Playing Dress-Up

Samantha really enjoys putting on other people's shoes, hats ... anything that she can parade around the house wearing. Her biggest fascination seems to be with Daddy's things. I just chuckle when I see her come around the corner wearing something WAY TOO BIG for her ...

Modeling Daddy's shoes

Wearing Daddy's hat (which she put on herself just like Daddy wears it --backwards)

Attempting to walk with Daddy's shoes on

Working on a "Big Girl" Bed

We decided that after we were settled into our new home that we would start to transition Samantha into a "big girl" bed. We've been lucky because she hasn't tried to climb out of her crib yet ... and we really don't want that day to come. So, we took the twin bed out of the spare bedroom and Steve set to work putting the headboard on it. Of course, Samantha wanted to be included in this project -- afterall, it will be her bed!

"Am I a good helper, Daddy?"

Picking up all of the nuts, bolts and washers

After we officially had the headboard on, we encouraged Sam to climb up onto her bed. We gave her her favorite blanket and she settled into place ...

Pretending to be asleep?

"Don't worry ... I was only fooling you!"

We are now going to install a side rail on the bed so that she doesn't fall off in the middle of the night (she is a BIG mover in her bed). The other side will be pushed up against the wall. I anticipate that we will start using the "big girl" bed this weekend; hopefully it will go smoothly. She really does like climbing up onto the bed because she can do it by herself and it makes her feel independent ...

Father's Day Weekend

Sam loves to take time to literally "smell the flowers." Everytime she walks by anything that slightly resembles flowers, she bends over and smells them. I think that it is so cute!

Attempting to smell the lamb's ears (thanks, Uncle Scott and Aunt Chris for them!)

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On Sunday, we started out the day by celebrating Father's Day with Steve. Sam loves to help open presents and cards, so I am sure that she was very excited about this event. It is hard to show how excited she really was though because she woke up with a high fever and wasn't feeling 100%. (Sidenote: I took her to the doctor today to find out why she is sick and they are still conducting a few tests to figure out the cause. They have ruled out ear infections and strep throat. We are working on the results to determine if it is possible a UTI. In the meantime, her temperature continues to be elevated and her appetite is minimal. You can just tell that my little girl is SICK).

Opening cards with Daddy


Attempting to try on Daddy's new Detroit Tigers sandals

In the afternoon, we celebrated Steve's sister's birthday at our house. We had a Mexican fiesta, complete with chicken and steak fajitas, mexican rice, mexican corn, fruit, and cake and ice cream. It was a wonderful chance to get together and the kids really enjoyed going down to the lake. Sam wasn't feeling too well, but tried to have SOME fun ...

Deb with Dennis and their family (Austin, Justin and Amberlee)

Grandpa and Grandma surprised Sam with her very own chair (a hippo!) for taking down to the beach. We did manage to catch one smile out of her yesterday and it was when she was sitting in her new chair! Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!

A hippo chair!

Samantha's Birth Story

Samantha is 19 months old today and in honor of this day, I have decided to share Samantha's birth story with all of you. I know that there are some of you that have probably never heard all of it and I also wanted to be sure to have it recorded so that I would always have it. It seems funny to worry about making sure that it is all documented because I am positive that I will never forget a single moment of that day -- the details are still fresh in my mind because this was one of the best and most important days of my life ... I became a mom for the first time that day and I had never experienced something so wonderful before. Here it goes ...

Samantha's due date was December 4, 2008. I was teaching part-time at Lansing Community College and the last day of the semester was December 11, 2008. I secretly hoped to at least get through teaching on December 2nd; after that, it was just final exams and I could easily schedule a "sub" to sit there while my students took their exams. I was confident in this plan because I had heard that a lot of first-time moms actually don't give birth until their due date or a little after. No problem, right?

On the morning of November 18th, I woke up at 6 am to get ready for work. As I was heading into the bathroom, I felt a little bit of fluid run down my leg. I didn't think much of it because frankly, this baby was sitting directly on my bladder and I had just gotten up after lying down for a while. I took my shower and was getting dressed for the day when Steve walked into the room. He took one look at my face and immediately asked what was wrong. I told him that I felt a little queasy and mentioned the fluid. It was at this point that he became insistent that I call my doctor. I was reluctant because other than that, I was feeling fine and I didn't want to have to go to the doctor and be forced to get a "sub" that day. After all, I was already scheduled for my weekly doctor's appointment early the next morning.

