Chatterbox

Sammy LOVES to talk -- whether it be with someone, or in her own little monologues. As soon as she wakes up in the morning (sometime between 6:12 and 6:18 AM, give or take a couple minutes and regardless of how late she was up the night before...), she shouts out to us from her room, usually some variation of the following:

"Mommy, Daddy, I've got to ask you something....Is it wake up time yet?"

or

"Daddy, I can't find my penguin, and I want some miiiiillllkkk..."

She also loves to sing. Some may like to sing in the shower, but for Sam, it's her carseat that really gets her going. She's like our very own little toddler iPod in the backseat, taking requests: "Mama, what song you want now?" "Um, how about Baa Baa?" "Okay -- "BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP...".

When she was quite sick a few weeks ago, we knew it was really bad when she sat silently in the back seat on the way to the doctor's office, and suddenly I realized that I actually missed hearing her usual rousing medley of "Down by the Station," "Wheels on the Bus" and "Old MacDonald"....

Probably the most amusing thing is when Sammy comes out with words or phrases we'd never taught her, nor expect her to say. She recently reprimanded me -- "Stay Focused Mama!" Wow, okay. And the best was the other day, when we were at the Ballard Farmer's Market. She was enjoying a delicious hotdog lunch, and had already eaten all of the hotdog, leaving just a bun and ketchup. I commented that she was now having a ketchup sandwich. She looked at me quietly for a minute, clearly thinking about something, then got a big grin --

"I'll give you a KNUCKLE sandwich, mom!" she said, even making the right gesture with her fist cocked as she giggled.

Yep, that's our girl.

Sisters

We always expected that Sam's transition from being an only child, to a big sister, would be challenging. So we were pleasantly surprised when, in the first few weeks, Sam seemed only enamored with baby Nina. "Maybe this isn't going to be so bad after all," we thought.

We've now realized that there is a certain honeymoon period in the evolution of sibling-hood. And now, reality has set in.

I'm not saying it's all rocky at this point, but it's certainly got its challenges. I like to refer to Sam's interactions with Nina as "aggressive affection." My mom, who was visiting last week, had another good description: "smothering mothering." Let's just say that Nina gets a LOT of hugs and kisses, and lots of headfuls of curls in her face, and that sometimes that affection gets a little overabundant. Sam has also found ways to sometimes incorporate Nina's name into songs in perhaps not the most positive way, i.e., (to the tune of itsy bitsy spider): "...down came the rain, and WASHED the Nina out!" You have to hand it to her, she's clever!

Still, though, recognizing the massive shift in family dynamics that Sammy has had to experience in the past few months, she is doing remarkably well. She's certainly not one to ever ignore Nina, and she's still always quick to let us know when Nina is crying, or to bring toys or blankets to Nina. Her affectionate name for Nina is "Nina-bo-Bina," and, at school the other day, she got to make a Valentine for a selected friend or family member. You can imagine how happy I was to see this in her cubby:

Maybe we're turning a corner?

Comparisons

When people ask us who Nina looks like -- her mom or her dad -- we usually answer that actually, she looks most like her big sister. The resemblance between Nina and Sam just after birth was so striking that it was pretty difficult to pick out who was who in a side by side frame of the two girls...

(That's Sammy without the hat, Nina with the hat).

There are some differences that we are starting to notice, however. With the feeding going much more smoothly this time around, Nina's got a little more in the way of chubby cheeks...(At 7 weeks, Nina weighed 11lb, 6oz, whereas at 8 weeks, Sammy weighed just 9lb, 13oz). And while their eyes seem to be the same color, the shape of the eyes is looking a little different. Still, though, the differences are few and the similarities are many. Here are pictures of both girls at around 2 or 2.5 months old (Sam with the red blanket background in both, Nina with the white background).