because she's so cute...

Some of my recent favorite things about mantha are:

- every time I get her up from her nap, no matter how hard she is crying, she always greets me with a breathy "Hi!"

- her belly laugh that delights us each time emma does something funny or if we tickle her on the ribs.

- her willingness to snuggle when she gets really tired. She likes to lay her head down on our shoulder and just collapse. Fun times, I tell you.

Yesterday I was playing with her and, even though I have resigned myself to the fact that she will never say my name, I asked her to say "mama". Hallelujah! She said "mama, mama, mama!" She said it with such enthusiasm that I felt justified in waiting so long to hear it. i dont' want to publicly admit that my feelings were hurt because she'd say hi to every sort of stranger on the street, but wouldn't utter the name of her mother, but now, "mama" fills the air around her a lot.

And, in other fun samantha-news, she mustered up all her courage and took her first two steps on the 17th! She's not crazy about doing it - she much prefers clumsily pushing her slide or her activity table as a makeshift walker - but she loved the attention and applause that comes with it!

Recently, mantha's not been sleeping so well; she's been doing like two-45 minute naps a day. I've just got to go on the record and say that sleeping for 45 minutes does not cut it for me. :) Our house is not exactly quiet, so I've looked around a little for a white-noise machine to help mask some of the clanging dishes or whiny children (read: emma), but haven't found anything. But as it turns out, mantha is destined to become an ipod girl, as I decided to hook up our ipod to some speakers in her room and play some light music in the background. She has loved it and has slept longer than ever before - the three naps since I started her ipod have all been two hours plus! She's happy, sleeping, and (so far, at least) has clear skin after one day of me eating milk products, but not directly drinking milk. Is it possible that I could welcome my dear friend chocolate back into my life? It just may be possible.

Anyway, here are some new pictures of samantha:

last week, our water was unexpectedly turned off for a couple of days, so samantha got a bath in filtered water in a basin. She was open to the new experience, but didn't enjoy it quite as much as her usual bath time extravaganza with emma. (Emma also tried bathing in the basin, but found it much more cramped than she thought!)

and, clapping, clapping...she loves to clap!

one of mantha's most-favorite activities...pushing the slide up to the window so she can look out at the traffic below (remember, a few months ago that was the only thing that could stop her crying? it seems the effect still lingers!)so while I am distracted in the kitchen or busy doing something else, samantha will sneakily go over to her slide and climb up. When she gets to the top step, she has no idea what to do or how to get down, so some adult assistance is required. Sometimes it gets a little old going over to help her slide down every three minutes, but she truly loves it and the slide really wasn't so expensive at all! I'm really glad we brought it back with us from thailand.

But she had LOADS of fun on this slide!ok, maybe she's not the cleanest eater in the world, but hey, at least she's finally eating! We take her to get weighed again this weekend, and we're hoping that after putting her on a pretty loaded-up diet and starting some hypoallergenic formula to supplement, that she might have gained a bit of weight. I'll be sure to keep you updated!