Yes, the true love...

Favorite Things

Samara's new favorite thing is reading. We read together every night. Sometimes 4 or 5 books, but she also likes to read on her own! Of course, the touchy-feely books are the best, but she also enjoys putting the captions on the TV with the remote control, so we're sure she is catching on to the word thing! She's so good with the remote control that she is often the only one in the family who can get the channels back when the picture's gone! Unbelievable!

Rolling, rolling, rolling!

Rolling with Dada from Victoria Dosch on Vimeo.

Updates

It's been a while since I've given an update on Samara's progress as a little lady. She is sitting by herself now, for very long periods of time, and loves it! She likes having all of her toys within arms reach at every angle and on her bottom, truly exudes the high energy, rattle rattle, I like constant change and excitement side of her personality we so admire. She also rolls over both ways. Yes, she was very slow on that one, but started about 3 weeks ago and still surprises herself when she gets around. She's been good at spinning like a clock for months, but just couldn't hack the roll. Go figure. For her, everything is a race against time! Anyway, hooray for sitting and rolling. Two checks! Just this week she started clicking. She can snap her tongue and lips and finds it ever so amusing. We do, as well! I've read it's a sign of being ready for chunky foods. So different from other mothers I know (I am quite sure this is a bad reflection on me) but I just love getting her to try new things. She is so strong and healthy, not to mention curious and eager and I love letting her lick, sip and touch whatever she likes. She's had her first taste of ice-cream, yes, and loved it, of course! We feel so lucky she is allergy and illness free. So many of my friends have struggled with both of these and we know we are blessed with her strength and resilience. Samara is sleeping quite well now, almost always. Generally she'll go from around 6pm-4:30am. Amazing! She keeps us guessing with quite a few bad nights still, but at least 50% of the time, she's terrific! She's very into bling now, as you can probably imagine, and truly appreciates me wearing necklaces of all sorts. Sucking her thumb is very rare, but this week it has been apparent as she seems to quite like the feel of her new spikes! Yes, my little girl has two little teeth coming in on the bottom! What a star! And boy are they sharp. I'll be giving her Jolly Ranchers in no time. They did seem to bother her a little coming in, but now she is very into stroking them with her thumb. Otherwise, she is neither a thumb-sucker nor a plug-user. We were so excited when we found them on the weekend and can't believe how quickly she is growing up. I can't believe she will ever speak or walk or go to school. I can't stand it! It will all be so exciting, so unbelievable, so emotional. Every milestone is so huge. And gosh, she is so perfectly wonderful now. We love her so much!

Happy Inauguration!

Samara's new president, at least until she's almost 5!

Watching and taking it all in with Mama and Dada

7 months old!

The "French Maid" look! It would seem her favorite toys are anything that could cause grave harm: metal spoons, hooks and hangers and bottles of pills. We try our best to not even let her discover such things, but it's like there is a radar in her brain which detects and attracts her to them! She refuses brightly colored, plastic and fluffy toys for anything black and silver that looks fancy and high tech! In other news, I found this little bow and tried it on for size today! Now that she's got a fair amount of fluff, hair accessorizing can begin! Haha...

With ANOTHER 6 inches of snow on the ground, this hat is on pretty much ALL of the time.


Still the sweetest blue-eyed girl in town. A wise and wonderful 7 months old she is! I can't believe it. The count down to 1 year has begun!

A new week

This week is going a lot quicker. It helps that I have Friday and Monday off :) Leaving Samara each morning with Mamaji is so much easier and I am so grateful to her (Samara) for being such an angel this week. The gratitude I have to my Mummy is, of course, unmatched! The mornings pass quickly and the afternoons are extra special. We're onto a good routine now, and it's really helpful, at long last. The only bad thing is that Steve's new job keeps him there a lot later. It is nearly 7:30pm and he's still not home :( At least he's enjoying it, but they are long days for him, and us... The other day he went 36 hours without seeing Samara, awake that is, as she's sleeping 11-12 hours a night now. Again, we're very grateful for that, and the two-together time is very wonderful, but I just can't imagine a day without seeing that smile. It makes him sad and it's not unusual for me to find him stealing a few peeks of his little girl, and perhaps even a couple of kisses from his little girl. The smiles are very free to all now and yet they still make you feel like you are the only one that matters!



I just love this photo of Samara. She's so sweet!

TGIF!

Like never before, we have that Friday feeling! Hooray! You have no idea what a week this has been. I don't want to take too much time away from this precious evening in to type, but in brief, Samara woke up around 10pm on Sunday night with a 103.7 fever and was up all night. The poor thing looked like she had huge red apples lodged into each cheek and her chin and it was heartbreaking to see her so unwell, and scary. On Monday morning, Steve said he would stay home from work, and so I left my two loves, with tears in my eyes, only to have them roll down my cheeks as soon as I entered Tower and was asked about my little girl. The week was very, very tricky. Balancing the schedule and getting Samara to her next babysitting gig was very hard, while working around the on and off schedule I have at school. I took her to the doctor on Monday afternoon and she was declared flued-out and very fortunately, each day, she has been more and more of herself. Andrew was a huge help this week, taking her for an hour or two on more than one occasion, once she was better. Steve took off 3 mornings, and Anne took off today. Steve would have taken more, except that on Thursday, he started his new job! Woohoo! He is now Legislative Director at Youthbuild and it is a brilliant job for him and I am so proud, so happy... he deserves this so much! More on that another time. On Wednesday night, just as we were celebrating his leaving AIG for the last time he walked to our car in Boston where he'd parked on the street and found it totally smashed in. Someone had crashed into it on the side of the street and shattered the driver's side. Knowing that I'd just worked at least a month or two at Tower for nothing was very depressing and just sad thinking how dishonest man can be, but enough of that for now. Nothing more can be done. The car sits in our driveway tonight, awaiting another 8" of snow tomorrow (and did I mention we had another 6" this week, to add to the challenges) and we'll deal with it when we have the pennies and seconds. But all of that aside, and the tears and tragedies of leaving my little girl, I must say the return to Tower was very smooth, very happy, very perfect. When I actually had time to focus in on what I was doing, I fell in love all over again with the freedom of that job, the joy of teaching Spanish and my truly SUPER students. One of my classes in particular epitomizes everything I adore about this profession and this world I enter into when I step within a Spanish classroom. They are the laugh and learn type and they make my job very, very wonderful. While I still watch the clock and jet out that door as soon as I can to get home to my baby girl, I know I am lucky to have this chance to do what I do well once again, bring in a few more dimes for our family and make ends meet. I know not what the future holds, but after a week of trials and tribulations, I'm very happy for the weekend, very happy for all we have.

Bracing ourselves

It's back to school on Monday for me and it's mighty scary. As much as possible I am trying to not think of it as 'going back to work' and just think I'll have a few hours I have to be away each day, specifically three and a half. But the first week back will be especially tough, not just because it's all new, I will miss my little girl too much and I feel like I haven't taught a class in years, but also because Mummy is going to be in England and so Samara's care-taking regime is a little insane, to put it mildly. Everyone from my brothers, to the neighbor to my mother-in-law are stepping in and I am very grateful, very nervous. I'm hoping for a snowday or something sometime during the week to ease the blow just a little. And while Samara is totally off her great little schedule we'd been perfecting, we're going to try our best this next day or two to get her back on track and as happy as can be before the ball drops, again, around 7:30AM on Monday.