Entries in the "Samantha" Category

January 25, 2007
In which I share my annual e-mail to Samantha, wishing her a happy 3rd birthday and describing the big picture of her last year of life.

December 18, 2006
The last Sam's Story entry in which Samantha gets a little fever, then cautiously introduces herself to her new little sister and tries to get a grip on how this will all work out.

December 11, 2006
Samantha learns to fear "that red man" who we keep trying to tell her is Santa Claus, plus lots of pictures of her wearing Christmas hats and a story about her scaring the bajeezus out of a dozing Geralyn.

December 4, 2006
Sam enjoys her first real winter snowstorm, attends a largely worthless "Super Siblings" class to prepare her for sisterhood, and learns to get her own self out of bed.

November 27, 2006
Sam enjoys Thanksgiving at The Farm out in the wild lands, plus she develops new cognitive skills that are both hit and miss.

November 20, 2006
Sam goes out for her very first movie since infancy, plus she decides to put us all in our place. I also share a movie of her singing her ABCs.

November 13, 2006
Sam returns from the land of the grandparents with a new bad habit, then returns from the park with a new appreciation for freezing temperatures. Also, the manipulator becomes the manipulated.

November 6, 2006
We all take an ill-fated trip on the tiny train tracks, but Sam doesn't seem to mind. Also, Samantha takes to Halloween trick or treating like a duck taking to dark waters where an unknown horror lurks beneath.

October 30, 2006
Samantha makes her first big Halloween appearance, part of which involves flinging her fairy-winged self at other kids with much wrecklessness. Also, she and I have a showdown involving a toothpaste and a pair of pink jammy bottoms.

October 23, 2006
We have an unfortunate failure to communicate over a request for (Winnie the) Pooh, plus Sam goes furniture shopping and I discuss how hypnosis fails to inject pain killing medicine into one's spinal cord.

October 16, 2006
Samantha dines on kitchen sponge and earns a runny nose. Plus, we visit the pumpkin patch for some tense moments and Sam learns to play (with) chopsticks.

October 9, 2006
In which we venture into the depths of a used baby product swap meet in order to replace that which was befouled beyond redemption. Also, Samantha picks up Geralyn's tastes in light reading, but with a slightly different interpretation.

October 1, 2006
In which Sam visits the zoo, then greets some of her favorite PBS characters from afar. I also discuss how Geralyn and I make different assumptions about an unhappy Sammy and how best to remedy things.

September 25, 2006
We hire a new baby sitter, who works out much better than the old one. Sam displays questionable fashion sense, but knows how to get what she wants out of me.

September 18, 2006
Samantha stays hip with the help of Aunt Shawn and visits the super dooper train store where she learns the value of shoving people who get in her way.

September 11, 2006
Samantha goes off to pre-pre-school for the first time and seems to take it better than I and my overactive imagination do.

September 4, 2006
Sam learns the power of No, then the greater power of the time out. She also devises a method for impromptu chrch hymms. It's also another swimsuit edition as we go to both the pool and the lake for Labor Day weekend.

August 28, 2006
Sam wants to know what you're doing, and she'll stop at nothing to find out and then ask again. Also, bubbles!

August 21, 2006
Sam has three increasingly odd conversations with me, plus she signs on to become my one-person Guitar Hero fan club, complete with cheering and sing alongs.

August 14, 2006
Samantha learns the perils of being a penguin, but on the plus side she can tell you about the point in time where she learned about the frailty of life. Also, I realize that it looks like this kid eats a ton of junk food.

August 6, 2006
Sam has more power plays that don't quite work out the way she wants, plus she remains steadfastly optimistic regarding the chances that every cardboard box in the world contains toys.

July 31, 2006
Sam learns to play nice by herself, using just her imagination and common household objects. Plus we go back to the pool and reveal the big twist: is Sam going to have a baby brother or sister? You decide!

July 24, 2006
Samantha greatly accellerates the complexity of this entire parenting curve. Plus she makes polite dinner conversation of a sort before turning her attention elsewhere.

July 17, 2006
Samantha explores her world by seeing how far she can push the boundaries before we snap. Also, I present my accumulated evidence regarding the Phantom Coloring Ghost in hopes that Scooby Doo-esque hijinks would ensue. They do not.

July 9, 2006
In which a big announcement is made regarding Sam's upcoming status as a big sister. Also, Sam demonstrates her Jedi mind tricks.

July 4, 2006
Sam learns to appreciate her new house, despite the size and initial confusion over there being more stories than she's used to. She also makes a trip to "The Farm" where she learns to throw rocks and sling wet sand at everyone in sight.

June 26, 2006
I link Thomas the Tank Engine and the potty in Samantha's mind in an effort to further her training. Sam also visits the botanical gardens to play in the water and I discuss another big change coming up in her life and ours.

June 19, 2006
Sam discovers the joys of vibrating massage chairs and we're hard pressed to bring her back to reality. She also helps wash my car in celebration of Father's Day, which was really sweet of her even though she couldn't reach much higher than the tires.

June 12, 2006
Sam hits the pool twice in one week and I discover how to employ her developing social skills for fun and profit (except there was no profit). Sam also learns how to pronounce the name of the ancient priest-king who blessed Abraham after the seige of Sodom and Gomorrah.

June 4, 2006
Sam enjoys her first baseball game, despite the heat and not being all that interested in baseball. Also, I notice more spastic tendencies and count down my 10 new favorite things about Sam.

May 28, 2006
Sam reveals her formula for the perfect gathering and displays a healthy respect for swiming pools despite wearing enough flotation equipment to save the Titanic. I also discuss the unholy terror of Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, which is Sam's latest toy-based fascination.

