Today I saw one of those things that make everything else just fade away. Matt called to me to see Samantha walking across the floor. He has her two hands in his, and she is indeed walking towards him. The look of delight and pride is glowing from both their faces. Something about those little hands in his huge ones and the fun they are both having is just adorable.

I'm pretty sure that Samantha now knows bye bye. She said it in the bathroom the other night when we left. She waves at the mirror when I pick her up out of the tub, and she has added something that sounds like b b. I thought it was just a fluke, until she did it in a different situation today. Ella, Sam and I went out for a walk and visited our neighbors who have a great dog, Kodiak. When we left, Phil said bye, bye, and I said bye bye to him and Kodiak. I look down, and Sam is trying to wave through her mittens, and is saying bye bye! She really does know the word! I'm so proud of her.

She also loves to climb the stairs now. I have her climb them any time we change floors, and she is tickled pink. Of course, she has to stop on the way up to play with the phone on the foyer table, but I manage to distract her.

I've been healthy so long; I forgot what it was like to tend a baby while I was miserable. My cold has now moved into my stomach, and Samantha has diarrhea. Not a good combination. I wonder how fast I can get to the bathroom while finding a safe spot for a naked Sam? (or rather, a spot where the room will be safe from the naked Sam.) Oh the deep questions of parenthood.

Isn't there a rule the kids get in their manual when they are born that tells them they *cannot* have diarrhea at the same time parents have the stomach flu? If there isn't, whom do I contact to add it in?

I made up a calendar for the grandparents that contains photos of Sam's first year. Ofoto did a superb job printing them, if I do say so myself. I had a blast picking out which ones to use. I have some amazing photographs of her, some that are very artistic with the light shadings.

I'm going to have to start calling Ella "Nanny." Samantha has been going around smacking her lips, and I realized that once again she is mimicking Ella when she eats something. Ella has dewflaps and they make a very distinctive noise that Samantha has down exactly. I wonder what they say to each other?

Samantha threw up again this morning. I went in around 5 to discover the situation and had to wake Matt. He changed the sheets while I tried to wash Sam's hair in the pre-dawn light. I got her mostly cleaned up and changed her nightclothes. I held her until she went back to sleep, which took an hour. She slept until 9am. Her sleep schedule is now totally messed up, and we are going to have to work hard to get her back to a reasonable wake up time when she feels better. I did give her a little bit of solids today, mostly because she seemed to want some. She nibbled on a Zweibach toast and had a few bites of rice cereal, and that was it for the whole day. Just before bedtime she drank the whole 4 ounces of water and grape juice that the nurse recommended. Sam seemed to like it cold, which surprised me. I guess it was soothing to her stomach.

Her face has been flushed all day, and the twinkle just isn't the same in her pretty blue eyes. I would hold her, and she'd snuggle in, not trying to dash off somewhere. I know she is really not feeling well then. A lot of fretting noises today, sort of half yells, and then she was too tired even to do that, but too miserable to sleep. I gave her a little bit to eat, as much as she wanted, then a bath, which seemed to soothe her. She just conked out after her bottle and we haven't heard a peep out of her since. I am going to bed soon myself, since I feel awful with a sore tummy and a head cold too.

Samantha had her first morning bath today. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning she threw up in the corner of her crib and when I went in to get her, she had it smeared all over herself. Poor kid. Makes me feel like a rotten mom. I gave her a bath, all new sheets and pad, and hopefully she'll have a nice restful morning nap and wake up feeling all better. She was pretty happy all morning. She is pretty happy all the time, actually.

The puzzle is now fascinating to Sam. She keeps taking out the circle and putting it back in. Now she has graduated to the square and the oval, just in the space of a day. And she sits at the bottom of the stairs and pulls on the gate yelling, hoping that someone will come along and go up the stairs with her. She loves going up and down the stairs.

She just walked towards Matt, and I have tears in my eyes. She was at the end of the chair. Matt took her hands, and she took three steps to him. So many developments in one day. I need some time to adjust!

Two firsts for me with Samantha this morning. When we get up together at 7 am, I usually change her, feed her, then put her down to roam around while I do my exercises. This morning I started by playing with the puzzle with Sam. She put the circle back in the slot several times all by herself. She did a wonderful job! I told her I was very proud of her. It was fun.

