Sammy McGrunt

As we move into the fifth week, things are changing yet again. Luckily the chronic crankiness appears to be replaced with a nice mixture of tears and smiles. For some reason whenever Sam looks at our ceiling fan nowadays she breaks into huge smiles. I wonder what she sees when she looks at it - four big smiles? Check this out:

And this: Nope - it's not her mom that she is laughing at, it's that ceiling fan! What's up there that is so funny?!

Well, I'm glad to share that the night shifts have been extemely helpful. I actually got a (relatively) solid six and a half hours of sleep last night. The most uninterrupted sleep I've had since before I was pregnant (is that peeing-while-pregnant-thing an attempt to get the body used to no sleep? Sheesh!). With better sleep comes better coping skills. :-)

This last weekend my cousin Debbie came up from California to visit. I hadn't seen her in 14 years! Unbelievable. She brought her 1-year old Jayden. What a cutie! And a handful! Actually, she probably is less of a handful than many 1 year-olds since she has such a sweet personality - but David and I got to see just how physically taxing it is keeping a 1 year-old within sight. Those little tykes can move! One night we had dinner with Tony and Stacey, and the next morning we went to the zoo. Here is my dad and Jayden:

And one of the cousins:

Okay, I have a question for all the moms out there: Is it just our kid? When Samantha falls asleep at night (not during the daytime naps, only at night) she starts flailing her arms and legs and grunts. Nonstop. We've swaddled her, but she squirms her way out of it. I've picked her up, but she raises her eyebrows to the top of her forehead trying to open her eyes and when she gets them open she looks at me with a baleful look "why'd you wake me up, Mom?". I tell ya, she is it out. Asleep. Sawing logs. But grunting. Like a snorting snuffling creature.

We've taken to wearing earplugs at night.

Whoever coined the phrase "sleeping like a baby" had an ironic sense of humor.