Quick Sam update

So Sam had her 9 month check up today. Mostly things were good. She got her flu shot, which was not fun. We had a bit of a challenge ahead for us. It seems our once ahead of the curve baby is not keeping up in weight. She is only 17 lbs, 1 ounce, (25th percentile), which means she did not gain the hoped for quarter ounce per day. So we have a follow up in a month for a weight check. She has been okay on solids, but now we need to work on getting her to eat more. But we do get to add in more fun things. Maybe mush is not her thing. Anyone who has been through this, we would welcome advice. It was also suggested that we work on getting her down to two naps a day, which may mean an earlier bed time, which will be rough for the next few weeks since I do not get home until late 3 days a week.
Also, I have confirmed the 4th at 9 am as my defense date. So if all goes well I will be a fake doctor as of that day, but I will have to do my edits by November 17th, so life will be hectic still and graduation will not be until December 12th.

9 months old!

Samantha is 9 months old today! As you can see, getting the monthly giant panda picture was a bit more challenging. So here is the process. At nine months, she is a super crawler and can easily pull up on things. She can stand for about 30 seconds at a time and has taken a few mini-steps. She has two bottom teeth. And the strange thing is that although she grew into the 3-6 month clothes early, she still can wear them, although the pants are often capris. She is tall and skinny, so nothing stays on her tiny waist. In fact the outfit in these photos is a 0-3 month, although it was large during that phase, so I am not sure what 0-3 month old baby they based it on.

In good news, I have officially scheduled my defense for November 4th. Yep, election day. So hopefully things will turn out well for me and the country.

In sad news, one of my subjects, the elephant who was actually pregnant passed away last night. She had been sick, but nothing that seemed too life threatening. It is a very sad day for Zoo Atlanta and will be strange to defend my data and talk about her. Dottie will be sorely missed.

October updates

So a lot has been going on. Special shout outs to all our new friends, Noah Frentzel, Mirah Lindsay, and Izzy Wood. Welcome to the world. Things have been crazy, sorry for the lack of posts. Teaching full time and taking care of Sam and working on finishing my dissertation has

been rough, but hopefully will be easier soon. I have a tentative date set for November 4th to defend. I welcome any thoughts and prayers to help me through that day, it will not be easy.

Here are the latest pictures. First is Sam with her new toy. It is a ride on, walk behind, and pull toy. Plus it has 3 sounds. Pretty awesome and she likes it. Next is her with a silly hair do she ended up with. Notice the sock in her hand. Lately she has taken to crawling with things in her hands. All these toys we buy her and she plays a lot with her socks, the dog toys, or paper. Silly baby! The next one is just cute. The last two show off her two front teeth. She was not happy, obviously, but that has been the best I can do. The panda hat by the way is supposed to fit 3-6 month heads. Not sure where they came up with that number, but it will be cute when it finally fits.

Love and hugs to all.

Cute videos

Here is Sam being cute with my birthday balloon. It was a great toy.

Here is Sam standing for a few seconds, she is even better at standing now. She is growing up so fast!

The months fly by

I have been taking pictures of Sam next to our giant stuffed panda since she was 3 months old and could be propped up. Here is 3, 4, 6, and 8 months. Boy does she change quickly. I now understand the enjoy every minute concept a lot better.

An incisor emerges

'

That's right. Sam has begun teething. I first noticed it on September 28th, just a tiny point. But now it is a pretty wide eruption. But it is still short. And I cannot get a picture of it. sam loves running her tongue over it, so I can hardly get to look at it.

She is also quite the crawler, she is fast and can pull herself up very well. She can even stand for a few seconds until she realizes it and plops down.

Life has been very crazy lately (hence the lack of posts). We are still working on sleep training. Sam can crawl and stand up now, so putting her down for a nap can be quite a long process. But we are trying our best. As you can see, she sometimes ends up in funny positions. We were planning on watching the cubs in the world series. As you can see, we did our part, but they let us down. Shocker! So we had to watch some Baby Einstein instead.

And isn't our baby adorable in that hair clip? It does not stay in long, but maybe now I understand a little why people pay $8 for them.