While I am on the floor exercising, Sam obliges by crawling all over me and providing extra weights to make the exercises more productive. Very thoughtful of her, wouldn't you say? She is especially helpful when I am stretching as far as I can, and Sam comes along to push me just a little further. She is used to me yelping by now and like any good trainer just keeps me going.

Anyway, today she did some workouts of her own. She pushed up from my hips, stood, put her hands above her head and waved them a bit, slowly put her hands back on my hips, and then sat down. She was rock steady with it. She has done that several times this morning now. I've noticed that when she starts doing a new thing, she does it with a vengeance. Like climbing stairs. She climbed them again this morning, giggling all the while.

Samantha has learned to wave, and does it at every opportunity. Wave at her and she waves back. Say "bye bye" in the morning on the way out to work and get a big grin and a wave. Hold her up where she can see herself in the mirror and she'll smile and wave at herself. I wonder if I can teach her to waggle her fingers like Vir Cotto waving at Mr. Morden for the last time. (This makes sense if you're a Babylon 5 fan; otherwise just ignore it.)

A remarkable thing happened this evening. I got home from work and running errands (55 minutes in Homeowner Hell -- aka Home Depot -- to buy a piece of wood and two metal mending plates to repair the cat tower) and decided tonight was my night to put Sam to bed.

So we went through the usual bedtime ritual: I gave her a bath, we read "Goodnight Moon", she had a bottle (which she sucked down in an instant), and I rocked her on my shoulder for a while in the rocking chair while we listened to her cd of Yiddish lullubyes. After a while I put her down in the crib and she tried to get comfortable, but I guess she decided she wasn't really ready to stop snuggling yet. She stood up and put her arms out asking me to pick her up again. Naturally, I did.

I stood next to the crib with her on my shoulder, rocking and swaying her to the music. Usually she falls asleep this way and I can put her down, but tonight after a few minutes of standing there she did something she's never done before. She picked her head up off my shoulder, looked over at her crib, then twisted her body around away from me and held out her arms toward the crib. She was very clearly telling me that she wanted to lie down in her bed now and go to sleep. I put her down, she gave a big yawn, turned over, and went right to sleep.

Who knows if she'll do this again, or when, but tonight it feels like a major breakthrough.

Must stop writing now -- Ella is demanding my attention, and she's been a very patient dog since I got home.

Samantha's vocal patois is shifting daily. She really has the tone down for words, but not many words yet. I was just in the living room with her and she was on the floor. She said 'up' and stood up. Wow. Matt says it to her when he puts her over his head and she squeals with laughter, even before he picks her up. I guess she has another word now besides 'Ella.'

Samantha discovered that she is a mountain climber. She climbed the stairs to the third floor not once, not twice, but three times. Every time I turned around, she was rushing up the stairs, gleefully giggling. She is very proud of herself for her talent, as she should be. It is quite an achievement.

I was away tonight, and Matt put her to bed. He said she was not happy that I was gone and stayed up yelling until I got home at 9:30. Poor guy. I thought Sam was doing better at letting Matt take care of her. I hope it gets better. I don't want Samantha to be so stressed whenever I leave, and I don't like to think of Matt having to deal with a screaming child for hours while I am gone.

Samantha has started waving at everything now. If she sees herself in the mirror in the bathroom, or her reflection in the window, or while she is in her high chair and I sit down, she waves. It is pretty adorable. She is clearly having a blast exploring what her hand does and getting a response.

Sometimes I sing the Shema to put Sam to sleep. Our former cantor, Roy, used to sing the shema really slowly, and I like singing it that way to Sam. It is almost like a meditation, well, I guess it is a meditation. Anyway, Sam seems to find it soothing. I know I do.

Samantha woke up from her morning nap today in a cranky mood. She was saying Ella, I think. I know she was looking around her room. I told her that Ella was out with her dog walker, and Sam started crying. She didn't stop, and I had to sit with her for a while to help her calm down. She wanted her puppy!

