Laughing with Sarah

Eight months - July 22, 2014 Well goodness. What a big boy we have on our hands these days! For starters, we have two teeth! Both on the bottom, both of them about halfway grown at this point. Teething has been blissfully uneventful, for the most part. He drools more, sticks his tongue out a lot, and has a slightly harder time staying asleep at night, but otherwise he's not too cranky about the teeth-growing process. Just a little confused about what these weird things are in his mouth. Teeth! We've added broccoli, nectarine, apricot, and multigrain cereal to his list of foods, plus a few more sneaks of ice cream, whipped cream, and most recently, rømmegrøt (at this last weekend's Nordic Fest ). Sam has also decided that drinking out of a grown-up cup is the most hilarious thing ever. He'll watch Matt and me at dinner, and his face will light up when we take a drink...and then he'll reach out, wanting to take a sip of his own. We hold the cup up to ...

I have an eight month update (with picture!) languishing in my queue, but before I have time to finish up that post, I need to speak my peace. I was putting Sam to bed last night, and had one of those distinct "Wow, I love this sleepy little guy so so so very much" moments...followed immediately by the thought, "And you know what? I think I'm doing a pretty good job at this whole mom thing." It wasn't so much a self-congratulatory thing as it was a freeing realization that I love Sam, and Matt and I do our very best to keep him healthy and happy, and you know what? For the most part, he's a healthy, happy kid. So I think that counts as success. I say this because in these first eight months, I have said very little about the "shoulds" that pile up around the feet of new moms. For my own part, I think I did a good job of ignoring most of them, except for a brief couple of weeks when I thought that maybe I should think about getting Sam o...

Well, we're a couple months into eating real food a this point, and it's fair to say that Sam LOVES eating. Sam eats an ecclectic mix of foods throughout the day. I nurse him in the mornings, at lunchtime, at bedtime, and overnight. He drinks formula during his daycare mornings. He eats solid foods at dinnertime (and sometimes at lunchtime) - sometimes it's food that I've made, sometimes it's food that we've purchased. I am totally okay with this crazy mix. For the first six months, we nursed exclusively. But at this point, I am okay with Sam experiencing a variety of foods and tastes, and as long as he is eating well (and getting good nutrition), I am happy with whatever combination of things that he eats. I've had a lot of fun making my own baby food. It's easy peasy to steam sweet potatoes and carrots and pears and peas. I keep our freezer stocked with frozen cubes of baby food. Big cubes of veggies. Ice cube sized cubes of fruit. Right now, I...

June 23 - seven months old It's been a big month! First, a big month in terms of life-happenings. Sam started daycare, he was baptized , he went to two conferences with his mama, and came along to St. Olaf College for Matt's 10-year reunion festivities. The adjustment to daycare has been shockingly smooth - for him and  for me. He goes four mornings a week and one afternoon. Within the first couple days that he was attending, we noticed some huge developmental leaps.  After beginning daycare, he started talking more than he ever did before - he spouts off long strings of nonsense words and you can tell that he is actually trying to communicate something. He likes saying "dadadadada" and "lah-deh-lah-deh-lah-deh." He'll shriek and squeal loudly, just for fun, and if he is frustrated but not yet fully upset, he'll start talking in a scolding sort of voice before he resorts to crying. Also, since he sees other babies in daycare ...

I'm getting good at posting things out of order here. Sorry about that. But even a month after the fact, I'd be sad if I didn't write something about Sam's baptism, which took place on Sunday, June 8 at First Lutheran Church in Decorah, Iowa. It was a beautiful, crazy, family-filled, celebration-heavy weekend. Matt's parents flew in from New Jersey. My parents drove in from Chicagoland. All three of my sisters came - Stephanie, Bethany, Kristin (plus Patrick, Laura, Shannon, Joanna, and Cameron). Jon and Charisse rode their motorcycles out. Throughout the weekend, we tripped over one another as we ate together and played together, as we celebrated together and gave gifts (two May birthdays, three June birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and baptism). At the center of the whirlwind was little Sam, our miracle baby, and the worship service where we would get to hear the promise that he, Samuel Tyler, is a claimed and called, anointed and beloved chi...