A few things you may not know about Sam

Sam loves Post Man Pat on tv. He really doeesn't like Santa! (He did a death grip on me when we entered Santa's cave). He loves going in the rocking car and rocking slug which we have in the shed now. He loves the sand pit and could spend ages there. He loves baths. He loves animals - and is not scared to go up to Eddie and push him off his bed (and Eddie knows who is boss and lets him!).
He loves socks and shoes - probably because they mean we are going outside!
He loves wearing hats and playing peek a boo when they are too big for him.

He can show you his belly if you ask.

He does a lot of grunting, and not much talking... but we still get what he means.

Thirteen months (and a bit)

I have been slack, slack, slack!

I missed the thirteen month post... and have almost made it to fourteen months!

Sam is such a clever little boy... he is picking up new things every day.

He can point at the cow on his wall when you ask him, he points to his mouth, he can let you know when he wants a drink, or wants to get up, or get down. He blows bubbles in the bath (with his face in the water!). He doesn't really say much in words, but he can still let us know what he wants. He does say mumma and dadad and bubub. He waves every time he sees the cats (because that is usually when I let them outside in the morning.

He loves stealing sultanas from my breakfast in the morning. Actually he is a lot like a seagull when anyone has food that he wants.

Ouch

28/10/07 (Yes I am actually typing live this time!!!)

Sam's dressing came off only after a day or two. But it looked like it was healing nicely and sealed with a scab. Then he was chasing Josh down the driveway and fell over and (you guessed it) fell splat on his head. The wound had opened again and was bleeding. It wasn't too bad though. A bandaid helped to cover it. Then about half an hour later he fell over again, onto his head, and it started bleeding again...

And then in the bath tonight it got wet and started bleeding again!

We need a crash hat, some cotton wool, padded walls and a baby walker and then maybe he won't fall over again!

Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks...

In summary... a trip to Torquay beach, Werribee Zoo (the pram photo), putting the picnic baskets away from Sam's birthday party, and a photo taken today in the backyard (in the car).

It's started already!

22/10/07

Yesterday morning started like any other... Josh playing with his track, Sam trying to get into his room, Josh cracking it with Sam and slamming the door and locking him out of his room. Only this time Josh opened his door again and (I'm assuming this bit) pushed Sam who (I'm guessing) hit his head on the corner of the wall. I was in the kitchen at the time and in the 5 seconds it took to get to the hallway there was blood everywhere. His head had split open on the right hand side of the forehead. I told Josh to go and get Dad. Apparantly this translated to "Get up Dad, Sam's bleeding, I need a paper towel". We went down to the local doctors and were taken to the emergency/treatment section. Luckily Sam wasn't upset, and was even smiling at the nurses. We had to wait about an hour before we saw a doctor. And then three turned up! Luckily he didn't have to have stitches. We had to wrap him up in a big sheet to hold his hands down and keep him still. Then they held the wound together with steri-strips and glued his head together!

He is fine now, running around and playing like there is nothing wrong.

The one year results are in!

We had our 12 month assessment at the health centre. In the red corner, weighing in at 10.6kg with a length of 76cm and a head circumfrence of 48cm we have Sam the Maximus!

He is doing great, doing all the right things. He has finally started to get that eighth tooth down the bottom, so it will look a bit more even soon!

He already likes to be a helper. I have been going through the bags of hand me down clothes in his cupboard. I take a top and put it into his drawer, he picks it up out of the drawer and puts it on the floor!

Our cheeky little one year old

Its that time of year again! Footy grand finals, Melbourne Show, the beautiful, sunny spring days... these are all things that take me back to the days leading up to Sam's birth.I loved eminiscing... thinking back... "this time last year I was watching a movie, and secretly recording how far apart the contractions were", "this time last year we were just about to head off to the hospital" (yes we were up at that time - getting ready for the party!). Then waking up in the morning and thinking "this time last year I was starting to push', and then a couple of hours later "this time last year I was STILL pushing" and then "this time last year he was born!". And remembering the little sheep like cry that he had!

I rewound the home video back to the first footage of Sam, the day he met Josh. It was amazing to see this tiny baby, making the smallest of movements, a little tongue poking out, eyes looking to the sides, fingers moving slightly. And comparing to now!!! A little boy who is always on the move (usually to where ever I am), who can understand what we are saying, and can tell us in his own way, what he wants (usually with a lot of grunting and reaching).