At lunchtime that day, after teaching lab all morning, I decided to finally call the doctor. I convinced myself that I was doing this to appease Steve ... after all, I still felt fine. Well, the nurse wasn't too pleased with me because IF that was my water that had broken (7 hours prior), I was now risking infection and putting my baby in danger. That was all that I needed to hear. I scheduled a "sub" and then called my sister and asked her to go with me to the doctor. I was crying during all of this (probably because of all of the extra hormones), and having my sister with me was incredibly calming.

37 weeks pregnant

The doctor started to perform an exam in order to determine if the fluid was, in fact, amniotic fluid and in the process, she stopped and looked up at me. With a surprised look on her face, she told me that I was in labor and already dilated to 4 cm. What??! I started to cry again.

Next, I had an ultrasound performed in order to determine what my exact fluid level was. The amniotic fluid level was "borderline-low" and the doctor wanted me to head across the street to the hospital. She was willing to let me go home first and get my bags, but didn't want me to delay too much in getting to the hospital.

 

Steve called at that point to find out how the appointment went and I will never forget our conversation. I calmly told him that, yes, my water had broken and that I was dilated to 4 cm. His reply was, "What exactly does that mean?" I paused for a moment and said, "Well, when I get to 10 cm, I push. So, I'm almost half-way there. Can you meet me at home?"

Steve wasted no time in getting there. He arrived at the house about 5 minutes after I did. My hospital bags had been packed for a while and I was just gathering up any last-minute items. I was surprisingly calm; it was Steve that was anxious and jittery. My only concern at this time was the car seat ... which leads us to another interesting story.

During my pregnancy, there was no doubt that we would need to purchase a different vehicle to keep the car seat in on a regular basis. In my opinion, Steve's truck was not suitable for a baby; his camaro, well, that goes without saying; and my car was a two-door car. Now, I knew that I was capable of getting a baby into and out of a two-door car, but I was NOT going to doing that on a regular basis. We looked at cars and test-drove a couple of them, but time just got away from us until about a week prior to my water breaking. We hadn't committed ourselves to any one particular vehicle and now that meant that Steve would need to make the final purchase while I was in the hospital having our baby ... Nice.

At the hospital, we were admitted into triage, and from there, I was transferred to "labor and delivery." The doctor on call started me on pitocin because I wan't feeling any contractions, and by now, the baby needed to be out within about 6 hours in order to avoid any infection (about 18 hours after my water broke). The nurses continued to increase my dosage of pitocin because time was of the essence. I was now beginning to feel contractions, but the worst part was that the baby was not positioned with her face down; rather, she was looking up at the ceiling and this can make for a rather difficult delivery (as I soon learned). The doctor and nurse worked feverishly to try and turn her (including putting me in various positions). Samantha's head continued to grind on my left hip bone and after I was dilated to 6 cm, I asked for my epidural.


I progessed quickly after the epidural. In fact, that was when my parents, my sister, and Steve's parents arrived at the hospital (approximately 10 pm). They all walked in the room just as I was throwing up my dinner -- not a pretty sight. During the moments of pain (because the epidural took the edge off the contractions but did nothing for the constant grinding on my hip bone), I just simply laid as still as possible and concentrated on my breathing.

At 1 am, the doctor decided that the baby wasn't going to turn any more and that I could begin pushing. I could have started pushing an hour before that, but we were giving the baby time to try to adjust itself. After more than two hours of pushing, dislocating my tailbone to get her out and using vacuum suction, Samantha Murray Lapinski was born at 3:05 am on November 19, 2008 weighing 6 lbs., 11 oz., and measuring 20 inches in length. Her middle name was my grandmother's maiden name.

A "cone head" from the vacuum suction

We chose to not find out the sex of the baby ahead of time. I, myself, was the one that wanted to be surprised and I begged Steve to do the same. Ironcially, we both thought that the baby was a boy and it was literally a true surprise when she came out. The doctor said to Steve, "Well, what is it?" And Steve replied (since I wasn't able to see), "It's a girl?!" I cried (again).

Our new family

After Samantha was cleaned up, Steve went out into the waiting room, video recorder in hand, to share the news with our parents and my sister. I am so glad that he was able to capture that on video because I smile now every time that I watch it.

Samantha and I were discharged from the hospital two days later. Steve came to pick up us up in our new car (that he purchased that very morning). I was very pleased ... he had even installed the car seat already. I remember that he remarked on the way home how cautious he was trying to be because we had "some precious cargo in the car." I smile about that too.

Home from the hospital (November 21, 2008)



Our first family photo at home

Samantha was not a good sleeper in the first four months of her life, so we tried to take advantage of her few moments of rest whenever we could. In fact, that was the best piece of advice that anyone ever gave me -- "Sleep when the baby is sleeping." I captured the following photo one morning and it has become one of my all-time favorites!

