month six

sammy ry,

holy. moly.
where do i begin? i feel like my life changed all over again this month. i would say this has been, by far, the best month since you were born. and a lot of that "bestness" is stemming from this last week, as well as all the awesomeness i can see on the horizon.

as of late, i have been quite displeased with who i've become--someone who is so often grumpy and angry for no apparent reason. i found myself sabotaging every day the three of us spent together with my short temper and sour mood. the strange thing was, though, i couldn't figure out why in the heck i was acting this way. what on earth do i have to feel angry about when there is so much i have to be thankful for??? i kept asking myself this question, over and over again, racking my brain trying to come up with an answer. well, a few days ago i just cleared my mind, and said, "i'm angry because..."--and it just flowed out of me. "i'm angry because i haven't been living my life the way i want to live it." wow. it just hit me like a truck--i've been letting laziness and stupid excuses get in the way of me doing the things i wanted to be doing, and being the person i wanted to be. so i meditated on this for awhile, and realized the solution to this problem was quite simple--it all comes down to decisions. every thing i do, every move i make, every thought i have, every action i take...they all happen when i make a CHOICE. so, i decided that from that point on, i would make sure that before i did ANYTHING, be it reacting to an emotion i was having, deciding whether or not to act on something, or making a big life change, i would decide which thing would make me HAPPIEST in the long run, and just DO IT, no ifs, ands or buts. it's only been four days so far, but i haven't felt this good in a long time. it's amazing the impact something so small can have. when i feel frustrated with samson, i just say, "ten minutes from now, how would i want to have reacted to this?" when i'm feeling lazy and don't want to take my vitamins or work out, i just remind myself that i'm always happier having done these things. anyway, that's quite a large tangent from the usual baby update, but it has had, and i think will continue to have, such a positive affect on my life and my attitude that i felt like i really needed to share it.

i am so ridiculously excited that you are 6 months old now, samson!! you are learning things at such a rate that i can hardly keep up! literally over night, you could sit! you went from sitting on your own for only a couple of seconds, to doing it for an entire minute without anything in between! and you make vast improvements and significant modifications to your crawling style on a daily basis. it's really amazing and so fun to watch. you are so close to getting into a sitting position by yourself, i can almost taste it! and yesterday you tried to pull yourself into a standing position for the very first time, and then you did it today on what was only your third try!

i'm so excited for what's to come, as well. tomorrow you will get your first taste of solid food! and your first halloween is in just a few weeks! then it's thanksgiving, and christmas, and new years! oh, the family visits that will be had! you may even get your first snow! then before you know it, we'll be celebrating your first birthday! that's a lot of exclamation points, kid!!

but anyway, back to the present, or rather the past month...

so the first day after i updated your last month post, you had an amazing second nap:

i changed him, read a story in the rocking chair, but him in his crib with a kiss, (this time with pacifier AND hugging a small stuffed animal), and there was NO CRYING!! WHY AREN'T THESE LETTERS BIGGER???!! i am shocked and amazed! i can't even hear him wiggling or anything! i think he just fell right to sleep. MIRACLES ARE HAPPENING IN MY HOUSE!

12 September at 14:33

as you can see there, i was very impressed. and you've done it several times since then. the improvement in your day-to-day mood and temperament has seen a very large improvement since you've been sleeping better. i am SO happy that we made this change.

around the middle of september, you really started to become mobile, and have been improving on your technique ever since. i can't wait to see how you choose to get around once you can control your arms and legs better. right now it's this awesome scoot/hop/army crawl thing, with a little bit of a monkey crawl thrown in here and there for good measure.

on september 20th i started looking into (finally) getting you vaccinated. you hadn't had any yet because i just couldn't make up my mind about what i wanted to do. there is so much conflicting (and SCARY) information out there. after doing a butt-ton of research, though, i finally figured out a plan that is best for us, and on the 29th you got your first shot--and you made lee ermey look like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k78TVkbrHHM and the best part was, you had absolutely NO adverse reaction to it at all, not even a little redness. :)

friday was my first day at my second job, which will mean your dad taking care of you 3 days a week from noon on. i'm really excited for you and your dad to get some more bonding time, but i think i am going to miss you like crazy. i think it might also be really tough having to go back to never having a day off with your dad again, but i'm really hopeful we can make this work.







