Sammy's Taking Steps and Other News

Anna Tate's 2nd birthday party

The birthday girl




Sammy loves crawling through our tunnel

Sammy the two-fisted eater

Mother's Day celebration at Johnny's school

Johnny and his best friend Allie (in yellow behind him)

Last day of school with Johnny's teachers and Christopher

Sammy cracking up on the playground

Sammy walking to Jessica

I received a gentle reminder recently that I haven't updated my blog in two months ... it's nice to know I have some faithful viewers who look for family news here. Thanks! I sometimes wonder if my posts are just a bunch of proud parent babbling ... but I guess in the context of my life, that is a good enough reason to have a blog. No deep philosophical probing here, just unashamedly domestic family journaling.

Anna Tate celebrated her 2nd birthday recently (Keith's best friend's daughter) and we thoroughly enjoyed spending the afternoon playing and socializing and eating cake. Johnny and Anna play very well together ... he is so gentle and careful with her ... unlike when he plays with Sammy.

Sammy has made great progress in his development and is regularly sleeping 11-12 hours every night with one awakening at 6 a.m. to nurse which I chose not to drop in an effort to maintain my milk supply. Thank God for blessing us with sleep filled nights! Sammy is a turbo speed crawler (he's been crawling for more than two months now) and scampers up the stairs with lightning speed. Sammy just turned 11 months old and now has eight teeth. For quite some time he has clearly communicated "no" to us by shaking his head and waves his arms in frustration when we say "no" to him. Sammy lets me know when he is hungry by pulling on the food cupboard door or lying down in front of me and rolling over to assume the nursing position. The most exciting development is that Sammy is standing up without holding on to anything and has taken up to 6 or 7 steps by himself. Most times he sits down or falls into my arms after several steps, but he has balanced, taken a few steps and stopped and balanced again without falling down. His rate of improvement is incredible and unfortunately frustrating because we weren't ready with the video camera to capture his first steps. Sammy's walking is improving so fast I'm afraid he'll be fully ambulatory by the time we start video taping. Sammy is so very proud of himself and beams with elation every time he stands or walks unassisted. We are, of course, very proud too!!

For the Mother's Day picnic at Johny's school, I put Sammy in the nursery so Johnny and I could have some quality one on one time ... a precious commodity. Johnny loved that and has asked several times since then when we can put Sammy back in the nursery. ;) Johnny sang songs with all the other kids on stage and was very proud to present me with the cookies he baked himself in class. Johnny announced to me while we were eating the cookies that he baked them himself and that there were germs in them. All the moms within earshot got quite a giggle from that.

Johnny's last day of school for this year was today. I'm looking into enrolling him in swimming lessons and gymnastics to keep him active during the scorching humid summer months. Johnny had great teachers this year and I pray he is blessed with another great pair next year.

The heartrending news I have is that my very best friend, Jessica, is moving to Austin in 2 weeks. Jessica is hands down the best, closest, most wonderful friend I have had since high school or early college. Teri Morris and Treysea Tate are the only two friends I have ever had on the same level of "best friendships" in terms of constant daily contact, doing everything together and talking multiple times every day, sharing all of our thoughts with compassion, generosity and altruism. I am so very blessed and grateful that God honored me with such wonderful, rewarding friendships ... ones that I pray will last a lifetime, even separated by distance, busy schedules and my eternally infamous inability to keep in touch with my friends. It finally sank in and hit me last night after helping Jessica pack her house up yesterday. At bedtime when I was praying with Johnny, he wanted to thank God for his best friend Allie (Jessica's oldest daughter) and I broke down and cried. Johnny has prayed every night about Allie for at least two weeks, but last night just put me over the edge. I am so very happy for Jessica and her family and their move, and even if we never saw each other again (which we absolutely will) I will still always thank God for the wonderful gift of the friendship we have shared over the last year. Thankfully, it's a mere 3 hour drive to their new home, so I plan to visit often!