Last night Matt was at the ATG holiday party, so I had her bathed and ready for bed by the time Matt came home. Samantha was drinking from her bottle when came Matt in. She squeaked in delight and practically threw herself at him, snuggled down in and asked for her bottle, so Matt put her to bed last night. It felt a little strange to be left behind so easily, but I was kind of relieved too. I am glad to know she is so content with him and that her separation anxiety has lessened somewhat. She loves her daddy!

Okay, sometimes I'm an idiot. I was having fun moving and labeling photos last night, and didn't even notice how late it was until midnight. I then had to lock up cats (well, let them in too. They had snuck out on a 0 degree night for some reason while Matt took out the trash, and by midnight were desparate, hanging on the screen desperate, to come in.) feed and water them, get Ella out of bed to go outside, no small achievement in a comatose 60 pound dog, and put away the last of the laundry. So it is 1 am and I finally get to bed. Takes a while to drift off, so 1:40 comes and sure enough, Sam starts screaming. I make a light bottle of formula, mostly water, and spend a few minutes holding it. She chugs it, clearly very thirsty, and goes right back to sleep. I think, oh good, actually, because she should be fine until late tomorrow morning. 5:45 am and she is yelling again and not going back to sleep. So now I am up again and far more tired than I should be and looking forward to her going back to sleep soon.

She, however, seems far from sleep and is gleefully pulling out drawers on the end table and investigating what is there. Thankfully, it is empty. I have some puzzles now, thanks to family and Hanukkah, and I put them on the shelf under the VCR tapes. She reaches for the tapes much less often now.

She discovered the telephone buttons yesterday. This is a little plastic telephone that has four buttons - ring, busy signal, a different ring, and dialing sounds. She just kept pressing the buttons over and over. I didn't have the heart to take it away from her, but I talked to Matt for a bit when he got home for buying her such an annoying gift. :-) Her other favorite thing to do is crawl on the floor to my legs, then shove her head between my feet. She does this even when there is nothing to get to on the other side.

She has a new game. She clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth and waits to see if you will mimic her. If you do, she starts to giggle.

Gotta go. Sam is starting to smell, well, a bit ripe with a diaper she's only worn 10 minutes.

We have a child of rare and refined tastes here. Not only does she like dancing to Ray Charles music before going to bed, but she also seems to be a Donald O'Connor fan.

She's been very tired and irritable all day (I wonder if she's getting her next set of teeth), fussing and crying and refusing to nap. I had her in the den with me, not that it was doing any good. So I was watching "Singing In The Rain" on TV when all of a sudden she got quiet. She was just enthralled by Donald O'Connor's "Make 'Em Laugh" routine! She watched intently, giggling at the pratfalls and funny faces.

When it was over she went back to fussing and crying again, so I rewound the movie (thank heaven for TiVo!) and played that scene again, and once again she smiled and giggled all the way through.

So I guess Samantha is a "Singing In The Rain" fan, too.

Samantha did an unheard of thing last night. She slept until 3 am, had a bottle with mostly water, then slept or played quietly until 9am. I was exhausted, so I slept right on. I try to have her wake up at the same time every morning, but this morning all bets are off. When you are older Sam, I will tell you what a precious gifts you gave us on this day, a few extra hours of sleep after a long week of sleep deprivation. I hope whaterver has been bothering you is gone now.

Samantha's picked up a couple of new skills in the last two or three days. She's started getting down off my lap when we're sitting on the couch together by laying down on my lap then scooting down backward until her feet are on the floor. She's definitely managing to climb up onto things and down off them again much better this week than she ever has before.

Today's big development was the wave. I was holding her on my shoulder in the living room as we were listening to Norah Jones together, and as usual she was watching herself in the mirror over the fireplace. I waved at her in the mirror, and for the very first time she waved back. I think this might even have been the day that she really understood that it was her in the mirror because she spent the next 10 minutes or so waving at me and waving at herself in the mirror. When I waved at her she waved back about three quarters of the time. Wow!

Samantha may well be the only child I know who eats little vegetable souffles for breakfast. Amy's been cooking up eggs and vegetables souffle-style in foil muffin tins, and says that Sam really seems to go for them. Might as well start her on haute cuisine for babies early on, I guess.