May 21, 2006
I present the Samantha Alert System, a handy chart for telling when you should be on the alert for a potential hissy fit event. Just follow the cues and you should be fine. Also, Samantha reminds us that words are like boomerangs with a toddler around --what comes out often gets thrown back at you.

May 14, 2006
Sam learns the intricacies of object classification when she notes that I am not an animal. Also, she plays a game of "let's not snort the bubble bath," which she loses.

May 7, 2006
Sam entertains with a stream of childish consciousness, making up stories about her toys and surroundings. They often end with her foot crashing down on all the little people involved. Also, she comes near to ruining a Mother's Day surprise.

April 30, 2006
Wow, what a week. The majority of it, though, was spent sans Samantha as Geralyn and I trekked halfway across the continent with our last carload of possessions while Sam stayed safely stuffed away at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Spending six days without Sam was kind of weird after all...

April 24, 2006
So, anyway ...have I mentioned that we're moving? Leaving sunny Southern California? Trekking over halfway across the country to take a great new job, be closer to family, and stay one step ahead of all the stalkers* out there on the Internet? No? Well, I've been meaning to mention it...

April 16, 2006
Happy Easter! This morning we learned an important lesson about this most blessed of all holidays: Don't let your toddler eat her weight in chocolate as soon as she wakes up. Actually, we didn't mean to, but she was just so fast. We set Sam down in front of her...

April 10, 2006
I've mentioned before about Sam's possessiveness, and it's a trait that seems intent on persisting. The other night Geralyn was baking a cake for her "Mom's Night Out" club, a delicious cake that Sam and I had been forbidden from even thinking about touching. This didn't prevent Sam from sitting...

April 3, 2006
Here it is at week 114 and Sam's individuality and desire for freedom is definitely starting to shine through. We went to Legoland this last weekend and made the mistake of giving her too much sugar. After consuming her own weight in brownies, ice cream, cookies, and spicy shrimp linguini,...

March 27, 2006
Kind of a slow week, actually. Sam continues to chat us up, and things are getting to the point where you can actually have rudimentary little conversations with her. Sometimes she'll actually get the ball rolling by making spontaneous observations like "I like cheese" even though cheese was nowhere on...

March 20, 2006
It's been a few weeks since I've raved about Sam's developing language skills, so I think I'm due. They have, as you may have guessed, continued to rocket upwards, with complete sentences now being the norm. She's also making deft use of pronouns, which I thought was kind of unusual...

March 14, 2006
As I've mentioned, Sam has become quite possessive of her things lately, and we're working on getting her to share with others. And I'm sorry to say that this week she took the lessons to heart --or rather, to stomach-- and decided to share some kind of horrible flu bug...

March 7, 2006
I've written before about how I thought Sam was getting into the "Terrible Twos" a little ahead of schedule, but it now appears that my pronouncement may have been a little premature. I apparently had no idea what "terrible" really meant. Sam is still sweet as aspertane and I love...

February 28, 2006
Not much to say this week given that Sam's "Papa," my father, is gravely ill and in the hospital. Sam has handled things much better than the rest of us --I'm constantly surprised by her easy going nature and adaptability. Here's some pictures: One of the things I love about...

February 20, 2006
Valentine's day was earlier in the week and Sam seemed to enjoy it. There was a heart-shaped cake, gifts from both sets of Grandparents and one Aunt, a Valentine's Day card exchange at the Mommy & Me class (Elmo, Dora, and strangely enough that stoner Spongebob Squarepants seem to be...

February 13, 2006
I know I've gone on and on about this in recent weeks, but every week I'm amazed all over again at how quickly Sam's language skills are growing. And I doubt it's just her --from what I've read, most kids go through a linguistic blitzkrieg at this age. Sam continues...

February 6, 2006
One of my favorite things about parenthood is watching my kid evolve and turn into a bona fide little person capable of reason, emotion, curiosity, empathy, humor, and desire. And now I get to add one more word to that laundry list of traits: guile. Sam has become quite the...

January 30, 2006
This hasn't been a very good week for Sammy. When I left for work this morning she standing in the middle of the living room, wailing like a baby banshee and wiping at the hot tears that were streaking down her cheeks. She was inconsolable, no matter what we tried,...

January 25, 2006
Dear Samantha, Today you're two years old. Nice job! Like I did last year, I thought I'd write you a letter and tell you how things went this second year. Again, I don't think you can read this yet unless you're some kind of super genius and are just...

January 24, 2006
The big event this week was Sam's 2nd birthday part, which you can see pictures of right here and read a little about over here. It was quite fun (Ger worked hard to make sure it would be) and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. And Sam scored some phat loot....

January 23, 2006
I put some pictures from Sam's second birthday party yesterday on the Photos Page. And because I like you, I'll save your tired mouse clicking finger some work and post them here, too: We had a great turnout, with just about everyone we invited being able to make it and...

January 17, 2006
Sam is almost two years old, so Ger and I have been busy preparing for her second birthday party. We're keeping things relatively simple --no scary clowns or inflatable buildings to jump around in. Given her peculiar culinary predilections, we're not letting Sam pick out the menu for the event....

January 9, 2006
Christmas has come and gone, but I'm still playing with my new toy --a new camera. One of the things I love is the "burst mode,", which lets you take like 4 pictures a second. We were at the park and Ger put Sam on this thing that spins around...

January 2, 2006
Sam has become tiring. And I'm not talking about losing sleep --if you spot me the first 8 weeks, I can count on one hand the times she's failed to sleep through the night. Sleeping is one of her core competencies. Instead, her brand of exhaustion inducement has lately stemmed...

December 25, 2005
Welcome to the Centennial Samantha Celebration. ...Or what would be if "centennial" meant "100 weeks" and not "100 years." It's hard to believe that I've been doing these weekly updates for 100 weeks --more if you include the pregnancy updates. To celebrate, I've put together a little retrospective on the...