Sam woke up at 6:30am, and we had to wait until 7:30 for Josh to wake up to start the present opening. The first present that Sam saw was his train ball pit. We set it up the night before, and I had to keep reminding Josh that it was Sam's, not his! We dropped in the 50 balls that came with it, and couldn't believe it! They didn't even cover the floor of the train. Lucky we had another 200 balls from Josh's ball pit tucked away in the cupboard! Sam LOVED it! Actually, we couldn't get him out of it to open the other presents! We also gave him an Amazing Animals train. Josh picked out a giraffe toy that you pop balls in it's mouth and they come out the bottom(!). Oh and we almost forgot the Sam CD that we got. It has songs with your child's name in it. It was a bit strange to hear the Sam version, when we were so used to hearing the same songs with Josh's name in it!

Sam had a morning sleep, while we got ready for the party. We had a Teddy Bear's Picnic theme for Sam's party. Even before he was born, I knew that I wanted to attempt the 3D teddy bear cake that I had seen on the Internet. We planned for a picnic in the park... but the weather had other ideas! A quick call to Lisa and Laura (who live right near the park) for a Navan Park weather report told us that we were going to have to change plans... and quickly. It was just too windy! A mad rush of text messages and phone calls, followed by a mad rush to clean up the house and we were ready for the guests to arrive. Sam had even obliged by having a nice long sleep until about 10:30am.

The teddy bears had a picnic in the lounge room, the humans had a bbq lunch under the pergola. The actual party seems like a big blur to me (I will have to check the video to see what actually happened!). We got some great items for Sam's time capsule, including letters, poems, a copy of The Australian Car Buyers Guide 2007, a copy of Rolling Stones, a recording of Playhouse Disney and a 5 inch floppy disc. I can see that one being very interesting on Sam's 18th birthday... we will have to try and locate a computer that has a floppy disc drive. Even now, most computers do not have one! I think they are already more obscure than a record! To think that they only hold 1.44MB, compared to a CD - ??? & a DVD ???. My iPod holds 4GB and that is considered small now. There are not many files these days that will even fit on a floppy disc! Anyway, I am getting a little off track here! Back to the party...

Sam was spoilt with lots of presents, he just couldn't cope with opening them all at the party, so we left them til after his afternoon nap. That means a lot of people didn't get to see him open presents... so I am sorry about that. I know that it can be great to see people open the present that you bought for them. He got some clothes, a Finding Nemo dinner set, an alphabet puzzle, hand made puppets, a caterpiller pull along toy, a train beady toy, a teddy bear, another carriage for his Amazing Animals train, bath toys, a truck, a Teddy Book, a hand made beanie.

Look at all these presents!
Me and the boys!
Josh - sprung with cake!

The funny hat family

And now to talk about the cake... I was really happy with the end result! I think it looked great, and it really wasn't that hard! I just hired the 3D teddy tin, made the cake, and iced it with a special tip that makes grass, or in this case, teddy fur! Just one minor detail... the first cake I made - a caramel mud cake - was a bit of a disaster! Two packet mixes at $6 each, and my teddy came out looking deformed! He had no feet! I kind of forgot that mud cake doesn't rise... so it wasn't quite enough mixture. So I had to madly rush about making another one, this time a madiera cake. Luckily I started the cake on Friday morning! The caramel mud didn't go to waste though - I just chopped it up ready to dish out. And it was delicious!I think the best compliments I got were when guests arrived and walked right past the cake not even noticing that it was a cake! They thought it was a teddy bear!

My favourite photo - brother love.
Josh had just blown out the candle, and I think Sam was in awe!
Sam got to have a little cup cake all to himself. He sucked on it for ages!
He must have wanted it to last!

One thing that I noticed was the comments about Sam's walking. To me it seemed that he had been walking for ages, but even Aunty Kel who only saw him five days earlier said that he was walking heaps better then the last time she saw him. He is a man on a mission now! He will still start crawling if he is in a hurry, but most of the time he toddles along. And if he can grab
somebody's finger to take them for a walk he can really get up a head of steam!

I don't know who had more fun at the party - Josh or Sam... and it seems that Josh is spending a lot of time playing with Sam's new toys... but we all had a great time. And we can't believe that it has been a year already!

Just over a week to go

One week and two days and Sammy Boy will be turning ONE!!!!

Thought I had better hurry up and post the 11 month photo! But that is what life is like at the moment, a blur! Time seems to go so quickly.