Daddy and Samantha

A Playdate!

My best friend, Jennifer, brought her two girls over to my house today for a playdate with Samantha. This is our first time doing this because we used to live almost two hours away from one another. Now that we have moved, we are much closer (about an hour and 15 minutes apart). I hope that we can do this often because the girls had so much fun. In fact, as Sydney (almost 4 years old) was leaving, she said, "Aunt Mo, ok ... now tomorrow you can come over to my house and bring your two cats with you ..." Too cute!

Heading out to the beach (Kiera, Samantha and Sydney)

Playing in the sand

"What, Mommy? I'm kind of busy here ..."

Jennifer with the girls (Sam is too scared to venture out)

After we got back to the house, we all ate lunch and then the girls played and watched some Sesame Street together. It was a fun day for all of us, and soon the girls started to show signs of being tired. That meant nap-time for Sam and Jennifer left for home with her girls -- Keira was asleep in the car before Jennifer even made it out of my subdivision!

Sam was doing double-duty with her sippees!

We were getting Sam ready for her bath the other night and I decided to take a few pictures of our usual series of events at the start of bathtime:

Watson usually sits and thinks about jumping onto the tub

Then, he jumped up onto the tub (and Sam usually gets him all wet when she is petting him)

After Watson jumps down, Sam reaches for him, begging him to jump back up there!

I thought that cats are not supposed to be too fond of water. This little one, well, he is a big fan of it! I have to remember to close the shower doors after my shower just to insure that he doesn't play in the water. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we kept him in the bathtub when we were first litterbox training him?!

Starting to Feel Better ...

Samantha is now starting to feel better after getting over her first cold last week. Her nose is drying up and she seems to be coughing less and smiling more. These pictures are from the last few days and you can tell that she is getting back to her old self ...

Laughing at Mommy

Playing with her books and toys

Looking cool for the camera

We have been working with Sam a lot lately to keep her sunglasses on whenever we go for a walk. She has never really liked anything on her head or face (including hats and sunglasses). The sunglasses are tricky enough because they distort her vision of course and she doesn't like that. But, much to my surprise, she has started to tolerate them lately and even wears them around the house occasionally. Now, I need to get her a slightly larger pair as she is outgrowing these ...

My Little Gymnast!

Samantha has learned to be quite the climber. My mother assures me that I was NEVER a climber like this when I was little ... and I know that Steve was, so we now know where she gets this from. The other day, she tried this little antic and I guess that this lets me know that she is hungry and ready for breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack.

Step 1: Mount the high chair

Step 2: Swing one's leg inside the chair, followed by the other leg

Step 3: Standing proud in her festive bathing suit

In other news, Sam has her first cold. She is quite miserable with a runny nose, itchy eyes, sneezing and coughing. It has been about 4 days since I noticed her first symptoms and I hope (for both her sake and mine) that it is almost out of her system. We have been very fortunate that she has not been a sick baby, and for that reason, it seems to make it a little more difficult to deal with -- she just isn't used to feeling like this.

Fun at the Beach!

The beach is just down the street from our house and we have been taking advantage of the nice weather lately and going down there whenever we get a chance. Until yesterday, Sam has been absolutely terrified of the sand and water. She hasn't wanted to put her feet in the sand (wet or dry), much less even walk in it. And the fear that overcame her, followed by extreme hyperventilating, whenever we tried to dip her feet in the edge of the water was tremendous. I made great strides with her yesterday afternoon though and by the time that Daddy got home from work, I had her dressed in her swimsuit and we were ready to try again.

Waiting for Daddy to get home

One reason why Sam didn't mind the sand so much was that she had a pail and shovel to play with and a towel to sit on.

My little beach beauty

Sitting on the beach while Daddy sat in the water

I coaxed Sam to take Steve's drink out to him and this little task was enough to get her to walk out into the water -- Major accomplishment!

"Here you go, Daddy ..."

Then and Now ...

This picture was taken last Memorial Day (2009) when Samantha was about 6 months old. I can't help but giggle when I see how little hair she had then and how chubby her little cheeks were. (And, well, her feet seemed gigantic in comparison).

Memorial Day 2009 - 6 months old

This Memorial Day (2010), she has a lot more hair (still lacking in comparison to many others her age, but definitely more than last year). Her features are becoming more defined, and as you can see here, she is not too thrilled about Mommy taking more pictures of her. I tell you, it is difficult to get this girl to smile for pictures -- she is just a very focused and serious person with her own personal agenda.

Memorial Day 2010 - 18 months old