December 19, 2005
Before Sam, I used to never get sick. Often, I'd climb atop things and announce this by saying "I never get sick!" Lately, though, I often can't make it past "I never ge--" before breaking off into a wet, hacking cough that leaves me doubled over, helpless, and exposed to...

December 12, 2005
Christmas is almost here, with lights up tree erected, and wonderfully wrapped boxes just asking to be ripped open. Or at least according to Sam. Ger and I were out at the mall the other day when we wandered into one of those stores that looks like Holly Hobby exploded...

December 5, 2005
I love my wife dearly, but one of her personality traits is that she can be particular and often has to have things just right. One might even go so far as to call her "persnickety" though don't tell her I said so. For example, she cannot stand it if...

November 28, 2005
The big event this week was, of course, Sam's second Thanksgiving. Ger's parents were here to help celebrate and make a huge meal with all the standard accessories. This year Sam ate the same things as we, though she was the only one who had a plate sporting a picture...

November 21, 2005
Short update this week. Sam's grandparents (Ger's parents) are in town for Thanksgiving this year and she is enjoying the visit immensely, since it gives her some new people to read to her and to blow bubbles for her. The bubbles, in fact, are Sam's new Favorite Thing In The...

November 14, 2005
Slower week this week without any incredible outings to theme parks or new toilets. So let's start off with the pictures: As you may notice, Sam has begun mastery of the fork, which is cause for some stress. Because, you see, once she learns to stab things, you've got to...

November 7, 2005
It's been quite a busy week for Sam this time around. Let's get started... Early in the week we decided to take that leap and introduce Sam to Professor von Potty, "Potty" for short. Sam was quite excited about her new plaything and took right to it. While we certainly...

October 31, 2005
The more things change, the more they stay the same....

October 30, 2005
I don't think that I need to tell you that when you become a parent it changes who you are and what you talk about with other adults, but perhaps an illustration would drive the point home even further. The other night Ger and I were sitting at the dinner...

October 25, 2005
For a while there, I was wondering if Sam would be behind the curve a bit in terms of language. She actually understands a lot when you say something to her, and has been successfully following one- and two-step instructions like "get the ball and put it on the table"...

October 17, 2005
I like to think that I rank somewhere above average on an imaginary parenting curve, and that Samantha will be better off for it. But apparently I needn't bother, at least according to the authors of Freakonomics, the book I mentioned finishing earlier this week. The economist authors spend one...

October 10, 2005
Slow week this week, so let's start off with the pictures right off the bat: As you can see, Ger and Sam went pumpkin hunting with their play group this week, and they returned triumphant with a big orange gourd. Sam has become quite attached to the thing, actually, and...

October 3, 2005
Sam hit a couple of unfortunate milestones this week, sometimes literally. The first is "Baby's First Hacked Up Wad of Phlegm," which she produced on account of having a little chest cold this week. It was almost comical on account of the way she had no idea what to do...

September 26, 2005
I mentioned in last week's update how I prefer Sesame Street over Blue's Clues because of the kind of subtle jokes they slip in for the sake of adults. I was reminded of this fact during one episode of Elmo's World show this week. Every week the little red guy...

September 19, 2005
It's been a long couple of weeks lately, and I'm way off on my schedule. Sam, Ger, and I went back to Tulsa to visit my family while my mother recovered from knee replacement surgery. This was great, as my folks hadn't seen Sam since last Thanksgiving and as religiously...

September 12, 2005
Sorry, I don't really have anything to write about this week. Sam has been up in St. Louis visiting Ger's parents since last week, so all I've got are these pictures of her playing with "walk chalk" in the back yard. She totally loved the stuff, even though she can't...

September 5, 2005
Not a whole lot to report this week, other than Sam has reached one of those monumental milestones usually associated with toddlers: she has learned the "go limp" tactic of nonviolent resistance when we want her to walk one way and she wants to go the other. I was pulling...

August 29, 2005
Contrary to popular wisdom, Ger and I do sometimes get out of the house and go to parties. It's just that these days we tend to take Sam with us. Such was the case last weekend when a friend of Geralyn's had a massive house warming party. There were a...

August 22, 2005
Sam has learned the joys of bellowing. Not screaming, shrieking, or shouting, but bellowing. Early one morning Ger and I were dozing in bed when we were suddenly awakened by a very distinct and surprisingly booming "MAMMA!" from Sam's crib. And it wasn't a one-shot kind of thing, as she...

August 15, 2005
While coming back from the zoo on Saturday, we passed a little girl sporting a tee shirt that read, "I'M THE BOSS!" Parenthood has given me many wonderful gifts, one of which is the urge to throttle any parent who buys their children shirts like that. You don't need to...

August 11, 2005
What a difference a 54 weeks makes. Man, I wonder what she'll look like this time next year?...

August 8, 2005
Gah. We're sick again. I used to sometimes go years between getting sick, but Sam seems intent on breaking any wellness streaks I may get going by giving me whatever malady she's having. I'm pretty sure that she picks stuff up from the child care area at the YMCA where...

July 31, 2005
Back a few years ago, before Sam was born, a friend of Geralyn's came to visit us. She brought along her husband and one of their children, a boy somewhere around 1 year old. I remember very clearly when we went out to dinner how amazed Ger and I both...

July 25, 2005
I'm sitting here about to lose my mind, mainly because I can't get the freaking Elmo's World theme song out of my head. Sam has been watching a lot of Sesame Street lately, which means I have been watching a lot of Sesame Street lately. The show's cross-generational longevity is...

July 18, 2005
Apparently, discipline is a laugh-out-loud riot, at least according to Sam. We've been doing the whole "time out" thing for the last couple of weeks, fully aware of the fact that Sam is too young to completely understand, but wanting to get into the habit and curb certain behaviors through...