bean sprout, i am so in love with you, at times i can hardly believe it. at just six months old, you are already so brave, smart, sweet, determined, strong, handsome, and have such a great sense of humor. i feel so proud to have you as my son.

i love you with every one of my earthly particles,
mommy

month five

well, sammy, we started this month off with a trip to meet your great grandma tung and boy did you make us proud. :) it was a 5 hour drive each way. we decided to go while you slept and you did beautifully. you were a wonderful baby while we visited as well, taking your naps while we ate dinner and lunch, as though you knew those were the most convenient times for us, and being a total sweetheart while meeting so many new family members.


















great grandma tung adored you, of course, and you seemed to really enjoy meeting her and your great aunt delores and your second cousins, shirley and michael, and shirley's husband mark. and mommy and daddy had a BLAST relaxing and visiting with everyone. they were all so kind and supportive that it was like a little vacation for us, and i think for you as well.
















































































then on the 23rd, your dad and i got another break, thanks to your grandma. she bought us massages and we went to a movie while she hung out with you. it was super nice. then we came home and got you and went out to the mall just to walk around and have some family time. it was a fantastic day.

your auntie kelsie and uncle asa have been
helping me out a lot this month, which is
immensely appreciated. they hand out with you
while i make dinner, or come grocery shopping
with me and it makes things SOOO much easier.
and besides, you love those guys!

on the 27th, your grandpa's birthday, we had a bbq. that was a lot of fun. my favorite thing in the world is when our whole family is together. i hope you grow up knowing how important family is and never taking them for granted. they are the ones who will ALWAYS be there, even when it's difficult for them to do so. you can always count on family.

by the end of august you were getting crazy nutso at night! so very wiggly, waking more, needing lots of help to get back to sleep. so on the 28th i decided to start putting you to bed in your own crib (where you were already taking naps), thinking that perhaps you were starting to feel too confined in your bassinet. in the first couple of hours after putting you in there, we had to go in 3 times to comfort you back to sleep with butt pats. but then you slept great the rest of the night, eating only twice. i don't particularly love going all the way into your room to feed you now, but i think i'm sleeping a little better, so i guess it's give and take.
august 30th was a terrible night:
...and then he of course proceeded to wake up about fifteen minutes later and cry his butt off, refusing to eat (even though i knew he was hungry) until my third attempt at getting him to do so. then when i put him back down, he woke up and decided he wasn't going back to sleep because he was just too dang happy being awake. LONG NIGHT.
august 31st at 6:50am
a couple of nights later we discovered that the pacifier does wonders to help you soothe yourself back to sleep after a slight sleep disturbance. we've been popping it in your mouth before putting you down now, and it seems to be helping no matter where you're sleeping. you also seem to be asking for the pacifier a bit more during the day now...not sure if that's related or for some other reason.
on the 1st we had our first taste of family time in almost a month. your dad and i now have wednesday through friday off together every week, and boy has that been awesome. (up until then we hadn't had a day off together since the trip to california.) we try to squeeze everything we can into those days: projects around the house, errands, cleaning, time with friends and family, shopping, etc. and we've been having a lot of fun doing it. :)
on the 7th while we were at work, i came into the room where you were having tummy time, and saw you moving your jaw up and down without any sounds, as if you were miming "mama mama mama". so i started saying mama to you as you did it, and then you starting saying it back! ok, so it's kind of a mixture of mama and baba and some other letters that i don't even think can be found in the english language.....but they're some pretty cool new babbles!
also--holy crap are you trying to crawl! you don't quite get yet that you're supposed to stay up on knees and elbows, but you can sure get around with scoots and rolls! i realized recently that sometimes you just want me to set you down so you can practice this. being set on the ground and left there sounds pretty boring to me, but apparently to you it's bunches of fun. i also realized we need to get a rug for the living room ASAP, because it's all tile down here and you need to be able to stretch your limbs on BOTH levels of the house!
that same day after work we got you a booster seat/high chair thing, and i decided to let you sit in there and play with some toys to try it out (since you're not doing food til next month...HOLY COW!). you have been enjoying that seat i think. i just put some toys on the tray and you go crazy while i do some dishes or make dinner.