Samantha has also become an agent of chaos and entropy. CD's in the cd tower? Nope, they must be on the floor. Videotapes in the TV cart? They too must be on the floor. Books, magazines, and remote controls on the table next to the couch in the den? Sorry, but they must join the cd's and videotapes on the floor, and they must do it right now.

It's no use trying to pick up after her either -- it's a perpetual losing battle. C'est la parenthood.

Today Samantha decided she was interested in noses, or at least in my nose.
While Amy took Ella to the vet, Samantha crawled into my lap and tried to
detach my nose from the rest of my face -- she poked and prodded grabbed
and twisted and seemed intent on sticking her fingers, with those sharp
little fingernails, up my nose. Needless to say, I didn't let her. She
was most annoyed over that, let me tell you.

I think she's also figured out what the word "up" means, or at least that
when I hold her and say "up" I'm about to lift her over my head in the
universal flying baby position. She loves doing that, and over the past
couple of days whenever I put my hands under her arms and say "up" she
breaks into a huge grin. I've tried other words to see if it's just the
fact that I'm holding onto her or talking to her. Yes, I really am such a
science geek that I did the experiment. The results were clear: "up" was
the magic word.

Sam had another adventure with babysitting today. Our friend Juli, bless
her, let us drop Samantha off at her house for a couple of hours while we
went to an appointment that we simply couldn't bring her to. Evidently she
was okay for a while, then not so okay when she started getting hungry and
over tired.

Juli did tell one great story about their time together: it seems that her
visiting brother in law came into the house and started talking. Samantha,
who was a bit cranky by then, immediately perked up upon hearing a male
voice. She looked carefully at this brother in law and then, as Juli tells
it, when she concluded that it wasn't me she was looking at she leaned
forward and started screaming at him in absolute fury. I feel badly for
both of them having to deal with her screaming, but it sure is nice to be
appreciated by my daughter.

Fortunately she eventually settled down and by the time we got over to
their house to pick her up, she was sound asleep on her quilt on the living
room floor, happy as could be.

Last night was not a good night. She slept through the early part of the night, putting herself back to sleep a couple of times with no intervention on our part. I foolishly thought that maybe that meant she would sleep through the night. Ella didn't sleep through, to start with. She woke me up around 1:30 because she was thirsty. She drank a whole bowl of water, went outside for a bit, and then we trooped back to bed. 1:50 am, Samantha starts screaming. I think, okay, the air is dry, I know I am thirsty, so I get up again and get her a half/half mixture of water and formula, but just 4 ounces, not the usual 7. Okay, she goes to sleep pretty well with that, and once again, I foolishly dream of sleeping through until 7am now that she has food and wet her throat. 4:30 am comes, and she is screaming. I am beyond selfish at this point, so I poke Matt awake and ask him, excuse me, that was a euphemism, "ask" him, to go feed Samantha. He lucks out, because by the time I wake him, get him to understand what I am saying, and he gets vertical, Samantha has fallen asleep. Even now she is Daddy's little girl. I have no hopes for the future at this moment. I am purely driven by the need for sleep in the next few moments and anything more than two minutes away is too long. She wakes again at 5:00 am. I can barely move, but she won't go back asleep. So I drag myself out of bed and go to feed her. I'm a bit testy with Matt when he comes in to help me change her, a fact that seems to surprise Matt a bit, since he is there to help. I guess I am not the only one who foolishly hopes. She eats, doesn't seem to settle particularly well. I wait until she at least stops wiggling and put her down, still awake. I get in bed and think, crib rail, what did I do with the crib rail? I can feel my hands putting it down, but don't have the visceral memory (the only kind left to me at this point) of putting it back up. Visions of her lying injured on the floor manage to drag me out of bed again, knowing that when I open the door she will stir and yell again. Open the door, she yells softly. All that for nothing. I did actually put up the crib rail. I close the door in her face, and go back to bed at 6:15. She yells for a bit, but quiets down eventually. I hear her playing quietly in her crib. The next thing I know, Matt is getting up and it is 7:30 am. Samantha is still playing, and I go back to sleep until 8:30 am.