July 11, 2005
Sam isn't even 1 and a half years old yet and I thought I was supposed to get a little more time than that before she settled on "No" as her favorite word. Foul! She hasn't adopted any of the hallmark tantrums of the "terrible twos," but that single, two-letter...

July 6, 2005
You can still ask for your money back if you want, but what this week's update lacks in timeliness it will make up for in long-windedness and aww-inducing pictures. We're late, of course, because we just got back from a week-long trip to St. Louis to visit friends and family....

June 26, 2005
Guys, this is how it starts: GERALYN: Sammy's getting so big... ME: Yeah. Well, she can't stay a baby forever. GERALYN: We need another baby. ME: What? Woah, woah, woah! Let's not get ahead of ourselves. GERALYN: Well, don't you think so? ME: Look, if you just wait another 14...

June 20, 2005
I've been some research, and I've come up with some disturbing suspicions about Sam. I think she's a zombie. The other day I was sitting on the floor playing with her when she suddenly turned to me, spread her arms, and stumbled towards me and into my arms. I was...

June 12, 2005
As I've been saying for a few weeks, Sam's verbal skills are steadily improving. But while she's constantly surprising me how well she understands (e.g., yesterday she understood and followed the two-step command of "Go get the ball and take it to mommy in the kitchen"), her actual spoken vocabulary...

June 5, 2005
The really, really cool thing about watching a kid grow up is seeing her do things or figuring things out for the first time. There's the huge, hulking milestones like first steps or first homemade shiv, but for my money (and I did pay for her, so she's mine) the...

May 30, 2005
Sam is feeling much better this week, having put whatever illness she had behind her. She's down to only an occasional wet, hacking cough instead of a constant stream. Her appetite has returned along with her health, so much so that we had to strip her down after one overenthusiastic...

May 23, 2005
Bad news, Sam Fans. Sammy is sick again. It's not that bad this time, but she's got some kind of chest and throat thing that has her hacking up gobs of stuff like a two-pack-a-day smoker. And I know she doesn't smoke anywhere near that much. She seems okay most...

May 16, 2005
Sorry, short update this week. I have a couple of projects going on that have leeched away most of my free time. Just as well, since this has been a largely uneventful week. The only thing out of the ordinary is that Sam is being a bit of a pill....

May 9, 2005
Bath time is one of Sam's favorite times. Or at least it was before I brought the Silver Snake of Horror into the house. Let me explain. We had been using a bucket to rinse the soap from Sam's hair, but she hated getting all that water dumped on her...

May 2, 2005
When Ger and I decided to become parents, there were 4 things I vowed never to do letst I slip into a cliche like a head trauma victim slipping into a coma: Own a minivan. Show off wallet-sized pictures of Sam to strangers. Do that little apirplane trick with the...

April 25, 2005
A momentous, sad milestone has passed. The kitchen is closed. No more milk on tap. Sam has been weaned from nursing. No more boobie. Unlike our breast feeding class instructor who was still nursing her oldest child at over forty months, it was always a question of "when" and not...

April 18, 2005
Calamity! Sam has become what we've dreaded most: a finicky eater. I can't really blame her, since cream of wheat and steamed vegetables would probably wear thin on me as well. But while I would have the cunning to pretend to pack a healthy lunch and then go out to...

April 11, 2005
Sam's new favorite thing? It involves her finger and her nose. Rather than taking a thousand words to spell it out, here's a picture: Hopefully this won't be a habit that persists into her middle age. In other news, Sam is a little soccer hooligan. While at playgroup last week,...

April 3, 2005
In my grade school science class the teacher taught us how rivers were formed by taking a wide, shallow box and filling it with sand. She then poured little rivulets of water through it so they carved paths on their way to a drain at the far end. I'm reminded...

March 28, 2005
Sam is totally walking now. If she goes from place to place, she generally does it by walking instead of crawling. Or tries to, at least. There are still frequent contacts between her rump and the ground. My new nickname for her is "Tipsy" because when she walk she does...

March 21, 2005
Grandma and Grandpa Sommer are visiting! At first Sam didn't seem to remember them and was a bit leery of these strange (and honestly a bit loud) people, but they brought her gifts and paid her lots of attention so she quickly decided that they were all right. Ger and...

March 14, 2005
I think we can officially say that Sam is walking. She's actually been taking unassisted steps for a couple of weeks, but my high journalistic standards wouldn't let me report it here until she was really walking from Point A to Point B. Point B being wherever she finally takes...

March 7, 2005
I talked last week about how some "people" would ignore Sam when she waved to them. It occured to me this week that problems lie on the other end of this specturm as well. While some people blithely ignore babies, others seem drawn to them and will do things that...

February 28, 2005
Okay, now what kind of person doesn't wave back to a baby? A cute little kids waves at you in public and you just ignore her? I mean COME ON! Yes, Sam's newest thing is waving. She waves at me and Ger pretty much whenever we step more than 5...

February 21, 2005
It's been a busy weekend. As I mentioned, Sam has been sick last week with some kind of stomach bug. It started with projectile vomiting, but quickly moved on to explosive bowel movements. At one point she somehow managed to get the stuff up between her shoulder blades and the...

February 16, 2005
For those of you playing from home, Sam has been sick with some kind of stomach bug. I went in to check on her yesterday morning to find a big puddle of half-digested peas next to her in the crib. Which, you know, kind of explained the retching sound I...

February 14, 2005
Swear Jar funds this week: $2.50. It would have been less, but the vending machine at work stole my money. Sam's big thing this week has been using her walker, so now she has something in common with old people. I showed her how to push it and walk behind...