Yesterday was a big day in Sam's life... because I am going to count that one as the day he started to walk. Last time I said he could do a record of three steps, well now we are losing count. And he will just start walking all the time now, and stand by himself without even thinking about it.

I did get a little bit of photo of him walking last night... its not great quality... I might try to get something better another day.

Oh and he can clap now, with his hands! It is issued more as a demand though - clap clap - hands up in the air (as in "pick me up").

11 Month Photo

11 Months

Wow... 11 months. Time to get my butt into gear!

It is September again, the wisteria is just starting to flower again, Spring is in the air!
It is a great time to play outside. That is why I hope that Sam starts to walk real soon. We take him outside and he always ends up in the swing while we do the gardening or hang the washing.
He used to love the swing, but even he is getting fed up with it now.
I even let him play in the sand pit the other day. He absolutely loved it! It was just the constant "no Sam you can't eat sand", "spit it out Sam, that's yukky", got a bit tedious after a while.

We went on a few play dates in the last couple of weeks. It was good for Sam to play with some kids closer to his own age. I guess that's the thing with being the second baby... most of your 'friends' are three year olds! His friends are three months older than him and already walking up a storm. So I think that has really motivated Sam, because he got really adventurous the other night and took a few tentative steps!!! You should have seen the look on his face! He was so proud. He just knew that he was doing something clever.
The record so far is three steps before he falls in a pile of laughter.

Oh yeah and I have been told that he is looking older now (see I can't notice these things - I see him every day!). His hair is getting longer at the back, and yes it has the dreaded curl!

On the teeth front - we now have a total of seven teeth! Four on top and three on bottom.

A new trick that Sam did tonight... I told him to clap... and he did... with his feet!!! And yes, he thought that was very funny! He can't clap with his hands yet but.

What else? He loves looking at the fish tank, he cracks up at the cats, he likes to follow you into the toilet, he has become a real mummy's boy, he likes to drink out of Josh's straw cup, he loves having a bath, he talks on the phone to me at work, he puts his hand up to his ear and pretends to talk on the phone, he loves car keys, remote controls and mobile phones (but I think all babies do!).

His current routine is to go to wake up some time between 6:30 and 7:30am. Then he has a breakfast of toast, or weetbix or baby muesli. He is back to bed at 9am with a bottle. He wakes up some time between 10 and 11, then its lunchtime. This could be anything from left over veggies, to baby food, to yogurt. Back to bed with a bottle at about 1pm. Then he wakes up between 2 and 4pm. At 6pm if I am working the boys come down to the train station to meet me. Kel says that about this time Sam starts sooking, like he knows that I will be home soon.
Then I give Sam his dinner which could be anything, similar to lunch. Lately he has been having a bath with Josh, then a bottle and into bed at 7pm. He usually wakes once during the night at about 1am for a quick bottle and nappy change (but I am hoping to wean this one real soon!).

Ten Month Photos

Ten months (a bit late)

Sam is definitely a baby on the move now. He loves getting into mischief... and if he disappears for a second a few of the places he might turn up include the bathroom (standing against the bath), Josh's room (the track wrecker) or standing up and looking into the fish tank.
Sam had some rough nights in the past week and we found a tooth coming through on the top. Finally some more teeth to even out his mouth! I was beginning to think that he would only ever have two teeth! And those two teeth are huge now. So we started doing the teething gel and pain relief thing to try and help him sleep a bit better. It didn't seem to be helping though. That is when I noticed last night that he has a tooth coming through on the bottom too! Poor bugger has two teeth coming at the same time... and we had only been putting the gel on the top gum.

Sam is being a very clever boy and sometimes stands for a couple of seconds without holding onto anything! Usually when he forgets and gets distracted by something. And he is finally getting the hang of crawling properly, but will still commando crawl when he wants to get somewhere fast!

The photo proof

I got into a black and white photo mood last night.

Gee it is hard getting Sam to sleep when he just wants to stand up all the time! He has hit his head so many times... but he is finally learning how to fall with grace!

It's started!

Sam has started pulling himself up on things... and I can see that it won't be long before he starts cruising.

I put him to bed tonight and a little bit later he started crying. I got his bottle ready and his crying was getting worse and worse. I finally got to his room and open the door to see my baby STANDING UP IN THE COT!!!

It was kind of funny... he was crying because he couldn't work out how to sit down again!

And he can wave now too!