This is hellish.

Samantha has gotten really good at putting her arms through her own sleeves but is still really bad at drinking from a cup. I guess I just hold it for her too often.

I went to a hip specialist today to find out why my hip gets sore now and then. It is always hard to go to MA General. I was away for about five hours and I really missed Sam. I got a snack at the food court before I left and was sitting there looking out the window at the veranda I sat in three days after Emily died. I remember sitting there in the sun and wondering how to be alive without her. Now two and a half years later, I'm sitting there missing both my daughters, in different ways. Being a mom has some wonderful rewards, and some really difficult moments too.

Samantha had her first mango seed this morning. I cut up the flesh and gave her some of that, and then gave her the seed with the little bit of flesh still on it. She seemed to love it, although she now has mango all over her nice outfit. Oh well.

We went out this morning for a brief walk. It is so cold, I can't see subjecting Sam for a long walk. I wish I knew more people that we could have a walk with. Well, that didn't mind Ella. People get really worried when there is a dog and a baby at the same time. Not every dog in the world is a vicious brute!

She woke up at 10pm and 5 am last night. She did go back to sleep both times. I am not good at waking up at 5am. I ache the rest of the day. She slept until 7am and chirped quietly to herself until 8 am. It was wonderful!

Ah, a day out without Samantha. It felt very strange. Michelle, a friend of Matt's, came over in the afternoon and we went to see Harry Potter. I was convinced that Samantha would scream the whole time, but Michelle assures us that actually she spent the whole time playing and generally being her charming self. We brought Matt's cell phone to the movie theater and I still couldn't stop thinking about her. I clearly need to get out more. When I walked in the door, I picked her up and held her for about twenty minutes, smooching her. It felt pretty good to have her grab my hair and smooch me back a few times. I didn't even mind the slime.

Today, we went to a holiday party at Tom and Ellen's. They have a gorgeous old Victorian in Jamaica Plain. Samantha looked particularly fetching in her purple velvet party dress with the crinoline skirt. And her smiles were double watts of joy. She really lights up a room, this one.

I am exhausted. Sam may not have yelled with Michelle, but she sure yelled without her. When Matt left to take Michelle home, Samantha woke up and screamed for the next hour until Matt got home. She didn't want to eat, didn't want to snuggle, just wanted to scream. I gave her some aspirin and that seemed to help. I was shaking all over by the time Matt came in. It took me awhile to calm down enough to fall asleep. So, no wonder I am tired today. That and Ella and I had a nice walk in the woods this morning. Fresh air always tires me out.

Samantha attended her first holiday party tonight at Tom and Ellen's house. There were a lot of guests and a surprising number of babies, many of them belonging to former ATG'ers. Samantha dealt with the crowd and the noise very well for the most part. She seemed interested in all of the sights and sounds, smiled at people, and enjoyed her first taste of chocolate (a bit of a Hershey's kiss) and her first bit of a cookie. I was surprised that she wasn't more enthusiastic about the chocolate; she seemed sort of blase about it. I think she prefers her yogurt with avocado.

It may just be me, but I think her babbling and vocalization has taken on a different character in the last couple of days. It seems somehow more intentional and purposeful, as if she's starting to associate sounds with specific ideas or situations. I think she's getting ready to talk!

Samantha is approaching the couch where Hamlet is resting. She is clearly delighted to have Hamlet there, and I am happy because I know Hamlet is beyond reach and thus won't feel threatened. I expect to hear Samantha shriek in annoyance because she can't reach him, but instead she is giggling. I look up and am shocked once again by Hamlet's understanding. He is waving his tail back and forth and teasing Samantha with it. Samantha is having a ball trying to catch the tip of Hamlet's tail. Thank God for these little ones, every one.

We have been having some cold weather lately. It's hard to take Sam out when it is so cold (-10 with wind chill) and ice under the snow. So I don't. Ella hasn't been feeling well, so we have been pretty comfortable at home together. Well, other than me feeling winterbound.