February 10, 2005
Ger and I were arguing one day about what kind of cheese Sam likes better, Cheddar or Swiss. Yes, we argue about these kinds of things. Before we had a kid we debated politics, philosophy, and the ontological mysteries of the cosmos, but now it's pretty much "How much did...

February 6, 2005
Swear jar funds: $0. Ger and I have started a new program to help clean up our language around Samantha. It's not like we curse like longshoremen or Dick Cheney on the Senate floor, but we have occasionally use language that we don't want Sam repeating. To end this, we've...

February 2, 2005
The Internet is both wonderful in its brilliance and frightening in its stupidity. Witness the man who sold his forehead as advertising space to the tune of over $37,000. This was immediately followed by an auction for forehead popup blockers, proving that the Internet givith and the Internet taketh away....

January 30, 2005
Ger and I have started watching this reality TV show called "Supernanny." Each week the titular nanny shows up, crisp British accent in hand, to give succor to troubled parents. The first quarter of the program is devoted to what horrible little monsters the children are and how the parents...

January 25, 2005
Dear Samantha, Today you're one year old. Congratulations! I thought I'd take this chance to look back on your road leading up to this milestone. I don't think you can read this yet, but maybe someday you will and there are a number of people out there on the...

January 24, 2005
I was in a college fraternity, so I've seen some pretty chaotic parties. I saw a guy get thrown through a sliding glass door while another guy repeatedly leapt, naked, over a roaring bonfire until the smell of singed, Italian hair filled the air. Someone else went temporarily blind from...

January 16, 2005
As I mentioned in the pic of the day yesterday, Geralyn had two of her wisdom teeth taken out on Friday, leaving me to play the better parts of both parental roles while she recovered. Luckily, the most stressful thing I had to do was take Sam with me to...

January 10, 2005
Man, we're getting close to one year old. I don't think I've ever even kept a plant alive for this long. Sam hasn't made any vast developmental strides this week, but she has been a chatterbox. She constantly engages in what childologists call "jargon," which is this babbling kind of...

January 8, 2005
It's 7:04 and you notice that your baby has a dirty diaper. Not just wet, but dirty. Thing is, at 7:15 it's going to be time to take her upstairs and give her a bath anyway. What do you do? What do you do?...

January 6, 2005
TiVo occasionally records some really weird stuff for us. The other day Ger was looking through its "TiVo Suggestions" and noticed something called "Go Baby!". It's this little 5-minute mini-show about a little baby and the disembodied hand that raises him. Baby does things that babies do, like going to...

January 3, 2005
Three hundred thirty-nine days. That's how long we were able to keep Samantha from eating cat food. I actually don't think that's that bad a record. I would have liked to have gone longer, but one day this week we left the kitchen gate open. A few seconds later Sam...

December 28, 2004
Geez, where to start? The holiday, I guess. At 11 months old, we really weren't sure if Sam would be old enough to enjoy her first Christmas. Boy were we wrong. We three opened our gifts to each other and from my family on Tuesday night before leaving for St....

December 20, 2004
Ug, sick again. I'm not sure if this is the same thing Sam has had for the last week or so, or if she just smoothly transitioned from one malady to another, lubricated as she was with phlegm. And I'm sick too, so I have to say that the guy...

December 13, 2004
Sammy's still a bit sick. I'm not sure if this is the same malady as last week or if she just smoothly transitioned from one to another, but either way it's not as severe. She actually doesn't appear to feel ill most of the time, but her head is full...

December 12, 2004
Sam's weekly update will be delayed until tomorrow. I'd do it now, but I have to finish a review for GameSpy. If you like, though, you can see the new pictures here to tide you over. ...

December 8, 2004
Whee! I had a bit of fun today over my lunch break with a picture of Sam in her frog outfit from Halloween. Click on it for a larger version. A version of this is now my new computer desktop wallpaper. If you're a Sam fan I can send you...

December 5, 2004
Sammie's sick. She's almost over it now, but I think she picked up something on the flight back from Houston, as she was running a fever, had a stuffy nose, and her throat was sore. If you use those symptoms to describe just about anyone else, like Aunt Ethel or...

November 30, 2004
Blogging Baby, one of the websites I read regularly, had a contest to give away some really nice diaper bags from Skip Hop. All you had to do was tell a story about a particularly horrendous diaper change. With such a fertile (ha ha) subject, I had to give it...

November 29, 2004
BIG week this week. The kind that make for great mini-series on the Lifetime network if they'd ever return my calls. As I mentioned last week, we took Sam on a three city World Tour this week, covering San Diego, Houston, and Tulsa. The first leg was the easiest, even...

November 22, 2004
This week I finally managed to catch Sam in the act of standing up. She actually stood there for like 30 seconds, just kind of looking at me like "Hey, check me out, I'm a biped!" while I snapped pictures like a gibbering idiot. I shouted for Geralyn to come...

November 15, 2004
Not a particularly busy week this time. Sam's only got one new trick for the week, but it's a big one: she's starting to pull up. For non-parents this may evoke images of Sam blasting her lats on the chinup bar while a drill sergeant yells at her, but everyone...

November 11, 2004
I love doing Samantha's weekly updates. In fact, I often consider ditching the rest of this site and just making it a blog about Sam, but I always come back to the fact that it's nice to have a clearing house for anything else I might want to post. Other...

November 8, 2004
Somewhere, right now, Sam is pointing at something. This is her new thing for the week, and she enjoys it immensely. When you bring her into a room she'll start systematically pointing at everything, including the cat, the ceiling fan, the light, the floor, the sofa, the television, the magazine...

November 2, 2004
Anyone else think that Sam looks kind of like an anime character in this picture? Personally, I think the resemblance is almost eerie. ...

October 31, 2004
It's a Halloween blowout special this week. If there's one thing Sam is to us, its a little doll we can dress up for our own amusement. So we've been looking forward to Halloween, plus two people from Ger's playgroup were kind enough to lend us costumes this year. So...

