Month 6

Okay, so this is really late. I meant to post something around Samantha's 6 month half-birthday, but there were so many events that I just kept waiting. So now I have a huge post - sorry for the length!

I'll start with Samantha's half birthday. The day before, we went to San Francisco to see some friends and go to a holiday party. We spent more time in the car driving back and forth than we actually did at the party, but it was still a good trip because we got to see a lot of people we don't see very often. Then that night, we had an early Christmas dinner with friends and tried goose for the first time. Samantha didn't try the goose, but she did grab hold of a piece of bread and start gnawing on it. It was very funny, although she looked like a starving child. We had a great time, and Samantha even got a few presents. One was a book that talks to her and lights up - she loves it!

I had the following 2 weeks off from work and was able to start making pureed foods for Sam. We started with sweet potatoes, which she loved, then tried carrots, which have now grown on her. I then added peas, which she hates! Next we added green beans, and soon will be adding potatoes and apples. We borrowed our friend's Baby Cook steamer/food processor all-in-one and it is fabulous. I wish the capacity was bigger, but am truly grateful to have it as it saves on cleanup and prep time.

Samantha had her 6 month checkup during this time, and although she is completely healthy, her weight was a little concerning to the doctor. She is in the 70th percentile for height but only 18th percentile for weight (she was at 57th percentile at 4 months)! I had noticed she was eating far less than I thought she should (see prior posts), but she doesn't seem unusually hungry (ok, except for when she grabbed the bread from my friend's hand at Christmas dinner and started gnawing it!). The doc wants to see her back in a month to check her weight. I hope she bounces back!

For Christmas Eve we had another dinner at a friend's house, only this time we had duck. It was also fabulous and great to see our friends and catch up before the holidays. We had to leave pretty early because Sam got fussy, but that was ok because we knew we had a big day of opening presents the next day.


Even though we stayed home and had Christmas with just our small 3 person + dog family, Christmas morning was a chaotic mess - of wrapping paper and cardboard. Like our dog Calvin, Samantha, too, likes to open presents by tearing the paper to shreds (we had to watch very carefully that she wasn't stuffing it in her mouth and then choking on it). Both she and the dog had a wonderful time opening the presents and couldn't really care less about what was in them :) Afterward, when we presented her with one toy at a time, she really enjoyed them, but I think the whole process of opening the presents overwhelmed her a bit. We video Skyped with our families so they could see her enjoying her new presents.

Lawrence and I also got some wonderful gifts, including some way over-the-top gifts we gave to each other. We didn't really discuss how much we were going to spend on Christmas, and boy should we have! I got a brand new nearly-top-of-the-line road bike and he got a big screen internet-ready LCD TV. Oh, and there were several other less expensive items we gave each other as well. Our parents also went overboard, mostly on Samantha, but also on us. I guess we're all doing our part to help the economy!

We laid low for the next few days - Lawrence also took the week between Christmas and New Years off work. Then on New Years Eve we packed the car and drove to Tahoe for a weekend with our friends and their 14 month old and dog in Tahoe City. We stopped at Squaw Ski Resort and I got to snowboard while Lawrence picked up ladies with Samantha strapped to his chest and Calvin walking beside him (kidding, but he did talk to lots of people). We had a great time at the cabin with our friends. The dogs thoroughly enjoyed the snow and playing together, and we had a good time hanging out with the kids and playing cards. We forgot that we were parents of young children, though, and stayed up way later than we should have. Samantha did her normal routine of waking up at 4 or 5am, and of course woke up everyone else as well. We all left feeling very tired on Sunday and having to return to work on Jan. 3rd!

On the 6th I flew to Las Vegas for 3 days/nights at the Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest trade show of its kind in the world. There were nearly 150,000 people at the event! It was my first time away from Samantha overnight and I missed her (and Lawrence) terribly. I walked the miles of trade show floor each day and then stayed up way too late out with coworkers. Meanwhile Lawrence stayed home with Samantha and had a good time being a Dad. Apparently everything went very smoothly; he even found a last minute babysitter (our neighbors) for a friend's birthday dinner on Thursday night.