on a very cool side note, pretty much all of my prepregnancy shorts and pants fit me again now. totally stoked about that.
on the 10th we did not have a good night:

decided to put sam down to bed at 6:30 since he only napped a total of 80 minutes today and seemed really tired. then HE decided he would wake up crying 30 minutes later, and then again 5 minutes after i patted him to sleep, and then AGAIN 2 minutes after i patted him to sleep a 2nd time, and is now asleep after i let him cry it out with just my hand on his back for some of the time. OY. just stay asleep you crazy, tired little dude!

Saturday at 8:25pm

BUT, the sleep book we have been waiting for finally arrived last night! we technically started it when we put you down last night, but you slept like an angel so we didn't really even need to use it! until 5 am, that is, when you decided you wanted it to be playtime...the book says (and i've SEEN YOU DO IT!) that you will wake earlier and earlier as long as we're coming to you in hopes of making playtime start earlier and earlier. so, we aren't allowed to go in to get you until 6. you were not happy about that this morning, but i know it will all work out for the best.
then for your nap at 9 this morning, we let you cry it out completely:

naptime is going well. did our little soothing routine and then put him down about twenty minutes early because the timing seemed right (didn't want him to get overtired). just kissed him and walked away. cried for about 7 minutes (him, not me! haha), and then fell asleep for about 5. woke and cried a couple more minutes, much quieter that time, and has now been asleep for about 35 minutes or so and still going strong it would appear. :)

slept an hour and a half, then woke up and just chilled in there and wiggled about. :) i think i'm going to love this, and i think it's going to make me fall in love with this baby all over again.

i'm so excited for you to become a champion sleeper! good sleep is so important for your health, and i know it will also help you in so many other areas, like mood and focus. i want to help you create a great foundation for being well-rested that will carry you through your entire life, because i frigging love you and i want to give you all the tools i can to help you live your life to its utmost potential.
great things are going to happen this month, i just know it! and next month--FOOD!
i love you, mr. baby! thank you for your patience as i figure out how to meet each of your needs.
love,
mommy

month four

samson my sweet little bean,

holy cow are you hard to keep up with!

i think that is the sentiment that best sums up how i've felt this month. you're so constantly changing! every time i turn around you're doing something new and leaving something old behind. for instance, last week all you wanted to do was make fart noises ALL DAY. this week, you're constantly screaming, and there's not a bubble to be found. you also have started to like being held in a way that used to frustrate you, and you wanted the pacifier a couple of times for the first time in weeks. you're grabbing your feet a lot now, too, and i'm just gonna be blunt--you're going bald. you've taken to reading on the floor in lieu of your awesome rocking chair. this one makes me a bit sad, but at least you still like books.
and ohmygoodness the GRABBING!! it's like night and day--last month you just stared at everything. now it's so amazing to see you grabbing for them. i love when i hand you something and you understand what i'm doing and you take it and investigate it...with your mouth, of course:

samson's philosophy on EVERYTHING: hey, that's pretty cool. i bet it would be even cooler IN MY MOUTH.

August 7 at 7:45am

you've really become a little scientist. it's so awesome.

sam woke up in his bassinet this morning and propped himself up on his forearms to look around. he then scratched the mesh on the side next to him with his fingernails, and decided he liked the sound, so he kept doing it. it was so cool to see him discover something like that. he was like a little scientist. "hhmmm, yes, this is nice. i'll keep doing this."