October 25, 2004
Thirty nine weeks. This is a confetti-worthy week because it means that Sam has now spent more of her life outside of the uterus than inside of it. Despite initial reservations, she seems to prefer it now and I think she'll stay. Sam has also seems to prefer getting into...

October 18, 2004
New this week: "finger foods"! Followed shortly by "tarp time!" We started giving Sam little bits of non-mushy food, like Cheereos and a few grains of steamed rice. Mostly she has succeeded in smashing said food up and throwing it on the floor, which is where the tarp is going...

October 14, 2004
NOTE: Most of last week Geralyn and Sam were in St. Louis, leaving me without much to talk about for Sam's most recent update here. So Geralyn wrote something up and asked me to post it. Here it is: This week, Sammy & I flew to St. Louis for Jenny...

October 10, 2004
I got nothin' this week. Sam and Geralyn have been in St. Louis for almost the whole week, visiting family and attending a wedding. I'd have gone, but I lack the vacation time. But in a way, spending a week by myself is like a vacation. I'll ask Geralyn to...

October 3, 2004
This week's story is subtitled "Sam's Craptastic Trip to the Emergency Room." Sometime Friday afternoon Sam started to run a fever. It was mild and Ger's call to the pediatrician only yielded advice to keep an eye on it and give her Tylenol. So we did, but by early Saturday...

September 27, 2004
The mobility has begun. Panic is sinking in. While at work on Friday I got a phone call from Geralyn that went like this: "Hello?" "GUESS WHAT?" "Ah! What?" "SHE'S CRAWLING!" "Who?" "Samantha, dork!" "Pull the other one." "No, I'm serious! She got her little knees up under her and...

September 20, 2004
Another busy week. We took our most ambitious road trip to date this last weekend, but I'll get to that in a minute. First, I must tell you of The Yelling. Sam's newest thing is The Yelling. She'll just sit there and yell at the top of her little lungs,...

September 12, 2004
An important concept has forced its way into our life: The Cone of Baby. Sam has grown to the point where she not only can grab things, but she WILL grab things --anything-- within her reach. And some things that you'd swear were NOT within her reach. For example, last...

September 6, 2004
Not a whole lot going on this week. Sam continues to sit up and fall down, which she seems to think is wonderful. She also continues to bash things together, which will serve her well later in life. She also seems to be craving sleep more and more, and goes...

August 30, 2004
As you can see from the pictures below, Grandma Sommer (Ger's mom) is visiting this week, taking part in much of the happy fun childcare time. Sam was a bit dubious at first, apparently not having remembered Grandma, but she has warmed up considerably. In fact, Sam has bee about...

August 23, 2004
Sometimes I worry about these updates. When people put photo albums together in the past, they were pretty much relegated to dusty bookshelves and lightless cabinets. They were broken out less and less often until one day when you're trying to make room for some new junk you bought you...

August 15, 2004
This week was much less eventful. Sam hasn't done anything particularly wonderful, though she is starting to sit up with little assistance. She will, however, lunge for things (the remote control, a toy, the cat) and do spectacular face plants. She's also eating well, including plenty of mushy fruits and...

August 8, 2004
Well, it was a big week this time around, so let's approach this update by splitting this update into chapters. I'll even give each chapter a cute title. Chapter 1: I, Samantha Madigan, Heartily Endorse this Product or Event Let's face it: this kid is cute. My mother often uses...

August 1, 2004
Slow week. Sam has continued her way into the cornucopia of solid food, tackling sweet potatoes this week. Unfortunately I don't think they agree with her, as last night she spontaneously covered Geralyn in orange projectile vomit. And I mean covered. Ger came running into the office holding Sam out...

July 29, 2004
Finally, an excuse to not teach your child to speak. To quote: The WhyCry monitor is a baby cry analyser. The monitor listens to the baby's crying for 20 seconds then digitally analyses it before indicating why. The device then illuminates one of five crying "expressions" telling you whether the...

July 25, 2004
Sam turned six months old this very day. I'm not sure why that seems like such a huge milestone, but it does. We have managed to keep another human being alive for six months --half a year-- on little more than panic, hope, and stuff that came out of Geralyn....

July 18, 2004
The news this week, of course, is that we've started Sam on solid foods. And by "started Sam" I mean "dumped down the front of Sam's face" and by "solid" I mean "soupy mash". But let's back up for a second. Last weekend we trekked to Babies R Us and...

July 11, 2004
Kind of a slow week here on the Samantha front. But even small changes are adding up, as I'm still amazed some mornings when I come in to get Sam out of her crib and I swear she's grown another three inches. It's spooky sometimes, because it's like this little...

July 4, 2004
Sam's newest thing this week has been squealing. It's a high-pitched, strangled, ear-splitting squal that sounds like someone is stomping on a cat, yet it's still somehow cute. We love it and appreciate it as the precursor to future, more horrifyingly adorable screams. It's also been getting harder and harder...

June 27, 2004
I've noticed something. I've talked before about how Ger and I have joined the Tribe of the Baby People. It involves obsessing over your baby, the things that come out of your baby, and the things that will come out of your baby. I've also discovered that it involves its...

June 21, 2004
It's been a slower week this time. Sam is making lots of little improvements on grabbing things (including her feet, and shoving them in her mouth or ear, depending on how good her aim is at the time), watching things, and being cute. Unfortunately she's still fighting us bitterly about...

June 18, 2004
I noticed this story on Blogging Baby that reports on the most popular names for American boys and girls born in 2003, according to the Social Security Administration. They are: Boy Names Girl Names 1.  Jacob 1.  Emily 2.  Michael 2.  Emma 3.  Joshua 3.  Madison 4.  Matthew 4.  Hannah...