Nine Months Old

Yesterday I was feeding Sam his Weetbix for breakfast and he must have had enough... the next thing I knew I was wearing his weetbix! He thought it was very funny, and Josh thought it was very funny and tried to copy!

I can't believe that in three months time Sam will be turning one! He still looks like such a baby because he still doesn't have much hair.

He still commando crawls, but today he did try to climb up on me and get into a standing position. So who knows, maybe he will just go straight to walking.

Eight Months

Sam is eight months old now. He has two teeth. The second tooth just appeared one day. I was using my finger to 'clean' his one tooth and thought 'hang on, that feels like more than one tooth to me'. I had a closer look and I was right!

He has been doing a really good job of sitting lately. We can place him on the floor in a sitting position and he will stay there for ages. He can even use his hand to stabilise himself.He has been heard saying a new word in the last few days 'dada'. And he makes a funny clicking noise with his tongue too.

He has started eating three meals a day now. We have made our way through a big list of fruits and veggies. He seems to like most foods that we give him. The only exception being rice cereal. If we try to add rice cereal to something to thicken it up he doesn't really like it as much.He loves chewing on rusks. He almost goes crazy when we give him one... like he is about to chew our hand off!

He has been seen rocking on his knees a few times but no proper crawling as yet. Though that doesn't stop him from getting around! Turn your back for a couple of minutes and you don't know where he could end up! Though most of the time he just tries to find where Josh is.

We had another zoo trip the other day (Sam's fourth trip to the zoo in 8 months!!). He liked watching the butterflies flutter around his head and the seals swimming back and forth in front of the viewing window.

Sam is fascinated with the Eddie and Rocky and Kitty too. The other day he crawled up to the sliding glass door while I was out hanging out the washing. The door was open and he crawled up to the door frame and reached up and grabbed Eddie's head. I think he nearly poked him in the eye. Eddie is just as fascinated with Sam too! He puts his head right up close and sniffs him. He is so gentle with him though. But he does stay out of the way when Sam is in his walker! He can get very fast in that thing and always tries to chase Eddie.We have had to reassess our childproofing with Sam in the walker. Suddenly he can reach Josh's chalks, playdoh, books and drawings.

We still haven't had regular sleeping through the night. We got lucky one night, but it was just a once off. Usually he has a bottle around 10-11pm, then another feed around 3-4 and then I feed him before I go to work at about 7 (well for a while it was regularly at 6:50am every morning!). He has his meals and bottles throughout the day and then I feed him again at about 7pm and he goes to bed.

I took Sam for his eight month check up today. Here are the stats:

Weight: 8710g
Length: 69cm

Head Circumference: 46cm

The Tooth Fairy has been!

Last week I had to go to the dentist and get a wisdom tooth removed. It was a pretty simple procedure, and I got to take the tooth home. The tooth fairy even came and took my tooth away and left me $10!!! (which doesn't quite cover the cost of having it removed!)

Anyway, this tooth fairy has been very busy lately, because not only did she take my tooth away, but a couple of days ago I spotted a little white dot in the bottom front of Sam's mouth!

Lets just hope that it isn't my wisdom tooth growing in there!

Six Months

Look how far you have come in six months! Boy the time has gone fast.

Here is a photo of Sam in his swing. He loves it!
Sam has started commando crawling now! He is a boy on a mission, especially when he sees Josh's toys lying around. But it has been a bit disgraceful to see how dirty his clothes can get after crawling around on our kitchen floor!

And the other big milestone I have to report is that Sam has started eating real food now. His first food was rice cereal, and he has had some pumpkin now too. He really likes pumpkin.

First Word!

My great news is that Sam has said his first word!!!
And I am VERY happy, because it is "Mumma"!!!!!!

I could just sit and stare at him saying mumma all day long!
It was almost a shame to put him to bed tonight!

Five Months

OK, we are a little bit late, considering it is the 10th March now....

But somewhere between the 28th February and the 1st March Sam hit the five month mark!

The biggest thing to happen in our lives lately is that I have returned to work. I survived the first week at work, Kel survived the first week of being home with the boys alone, Sam survived on the bottle while I was at work and Josh survived!

We did have a few hiccups along the way. At first Sam wouldn't take the bottle - but I think hunger got the better of him after a while! I had a bit of trouble expressing milk at work at first - but that got sorted out too. I could only get about 220mls for the whole day which is one full bottle, but it is better than nothing. We have ran out of frozen milk now, so Sam has had his first taste of formula milk too.

