I tread carefully down the stairs with Sam in the near darkness. We make our way toward the living room where Brett has already turned on the tree lights. My and Brett's initial thought is that we'd be more excited than Sam is during the moment about to arrive. However, as we all sit in front of the tree, Sam is paying careful attention to everything and clearly knows that something out of the ordinary is going on even though he can't yet name it: opening gifts on Christmas morning.
Brett holds Sam while I present Sam with each of his gifts in turn. Sam pays attention the entire time, perhaps somehow knowing that all of these things are for him. And he even tries to help open his gifts in his favoured ways of exploring new objects: scratching at the paper, boxes, and gifts; once trying to fit as much as he could of a big bow in his mouth. Sam doesn't mind the many flashes of the camera as I try to capture as much of his presents' unwrapping as possible.
yummy bow
Green Eggs and Ham
So much of the world is still new to Sam, and I am continually amazed at how he learns about it. Without being shown by either of his parents, he figures out an obscure feature of one of his toys: a light and sounds can be activated by pressing a bear's nose. Delighted with this discovery, he tries the experiment again.
figuring out what the bear's nose does
After everyone's presents are open, Brett introduces Sam to a particularly Brett tradition: dressing up nicely for Christmas Day. One of Sam's presents is an outfit of the baby business casual variety, and Brett and Sam are equally content in their new business casual outfits. I smile at my boys while being decked out in my own new, much more casual Lululemon clothing.
in his Christmas best
chatting with family in Ontario
Sam spends a lot of time playing with his new toys, as is only appropriate, and doesn't mind when we sit him in his high chair while Brett and I have Christmas dinner. It's a relatively quiet day for our little family and one that I will always treasure as my son's first Christmas.
my baby and me on Christmas evening
More pictures of Sam's first Christmas can be found here.
It's a depressingly freezing day in Calgary, which means that yet again, it's too cold for my baby to go outside. I feel a bit landlocked. It's one thing if I choose not to go out because I simply don't feel like being part of the outside world on a given day; it's quite another for an outside force to compel me to stay in for over a week.
I know I'm not alone in this feeling of being cooped up for far too long. Other moms I know who also have small children and live in the deep freezer that is currently Alberta report feeling the same way. We all just want to go outside! I particularly want to bundle up Sam in his cozy blue snowsuit, take him to the little playground beside the townhouse complex we live in, and let him experience what snow feels like.
The week ahead supposedly holds warmer temperatures. So maybe I'll get outside with Sam as early as tomorrow. But I worry by the time we can get outside, the roads and sidewalks will be nearly too yucky to traverse.
In the meantime, I'm spending a lot of time with my baby asleep on my lap. He's quite content to stay on his mommy and have lots of play time together, and all of that makes me happy too.
Today Sam is sixth months old, and we've come to a major mark in his development: his first solid food. Per tradition, Brett and I decided to start Sam off with the pablum mix of rice cereal and breast milk. As I've written about, I've been practising feeding Sam with a spoon to get him used to the sensation.
I feed Sam some pablum.
Brett feeds Sam.
The actual event of Sam's first solid food meal went very well. Sure, some of the meal ended up on Sam's bib, but most of it ended up inside him.
Sam was a lovely boy as Brett and I each took a turn feeding him, and he was happy to be the star of photographs—as he is of so many already—and a video depicting this historical moment of our little family. As I look at the images from today, my mind retreats into an understandable parental cliché: my baby is starting to grow up.
Sam breaks out into a gleeful smile as I set him in the high chair I assembled two days ago. (It's the only piece of furniture I've ever built by myself, so I'm quite proud of this accomplishment.) There is nothing more delightful than seeing my son happy. I'm glad that he's taken so well to the high chair these past two days. He likes being able to sit up and observe the world: all the things most of us take for granted are still new to him. Sam grabs the star-covered bib I've just secured into place around his neck and examines it closely. It's yet another new and, therefore, fascinating thing for him to get used to.
I sit, eye level to Sam, in the dining room chair I've swivelled toward the high chair and explain to him what we're about to do: spoon practice. He's almost of the mythical six-month age when he should be introduced to food besides breast milk. However, as I tell him, we're going to practice using a spoon with breast milk on it just so Sam gets used to the sensation of having a spoon with liquid put into his mouth. He gives me more of his lovely smiles as I talk to him.
Sam practices eating off a spoon.
At first, Sam has a quizzical look on his face when the spoon is in his mouth; he's wondering what this is all about. However, within a minute he's opening his mouth wide for the spoon. It soon becomes clear that a challenge will be teaching Sam that he should keep his mouth shut as he's swallowing. Just as much milk ends up on Sam's bib as in Sam, I think. Throughout his spoon practice time, Sam is just as happy as he was at the start, and I keep encouraging him and praising him with how well he's doing in trying to learn this new skill. We'll work again tomorrow and many tomorrows after that on his feeding skills, and hopefully we'll both have as much fun as we did today.
True narratives about a woman's life as she figures out where she belongs in the world and what her experiences mean.
About Me
Name: Beatrice
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Originally from the island of Cape Breton on the east coast of Canada, the story girl settled in Alberta in the hopes of finding a better life for herself. She has found that better life with her husband, Brett, and their son, Samuel. The story girl is a writer, an English teacher, and an editor.