June 13, 2004
Where to start? With the screaming, I suppose. Specifically, THE SCREAMING. When we got back from vacation earlier this week, Ger and I decided that it was past time for Sam to learn to nap in her crib during the day. She's stupendously talented at sleeping through the night, but...

June 6, 2004
The last stop on Midwest-Con 2004 was Samantha's christening in St. Louis. In a nice piece of life's little symmetries (sounds like a line of Hallmark cards, eh?), the ceremony was conducted by Father Dave Flemming, the priest who not only married me and Geralyn back in '97, but also...

June 6, 2004
As I mentioned in the last update, it's been a REALLY busy week, and a tough one for Sam. We've been continuing our whirlwind tour of the midwest, stationed out of Ger's parents' house in St. Louis. This weekend we had to leave Sam overnight with someone else (Ger's parents)...

May 30, 2004
Gah. It's been a busy week, especially the last few days. Sam started rolling over on her own this week, but only from her tummy to her back. So for those of you playing Baby Bingo from home, there's another one for you. The big excitement, though, has come in...

May 23, 2004
he theme of this week's update is sleep. As in, Sam's not getting enough. Oh, she's still sleeping through the night once we get her down, but she seems to have difficulty grasping the concept of naps during the day. She may snooze for a few minutes here and there,...

May 16, 2004
People who play games online often adopt a nickname, much like professional wrestlers would if they were pasty nerds in need of more exercise. I myself chose "Thrrrpptt!" and one of the acceptable pronunciations is the raspberry sound. The kind of raspberry when you stick out your tongue, not the...

May 9, 2004
I really don't have much to report this week. Sam has continued to get better at grabbing things and dragging them to her mouth, which has turned many of her stuffed animals into moist breeding grounds for all kinds of bacteria. Oh, and funny story: We were at church this...

May 9, 2004
Hey everyone, please click on the "comments" link above to join me in wishing Geralyn a Happy First Mother's Day today (or whenever you end up reading this). Here's an action shot: I'm amazed at how well Ger has taken to motherhood, and I had high expectations to begin with....

May 2, 2004
There's not a whole lot to report on this week, sorry. It's really been a week of Sam's getting better at things that she has been doing rather than pulling new stunts. She's grabbing stuff more often now and has developed quite a grip, which she uses to cram things...

April 25, 2004
Sam is three months old this very day. Ta-da! It's been a week of milestones here, too. If I had been thinking ahead, I would have sent out "Baby Bingo" game boards with the birth announcement, along with the URL for this site. The grid cells would have included milestones...

April 18, 2004
I've taught Sammy a new game. Actually, it's more like her first game ever. For the last couple of weeks she's been really alert, more so I think than most other babies her age (she is, after all, a friggin' genius). She looks at things around her, follows them with...

April 13, 2004
I'm posting this update retroactively, as things have not been conducive to blogging. It's also pretty far from my mind. But I have a bit of downtime at the moment so I'm posting this update for those Sam fans out there. I have photos, but I'll have to add them...

April 11, 2004
Samantha's weekly update will be delayed, maybe for a few hours, maybe for days. We all three had to rush to Oklahoma for a family emergency. Sam's grandfather, my father, is very ill and I can't quite muster the spirit or the time to update right now. ...

April 4, 2004
Short update this week, as I've just gotten back from SIOP. It was my first trip away from Sam since she was born, I was haunted by worries that she would be walking and solving quadratic equations by the time I got back. She wasn't, though I swear she looks...

March 28, 2004
We're Baby People. This isn't the same as being parents, just like owning a dog isn't the same as being "dog people." Our friends Spencer and Nancy came to visit this weekend, and the presence of their 7-month old baby Carson proved to us that we had definitely crossed some...

March 21, 2004
Sleep! Glorious sleep! I'm dancing a jig in honor of sleep while I type this. Allow me to explain. We took Sam to the doctor's a few days ago for her 8 week checkup. The nurse practitioner was agast to learn that we were still waking Sam up every 4...

March 14, 2004
I've noticed something: Every conversation with a new parent that starts with by asking "How are you doing?" will, within 5-10 words, begin orbiting around the topic of how much sleep you're getting, and by extension how well the baby is sleeping through the night. So since you asked, I'll...

March 7, 2004
Not a whole lot to report on this week. Ger, Sam, and I just got back from having lunch with The Tabors up in Carlsbad, and Sam did so well that we even fit in a little shopping at the outlet mall. This was the biggest outing by far, and...

February 29, 2004
Things are looking up. Sam seems to have decided against the trendy but ultimately self-defeating colicky disposition and has been in much better spirits. This is something we've worked at pretty hard, though. Geralyn cut back on her vitamins a bit in the hopes that the iron in them had...

February 22, 2004
Like many boys my age, I was charged with mowing the lawn while I was growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's normally pretty easy work, but my family was saddled with an old crank of a riding mower that had seen a few too many days but refused to give...

February 15, 2004
It's 5:42 am and I've been up with Sam for the last hour or so. Unlike me, she's wide awake and doesn't seem to think that this is sleepy time at all. She reminds me of this if I put her in her crib. In fact, she's sitting right here...

February 8, 2004
Samantha's second week of life has gone very well. The jaundice from week 1 is completely gone and she's started to gain weight nicely. In fact, she seems to be going through some kind of growth spurt where she wants space her meals just one hour apart. Fortunately, both Sam...

February 1, 2004
I thought that for the time being I'd post weekly updates about Samantha the same way I had been posting pregnancy updates. This will keep the week's news all in one place, posted here every Sunday. I'll also throw in new pictures if I have them. The first week of...