August 10 at 8:28am

and your dad's take on that morning:
I was there, seemed more like a "hmmmm, yes, this sounds like it will wake the slaves..."

you are now napping in your crib, which is somehow quite freeing for me even though i never really felt i had to tiptoe around you when you slept in the living room. you also sleep in your bassinet now, which is NICE. it took me over a week to actually make the move instead of just talking about it. i really love cuddling you as you sleep, but the fact is, you really don't let me do that anymore anyway, so you were, in a sense, just a spacer between your dad and me--not good.
boy, i just looked back at last month's post and i can't believe how much has happened since then!! last month you rolled over, now this month you're not rolling as much, but you're just so WIGGLY! you get your knees up under your belly and push yourself forward or roll onto your side. it's so awesome! and we heard your laugh for the first time last month, and now you grace us with it all the time. :) you've been swimming many more times, and we play in your room all the time now. there's so much to do in there! and you love to sit outside every night once the sun goes down. you like to go for walks, but not when it's dark for some reason...

and cousin jenna came to visit!!
woohoo! we had a lot of fun with her
and got some awesome pictures. :)
i miss seeing her every year. i hope
we can do lots more visits and that you
will come to know her well.

so what else happened this month? we discovered you like playing the piano. you love all musical things in general i think. shakers, recorders, your dad's washboard tie, singing, dancing, ... you really get a kick out of all that stuff. i discovered on the 10th that you will do tummy time for like a week straight as long as there's something in front of you that fascinates you. this is helpful if i'm showering and we're home alone. ;)



on the 12th of july, you just would NOT SHUT UP! haha--

samson has been talking NONSTOP today, with a special affinity toward lip bubbling. what i wouldn't give to know what he was saying... ♥

July 12 at 5:30pm

the night of july 22 we came to a hurdle--you would no longer sleep soundly on your back or side, and i was still nervous about putting you to bed on your belly for the whole night. after MUCH deliberation, i decided to put the mattress from your bassinet on the bed between us and let you sleep on your belly that way. it worked! and you didn't die! wahoo! we did that for a few weeks until we decided to just put you in the bassinet a few nights ago. i wasn't sure you'd sleep as well all by your lonesome, but i don't think you feel lonesome at all in there. :)


on august 3rd you began waking only once a night to eat. usually around 1 or 2am, and then in the morning at 5 or 6. which i suppose counts as 2 feedings, but i'm just putting a positive spin on things, i guess. sometimes you're a weirdo and eat at 4 instead, which kind of gets our morning out of whack, but you can't win them all, right? you also started stretching out your day feedings a lot on the 29th, often times going 3 or 4 hours between instead of just 2.
i also started a website where all my fellow mommies can have discussions about how CRAZY you babies are. i think it will be a nice resource.
i love that your baby babbles are changing constantly. you figure out a new noise and then you get obsessed with it and treat the old noises like yesterday's bananas...or something. some days you're really quiet, and some days you're a blabbering maniac:

the look samson gives me when i babble back to him sometimes makes it seem like he's thinking, "geez, lady, it's about time! i've been trying to tell you--I ONLY SPEAK BABY!"

