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.