January 28, 2004
I was going to post this picture at the last pregnancy update, but things obviously got hectic. One night last week Geralyn and I sat down with a game of Scrabble and ended up with the following: I guess you can say we were preoccupied. ...

January 27, 2004
For those keeping track, Geralyn, Samantha, and I are all back home at this hour. We ended our stay at the hospital earlier today, but we still have a lot of pictures to remember it by. Here's a few: You may notice from those pictures that Sam looks a bit...

January 25, 2004
Let's get the big news out of the way first: On January 25th, 2004 at 4:42 a.m. the world population increased by one as Samantha Alyse Madigan was born a week ahead of schedule. She weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces measured 20.5 inches long, and has lots of dark brown...

January 24, 2004
We think Ger's water just broke. We're leaving for the hospital now. Bye. ...

January 19, 2004
Some new pictures for you today. When we started thinking about redesigning the nursery, Geralyn made it fairly clear that she was going to retain final judgment on the colors, decorations, and general theme. As a compromise, I told her that I got to decide on the theme of the...

January 18, 2004
Pregnancy Update: Week 38 I think we're ready when baby is, or at least as ready as we're going to get. I mean, we've learned what we can from books, taken all the classes, painted and furnished the nursery, stocked up on diapers and various ointments, picked out itty-bitty baby...

January 11, 2004
Hey! This was a very busy week for us with lots going on in the pregnancy, so this is kind of a long update. Perhaps most exciting is that Geralyn went to one of her routine doctor's visits earlier this week and they did another ultrasound to check up on...

January 4, 2004
Another wonderfully uneventful week. D-Day (as in "delivery-day") is getting close enough for us to make specific preparations. Geralyn has put together a "birth plan", which is a document explaining how we want things to go down during delivery. Here's a question for all you mothers out there: Did you...

December 27, 2003
The remaining time in Ger's pregnancy can now be measured out in days, and we've taken notice of this fact. We're enjoying sleep while we can and attending to the final details of the nursery. We're also getting in some final quality time with our books, video games, and that...

December 20, 2003
Getting ever so closer. The nursery is almost done, as we got the changing table delivered today and the painting finished up a few days earlier. It's all good, and the only thing left to do is hang stuff on the walls. We're waiting to see if we get any...

December 14, 2003
Sorry the pregnancy update is a day late, but we had a heck of a time today. Car trouble compounded by a full schedule means I'm just now getting this up. There's really not that much to report this week, other than our finishing up the nursery. The fingers I'm...

December 6, 2003
We can now think of the remaining time in this pregnancy in terms of weeks, rather than months. Before long it'll be in days. Geralyn and I went shopping this week with the gift money/certificates to Babies R Us and got a bunch of stuff off our registry. It's always...

November 30, 2003
We had a bit more eventful pregnancy this week, and it's all good. As I mentioned before, Geralyn flew to St. Louis early for a couple of baby showers around Thanksgiving. We brought one huge suitcase filled with nothing but baby booty! There were burp cloths, a mobile, booties, sleepers,...

November 22, 2003
Well, not too much to report on this week. Nothing really happened. No bins full of discount plastic babies. No odd food cravings. No new construction on Baby's wing of the house. No foul-mouthed ultrasound technicians. A rather uneventful week, really. Oh, this week's picture of Geralyn has been added...

November 15, 2003
Holy carp! Week 29! That pretty much sums it up. Fortunately, after cramming so much knowledge into our tiny skulls, I feel reasonably well educated on the fundamentals. Between the two of us, Geralyn and I have read a small, independent bookstore's worth of material on pregnancy and childbirth. So...

November 8, 2003
Another week, more pregnancy news. Geralyn is doing fine, as you can see. We finally got the nursery/office work done, so I'll be putting up a photo gallery of that whole process soon. We started furnishing the nursery today, which involved putting the crib together, unpacking the glider and Diaper...

November 1, 2003
Week number 27. Not much to report on this week, but there's a new picture added to the pregnancy photo album. Ger is still doing well, other than some very swollen feet. Foot, actually. Just her left one, but it's puffed up like a five-toed sausage. I'm not kidding; it's...

October 25, 2003
Week number 26. Not a whole lot to report this week, other than Geralyn is really starting to show (look at the pics below). One of the benefits of pregnancy revealed itself the other night when we went out to dinner. There was a 45-minute wait for a table and...

October 19, 2003
Week 25 is upon us. We spent some time this week registering for a baby shower that Ger's family is throwing her. I got to take the little zapper gun and run around the store shooting stuff into our list. Fun, but I'm already getting tired of booties and burp...

October 10, 2003
Week number 24! As you can see in the picture below, Geralyn is doing well and looking good. Baby's prenatal beepin and bopin has become a normal part of life now, but it's still pretty cool. We are, of course, continueing to educate ourselves on the whole process. For example,...

October 4, 2003
Week 23. Not a whole lot to report this week, as the ultrasound fiasco has been detailed below. We've both started calling Ger's passenger by "Samantha" (or in Ger's case, "Sammy" which I don't really care for). We're also trying to line up contractors to bisect the super bedroom we're...

September 30, 2003
How's that for a headline? I'm referring, however, to the sex of our unborn child. We had the ultrasound today, and it could have gone better. But first, without further delay, let me say that if you're a family member reading this, the doctor is "pretty sure" you have a...

September 27, 2003
Another week, another pregnancy update: Geralyn is 22 weeks along now, and is starting to show (see pic below). What was really bad ass was that I felt the baby move for the first time this week! I actually put my hand on her belly and felt a little poke,...

September 19, 2003
Pregnancy update: Geralyn is now at 21 weeks --over halfway done! She claims to feel like herself, except that she has to pee a lot (no morning sickness, cravings, etc.). Amazingly, though, she claims to have felt the baby move inside her. I think she had gas, which she doesn't...