A Trip to the Berkshires

In the middle of February, 2008, we took Sammy on her first vacation, and a great time was had by all. We rented our favorite house in Becket for a week and invited Babulya i Dedulya to join us.

Look at me! I am the biggest person in the room :)

While Mommy and Daddy went skiing, I got to hang out with Babulya i Dedulya.

We read books, played with caterpillars and elephants, and I even helped to make lunch for Mommy and Daddy.

Here is a baby food celebrity, Samantha Rennie, taking questions from the audience on proper puréeing techniques. "You have to make sure your avocados are very soft with black skins," she says. "It's all about the quality of produce, you know."

Cuddling with Mommy by the fireplace on a snowy day.

Mmm -- what a great trip!

More pictures from Becket

Shhh -- no talking in the library

Sammy was playing on the floor in her room while I was in the kitchen. Suddenly, it got quiet... After a few minutes, I got suspicious and went to check it out. Turns out we were reading! And not just one of those cloth books for babies. We were reading a real paper book that Mommy forgot to pick up off the floor. Of course, we had to delve deep into this literary work by chewing on the pages. Luckily, we only chewed our way through one page by the time Mommy rescued the book.

By the way, you see how Sammy is holding the book correctly? That's not posed. That's how I found her. It was so cute I ran for the camera.

Guess what we have?

Friday, February 29, 2008

I was kneading pasta dough for that night's cooking class, when my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller id and my heart sank. It was Sophie, Sammy's teacher. The reason she usually calls me in the middle of the day is to tell me that Sammy is sick. The first thing Sophie said when I picked up the phone was, "Helen, don't worry." "Is everything ok?" I asked nervously. "Guess what we have?" said Sophie.

Could it be? Is it finally here? After 2 weeks of sleepless nights and almost gnawing a hole in our rubber bib, our first tooth came. "Yay!!!" I don't know why, but I was terribly excited. Not that Sammy can really chew anything yet, but it means that she is one baby step closer to being a big girl and joining us for our regular meals. It also means that the teeth won't be torturing her as much (though it's probably just my wishful thinking to get those lovely uninterrupted nights of sleep back).

So where is the tooth in the picture, you say? To tell you the truth, it's been 3 days and I still haven't seen it. I felt it with my finger and you can hear cling-cling when feeding Sammy with a metal spoon, but it's so small at this point that it's hard to see. From what it feels like, I think it's not just one, but two teeth that broke the skin already :)

Everything is moving so fast. For months, we didn't want to lie on our tummy, or hold our head, or sit, and all of a sudden -- bum! We are sitting on our own, we are crawling (though backwards like a lobster ;), we are eating chunky stuff, we are clapping our hands, we are even standing with support, and now we have a tooth! How did all this happen so fast?

First Christmas, Ski Trip, and Half Birthday

Happy Half Birthday to you!
Happy Half Birthday to you!
Happy Half Birthday, dear Sammy!
Happy Half Birthday to you!

The new pictures are up. I know, I know -- too many. But if I had to do more proper pruning, cropping, etc., they'd get posted by Samantha's 12th birthday. Here are some highlights.

We had a huge snow storm in Dec. 07 and took Sammy on her first skiing trip to Great Brook Farm.

We put up a Christmas tree (Sammy's first) and had a quiet little Christmas at home with Zia Gaia and Zio Jerome.

Santa brought me a Mama rubber ducky and a baby rubber duckling, so now I can swim in great company.

Babulya came to visit and we had a blast while Mommy and Daddy went to Kevin and Meghan's wedding. Shh, don't tell anyone what we've been up to. What happens with Grandma, stays with Grandma :)

We went to Baltimore for New Years and got all dressed up for the occasion in the fashionable outfit Gaia's Mom sent us from Italy. Aren't we cute posing here with Pra-Babushka?

My favorite toy in Baltimore -- Uncle Leo's nose.

Breakfast at Babulya and Dedulya's was great fun.

I even got my own cup. Too bad they didn't put anything in it.

We were taking a bath and rolled right out of the diaper onto our tummy and then the media came to document this historic event.

Oh, and how could we forget... While Mommy was teaching her classes on saturdays in December, Daddy took me to Daddies and Babies class at Isis. Here are some Dads who want to get started on their children's early education REALLY early.

We are continuing to make progress with solid food and discovered Gerber's rice cereal. Mommy tried to give me that organic whole grain stuff at first. Brrrr! Too cardboardy.

Is that a spoon?

Put your hands behind your head and step away from the oatmeal!

Look at that! We are eating real food :) Well, not quite. According to Mommy anything without salt and butter or olive oil is not exactly real food, but we are definitely making some progress. So far, we seem to be fond of oatmeal, and winter squash. Oh, and we really hate bananas. Yuk!

Space -- the final frontier...

Although we are not quite ready for intergalactic travel, we can safely continue to explore Boston neighborhoods without freezing off our little tushy. Before it got really cold, we even made it on foot from Belmont to Daddy's job in Central square of Cambridge and back. That's almost 7 miles! Hopefully the cold weather won't keep up indoors now that we have our winter suit.

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere

Dear Sammy,

You are probably wondering why your parents procrastinate writing posts in your blog. Well... the truth is you've been keeping us really busy, kiddo. A lot has been happening in October. We made our first plane trip to visit Grandparents and you even attended your Pra-babushka's (Great-Grandmother's birthday). You had your first laugh, started to grab things, look around, and explore the world. You also
got your first cold, but now you are all better, which makes Mommy and Daddy very relieved. All this has been keeping us nice and busy ;)

But we finally got around to posting some pictures on the web.

There are some very cute ones of you dressed as a pumpkin for Halloween. We didn't exactly go trick or treating because Mommy is anti-candy (at least for children with no teeth), but we did take a walk around MtAuburn cemetery, which is really gorgeous this time of year, but if you want, you can pretend it's spooky.

A huge thank you goes to Babulya for getting us a pumpkin outfit. If it was left up to Mommy, we'd wear the same thing every day and wouldn't be nearly as cute. But between Zia Gaia bringing us baby fashions from Italy (there is a picture of you in little cow jammies in the album above), and Grandmothers dressing you up, you are looking like one hot babe :)

Love,
-Mommy and Daddy