. That's it, she's officially cruising now. That means she's gone from inching along on her belly to crawling to standing to cruising, all in less than two weeks.

I guess Dr. Pangburn wasn't kidding when she said her gross motor skills were far in advance of her age.

It seems clear that at this rate she'll be walking very early. Friends who have kids of their own have already started offering condolences and saying things like "If you think she's hard to keep up with now, just wait!" I guess we'd better keep up the frantic pace of babyproofing. Amy says that Sam has started trying to climb up the stairs from the bottom, so adding a gate at the bottom of the stairs is now high on the list. I need to find one that attaches to a round stair post; I think there's a specialty gate at www.safebeginnings.com that should do the trick.

Poor Ella. Another gate will be just one more thing for her to adjust to. She's doing pretty well so far, although she does spend more time than I like looking sad or a little dejected. I think it's hard for her not being able to wander freely around the house, and not being the only objects of attention and affection anymore.

Samantha's been napping for the past hour but sounds like she may be starting to stir. More later.

Samantha actually ate something this morning. I got a few mouthfuls of peach and cereal in her, as well as a third of a banana and half a Zweibach toast. Whooee! Really, it is nice to get some food in her. She really needs more fruit in her, but I'm not complaining.

She woke up at 4:17 am today, but went back to sleep after an hour. She wasn't actually asleep when I put her in her crib, but I wasn't going to stay awake any longer. She cried for two minutes and fell asleep until 6:30. That is better.

There are all kinds of uses for the bouncy saucer. In addition to sitting in it and bouncing, she can crawl into the saucer underneath and tip it back and forth. That is one of her fun things to do for now. She also pulls herself up onto everything with no trouble at all. She is very strong. Matt put special Velcro tabs on the stereo to keep it closed, and Sam had the bottom one undone in about a minute. This is one inch wide, industrial strength Velcro!

Gotta go wake up Matt.

Samantha decided to crawl up the staircase today, the main one. Gave me a startle, it did. She didn't fall, and she immediately walked sideways to hold onto the railing. What a smartie she is! Just a couple of stairs, but since that is a foot off the ground, I'd just as soon she didn't fall down it. We'll be putting another gate up there soon.

Ella and Sam were playing with her bone today. Ella brought it over to Sam in the hopes that Sam would hold it for her while she chewed on the end. Ella chew, not Sam. Samantha couldn't hold it that tightly, but they compromised. Ella let Sam hold the end and she supported her bone by herself. It was pretty sweet to watch. Matt said Sam was sharing her toys with him this morning. Matt does lots of stuff with Sam, he just hasn't had a chance to write anything about her. If it isn't work or us, it's Ella or the lawn that needs attention. Sam comes first, though, always!

The receptionist at my physical therapist's office has a daughter that does babysitting, and I asked her if her daughter would be interested in sitting for Sam. I need to find someone to watch her. Yes, of course I will do interviews, references and stuff. And convince Sam's daddy that someone else could tend to her. It would be hard for me to leave her too. I just need some away time for a few hours.