July 23 at 6:29pm


one of my favorite things to do is change the lyrics to nursery rhymes to teach you stuff like the names of your family members, the sounds the letters make, and the parts of your fat little baby body. it's super fun and you seem to really enjoy the repertoire we've built up. i'm also starting on some sign language with you, as i've heard that will help with the period when you'll be wanting so many things but still be working with a very limited vocabulary. i don't think you're anywhere near ready to use the signs yet, but i want to give myself time to memorize them. ;)
you hit the 15 pound mark on the 3rd, and are now almost 25 inches long!
on the 4th we had an incredible breakthrough: i finally let you "cry it out" and it has changed EVERYTHING. you were in your swing fussing while i was trying to eat breakfast. i knew all your needs had been met, and you were just being needy. so i sat with you and held your hand, and read you a book until you calmed down, and then i picked you up. i've had to do this probably 5 times since, and each time it gets a little easier and goes a little quicker. the amazing thing is how much less stressed i feel when you cry now. if i know you don't actually need anything from me and you're just being a stinker, i can handle it a lot better now. i think it has been a really positive thing for me.
the hardest part about this month has been the lack of time by myself and with your dad. his schedule almost never syncs up with mine anymore and i feel like it's really making me a grumpier person. i've never been much of one for "me time" either, but now i feel like i just need a LITTLE bit SOMETIMES ohpleasegod! i feel like all the stress is blinding me to all the good. i used to make it a point EVERY DAY to take note of and appreciate all the blessings in my life, and now i overlook them constantly. i'm so incredibly lucky to have you and jason and my family and friends and our home and my amazing job, but how often do i express my gratitude for these things anymore?? so, i'm doing my best to figure out ways to get more time with jason and more time to myself. we'll see how we're doing a month from now...i think if i can do this it will have an extremely positive effect on everyone and everything around me.
well, duty calls! your dad is off to work so i have to get my butt off of here!


i love you so much, and your constant evolution amazes me. my promise to you has always been to do what is best for you, no matter how hard it is for me. this proves harder and harder every month it seems, but it just makes me more and more determined not to break that promise, because with every day i see more and more how very worth it you are.
love,
mommy

month three

samson my sweet,

where did this month go?? somehow the first three months of my pregnancy seemed about 3

times longer than the first three months of your life. these last 4 weeks especially have just flown by at an astounding rate. you are a completely different baby than you were when we first met, and you're a completely different baby nearly every day it seems. it makes it a little difficult to keep up sometimes, but i have to say it also makes it pretty exciting. when i read up about your development, where you've been and where you're going, it's truly shocking how fast it's all going. i can't believe that in just one month you might start to babble, sitting up and crawling just a couple months after that. and then food! in just three months you'll be eating real, honest to goodness PEOPLE FOOD, and that just boggles my mind. then before i know it, you'll be reaching for something to pull yourself up to your feet, and taking your first steps that will carry you through your amazing life.

so what happened this month...you met your great grandpa leroy and great grandma tina for the first time. your great grandpa just beamed from ear to ear the entire visit. he brought with him the rocking chair he had been rocked in as a baby, and that your grandma and great uncle brad had been rocked in as well. it's such an honor to now have this chair in my home that has so much history. it has now become the reading chair, and it brings me such joy to hold you and rock you in it as we explore the wonderful world of BOOKS!

we had some exciting milestones reached as well. on june 29th you rolled over from your tummy to your back. you've done it probably a dozen times since then, but no matter how smooth it looks, it still always seems almost by accident. i think you definitely have the muscles, (boy are you a strong baby! you LOVE to stand up, bearing all your weight for several minutes at a time), but you don't seem to have the desire. you love to look at things, ALL THE THINGS! but you never seem to want to reach for them, or bat at them. so why would you need to roll over, right? i'm not worried, though. i know soon enough you'll be grabbing at EVERYTHING, leaving a path of destruction in your wake. so i can take a few more weeks of just looking...

you also gave us your first real laughs the very next day when your daddy did a silly dance with you. we've been lucky enough to hear them twice more since then, and i don't know that there's a sweeter sound in the whole wide world.

on the 1st i bought a little plastic pool for the backyard and your daddy and i took you out in it. you seemed to dig it, so the next day we took you to the pool at your uncle asa and auntie kelsie's apartment complex. you had a blast. you didn't really smile, but you just seemed so comfortable in there.

i would say the biggest change that has occurred in our routine this month is how independent you've become. i think you were ready for it all along, and your dad and i just needed to realize that. we stopped holding you so much and found out that you actually enjoy being in your swing or your rocker, or just laying on your back in your little play gym. we take you upstairs into your room almost every day now, where we do some tummy time, practice rolling over, read some books and just hang out.

well sammy, i feel like we're really starting to get into the

thick of things here, and i look forward to watching you as

you continue to grow.

i love you.

mommy