I am in the office on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. I am home on Tuesday and Friday and do a total of 8 hours work spread across those two days. This means that I can still spend time with my boys, and get some work done without being on the computer all day. When I am home I feed Sam, and when I am at work he has a bottle of either breastmilk or formula (depending on what we have available). He doesn't seem to be getting confused about things - as long as his belly is getting full he doesn't seem to mind where it comes from!

We still have the rolly polly baby. He can even suck his toes now! And he has sat for a couple of seconds with a little bit of support behind him.

He is still waking through the night but the routine is something like this...

First feed at about 7am, then 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm. Then he sometimes wakes for a feed, or I will wake him at 10pm just before I go to bed. Then he can usually last until about 4am on a good night. On a bad night he wakes twice for a feed (the extra one at about 1am).

He has a cold at the moment though and has needed to have a few cuddles through the night. He is a bit rattley and sounds like he needs to cough... but how do you tell a 5 month old how to cough?

Not long now until Sam's half birthday! And of course we will have to have a party to celebrate! Can't have one for Josh and not have one for Sam now can we? ;)

So keep that weekend free (probably the 31st March) and start thinking about an item for Sam's time capsule... it could be a letter, poem, picture, song or any other idea that you can come up with to represent your hopes and dreams for Sam for the future. (Items can be emailed or sent by mail if you can't make it on the day)

The rolly polly baby

Well I think I did jinx it last post...
He has started waking up again a couple of times each night. With only two weeks til I go back to work I am really hoping that he will start sleeping through again.

I think the main reason is that he has started rolling from his back to his belly and then he gets stuck there and gets very frustrated and cries. He seems to have forgotten how to roll back onto his back! He has ended up in all sorts of positions too, with his legs sticking out of the bars, or one arm and one leg, and sometimes he completely flips around 180 degrees!

He has found his feet now too. That just makes him even more rolly... as soon as he puts his feet up and grabs them he ends up rolling onto his side.

His first night in the big cot!

We finally found the time to clean up Sam's room, find a place for all those stuffed toys which had been taking up residence in the cot and put all the new clothes away.

That means that Sam is now sleeping in his cot!!!

He had a day sleep in it, and is right now asleep and will hopefully stay that way until the morning.

I hope I don't jinx it, but the last few nights I have been letting him go a bit before I go into him. It has meant that when he woke at about 2 or 3 that he would go back to sleep until about 6am.

This morning I woke at 7:15 and had to actually go in there to check on him. He was just lying there awake!

Four Months

Weight: 6850g

Length: 64cm

Head Circumference: 42cm

These measurements all put Sam into the 50th percentile - meaning he is all in proportion and an average sized baby!

He can roll from front to back and half way over onto his side when on his back.

He can hold things in his hands, and puts things into his mouth.

He is a big time drooler! He has probably started teething.

He is a thumb sucker.

He always has big grins when he sees his Dad in the mornings.

He still wakes up through the night for a feed. Sometimes it is only once, sometimes it is twice, and on a bad day it is three times!

He goes in the big bath now so he can streth out and kick and splash about.

And just quietly... he had his first taste of real food the other day... a lick of chicken gravy off Dad's finger - umah! But he did love it!

A belated Christmas post

Sam was only three months old for his first Christmas, so he didn't really know what was going on! Santa had a lot of trouble filling his Christmas stocking.

We thought we would get a good Santa photo this year because Sam is too young to be scared of Santa. The problem was that we had to wait so long in line to see Santa, that we had to wake him up when we got to the front of the line, and of course, once he was awake he wanted MILK! So he really wasn't very happy at all! He actually ended up grabbing handfuls of Santa's beard!

Sam got an Elmo play gym from us (which Josh likes to play with more at the moment), a toy dog that plays songs and games (a bit like Josh's Tad), a bib and rattle, some dummies and teats for his bottle, Other presents he got were a mobile, clothes, a vibrating bouncer chair (which magically put him to sleep in the middle of a very noisy room), stacking rings and a book.

A Good News Day!

Today we got the results of the followup ultrasound... and you can probably guess from the title that it was good news and everything is normal! Yay!

Last night Sam slept through the night from 8pm to 8am. Another Yay!

It has been really great seeing Josh and Sam play games together already... I can't wait til Sam is a bit older and they can really play together. Josh plays a hide and seek game with Sam where he hides behind my chair and pops up on different sides. Sam always looks around for Josh and smiles when he see him. He really loves his big brother :)