Last night it was snowing pretty heavily, and I didn't think Matt would be able to get up the driveway. We all went outside for a bit. I put Sam's snowsuit on, put her in her stroller and brought her out onto the sidewalk to watch the snow fall. Even Ella had a snowsuit to come out with us, although I had to keep an eye on her because she kept trying to go visit Mark and John. She loves them and looks for any opportunity to hug them. Samantha seemed to love the snow. She even giggled. It was very pretty, dark but light snowflakes falling softly. I managed to get the drive all cleared off before anyone had a fit.

We had Samantha's ceiling repaired and painted last week. She can't sleep in her room from the fumes, so she sleeps in our bedroom in her play yard. I think she sleeps better with us, but that may be just because I like having her close by. Or she may just like the play yard better than her crib. I'd keep using the play yard, except it is hard to lean over that far with Samantha. She'll sleep there probably until Sunday. The fumes should be gone by then.

We went into Arlington Heights tonight for the "Holiday Stroll." The town had pony rides, face painting, balloons, music, a raffle, all kinds of fun stuff. It was cold, but Matt had Sam on the backpack. She seemed very happy on her daddy. Ella came with us, and was a big hit with the families around us. She was good as gold, even with the clown, the big band and the ponies, all things that can freak out even the best of dogs. Puppy had her feet washed when we got home to get the salt off, and she seems happy to curl up warm on her dog bed. The stroll was fun, but when they say 'holiday' they really mean 'Christmas.' I'm starting to figure this out!

I gave Sam a bath when we got home. She usually goes to bed at 8 pm, and we got home around 8. She was pretty wound up from the Stroll, so I thought a bath and a massage would soothe her. She was still antsy. Matt took over from me and had to sit with her for quite a while before she would calm down. I guess it just takes longer when we don't stick to the routine. Well, she did have two long naps today which probably helped her to stay up late.

I'm in the nursery holding Sam. She'd been giving this piteous wail that sounded like she had a nightmare, and I went into comfort her. She's an armful now. I know she'll just get bigger, but right now she feels heavy, solid. I remember what she was like when we brought her home. She barely covered my belly button, much less my tummy, chest and upper legs like she does now. I was so scared when she was born, so overwhelmed. I'd spent the whole pregnancy with grief and fear. Now I have this little person, and she is astonishing.

I realized why I don't like taking her out in the cold. I can't tell if she is warm enough. She is apart from me, and I have to guess how she feels. Experts warn parents about the child going through separation anxiety, but no one talks about the mother's separation. She was in me, with the largest umbilical cord ever seen. Now she is outside and I am left to guess what I can do to help her. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to reattach the cord! I am just trying to cope with strong feelings and a tremendous sense that I actually do know what she is feeling, and then sometimes I am wrong. Of course, I'm not psychic and sometimes I'll be wrong. It just seems like I should be pychic.

Samantha has been on a tear today. It's -15 degrees Fahrenheit and we haven't gone for a walk. She currently has all the video tapes on the floor and is proceeding to take them out of their jackets. Earlier, she released a whole box of tissues into the wild. There was only a short period of quiet before I went in and checked, but that is all she needed. She seems to think the tissues want to fly, if she can only fling them high enough.

I did go out with all of them today. It was about 40 degrees, which isn't bad for a winter day. We went on the bike path where there wasn't any ice. Samantha was crabby before we left, but once we got on the path, she fell asleep. I guess that means she was warm enough. When we got to Alewife (about a 40 minute walk) I stopped at the playing fields and Ella and I tussled for a bit. I was about ten feet from Sam in her carrier and wanted to get closer. Then I realized Ella was keeping a good eye on things. Whenever people walked by on the bike trail, which was about 20 feet away, Ella would stop playing and face them until they turned the corner. Then she'd come dashing and leaping back to me as though nothing had happened. No growling, just a very alert stance. It was strange to see her change from guard dog to playful puppy in such a quick shift. At least, I assume that's what she was doing. She may have also just been looking to see if it was someone else that would like to join in the fun.

Samantha was sleepy tonight, even a bit cranky until I gave her dinner and a bath. We went down to the living room and danced to Ray Charles for a bit. Her whole face lights up and she bounces in delight when she hears his music. I wonder what Ray Charles would think if he knew that his music brought such joy to a ten-month-old baby. From his music, I would say he'd be thrilled.

Oh, Samantha got a little toy car. It is about four inches long and very soft and rubbery so she can't hurt herself on it. True to this holidays tradition, Ella is fascinated with it. I don't think it will last long. Ella seems to want to eat it very badly for some reason. Puppy did like her Hanukkah present tonight, at least. Got a chew bone with ridges that she thinks need to be smoothed over. So many things to chew, so little time.

Matt gave us a wonderful Hanukkah present tonight. We went to a Moroccan restaurant for dinner. I believe it was called Agana, after an important tree in Morocco that they use for oils and food. No picture of the tree, but the food was yummy. The owner had the kitchen make a plate of French fries for Sam, her first. She liked them, I think. She ate one of them, so I guess she liked them. The waitress was also really sweet about Sam, and the people sitting behind us were thrilled with her and told us several times how beautiful she was and how well behaved. I think they were stretching the well behaved part a bit. Sam screeched several times. She did laugh more than she screeched, though, because we brought the stick puppet that she loves. She was on the carpet for a bit, sitting at the window-watching people go by. She really was gorgeous in her purple velvet party dress and purple tights.

We had a fabulous meal. Started off with sweet mint tea and sesame cakes/rolls. Matt had a pastry that was savory and with cinnamon and very light sugar. I had a lamb, tomato mix with little phyllo packets of ground lamb. Nice textures and mellow flavors. For the meal, Matt had couscous and five vegetables. It was lightly flavored, and Sam really enjoyed her first taste of Moroccan peas and carrots. I had Cornish Hen Pagine with lemons and green olives. I think 'pagine' means slow roasted in a clay pot. It was very yummy. The desserts were very large. The Chocolate mousse was a deep dark chocolate, not too sweet. The crème brulee was not freshly burnt, but was still quite good. Sam also enjoyed a few bites of crème brulee.

Ella and I went for an hour walk this afternoon. It was icy. I couldn't believe I ran into a woman who was well into her pregnancy and walking with her two year old son, husband and dog. I wouldn't have been out today if I was that pregnant, and I won't be out tomorrow with Sam. Most of the paths were fine, but there were unavoidable paths that were quite slippery. Ella and I will just have to play in the backyard tomorrow, and Ella will need her coat with her on Tuesday. It really is bitter cold with the wind. I can bundle Sam up to go out, but not for any extended period.

THe things Sam is eating now: an avocado milkshake composed of silken tofu, avocado, formula powder and whole fat yogurt. She really likes it. Soft cooked carrots, florets of broccoli, pears. She really likes pears, and bananas. The best thing to eat, though, is whatever we are eating. She is very interested to have a bit of what ever we are eating. Makes sense.

Tonight I made jelly doughnuts. The cookbook called them Soofganiyot(sp?) something like that. The dough was a yeast dough and rose twice. It was fun to put the little pats of jam in the middle of each doughnut. I wondered if Matt's mom ever did stuff like that? I'll have to ask him if there were any traditions that she used to do. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all the doughnuts, but what the hey? Maybe I'll give some to our neighbors. I miss the cooking for Christmas, and I am just learning about what Jewish people make for their holidays. Matt's dad has been really nice and told me about some things, but I miss also getting to know his mother and what she could have told me. I am just winging this Jewish holiday thing, and sometimes I am combining it with what I would do for the Christian holidays, like cooking a lot and feeding people. So far that seems to be the right thing. I can't wait for Sam to get older and then we can cook together.

We lit the candles tonight. I gave Samantha her little booties last night. They are yellow leather with pink hearts on the toes. She looks adorable with them, and there is room for her to grow, which of course she does very quickly. I went to toys r us and got some nice toys for our neighbors and the party tomorrow. Ellen does a nice thing and collects toys for tots at her party. All the guests bring an unwrapped present with them. It's fun! Sort of takes the focus off the holidays being all about getting.

The funny thing about the presents last night was that everybody seemed to like the other's. Sam likes the ball I gave Ella, and Ella likes the ball I gave to the cats. I can't give Ella the cat's ball because she would destroy it, but she really wants it! Ella is starting to get used to her own ball, and seems to like it now.