Airport Spaz

Tomorrow we are taking Samantha on her first flight. I am a little nervous about the whole ordeal for a number of reasons, number one being my husband. Don't get me wrong, I love to travel with Dave. We have been on so many fabulous trips and he is the best travel companion...once we get to the location we are traveling to.

Dave is what I like to call an airport spaz. It seems that this has come about from some traumatic experiences in childhood where the entire Brantz family was racing to a flight or nearly missing a vacation. Dave prefers to be at the airport hours early, he starts getting agitated a few days before a trip and he is just plain grouchy while we travel. That phenomenon along with an infant, more gear than we have ever had and his parents traveling with us, should make for an interesting trip tomorrow.

I'm sure Samantha will be perfectly fine. I did do an internet search on how to change a diaper on a plane and what the procedure is to go through security with a baby. I'll let you know how it goes, wish me luck!

Sammy the Celebrity

Yesterday, my mom and I were admiring what an adorable baby Samantha is in this pumpkin photo. My mom decided to send in the photo to Live! with Regis and Kelly, they are showing photos of kids in Halloween costumes this week and of course my mom thought Samantha would be a hit. Sure enough, it isn't just us that thinks she is cute! The show contacted us today saying they would like to show the photo this week on air. I sent in our release for the photo and asked them what day she would be on. I'll let you know if I find out any specifics but keep an eye out in the next few days for Sammy the celebrity baby!

Early Halloween

This Friday, on Halloween, we will be taking Samantha on her first flight to go to Florida for Dave's cousin Anna's wedding in Key West. She has a very cute cat costume that her Grammy bought her to wear on the plane but since she will be gone, we did some fun things to celebrate Halloween over the weekend.

On Saturday we went to the Halloween party at the gym where she caught up with her boyfriend Drake who was dressed as a pumpkin. Then yesterday we did pumpkin carving at Sara's house. We each carved a pumpkin and then put Samantha inside the pumpkin for a photo shoot. We have decided that pumpkin carving is a new friend tradition that we will always do at Sara's.

You can check out all the photos here, as you can see Samantha doesn't ever get any attention! I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends who love Samantha so much.

Aunt Paula's Beauty Salon

Last week my Aunt Paula was in town visiting from Oklahoma. Samantha had fun visiting with her Great Aunt and Paula had fun doing Samantha's hair. Usually Samantha gets fussy with me when I try to figure out what to do with her hair but she let Aunt Paula play away. Apparently in my family, using Baby Magic as styling gel is common practice. My mom had tried to explain this to me before but Aunt Paula put it to work. She had a curl on top of Samantha's head, put bows in her hair and had her smelling extra good with that lotion in her hair every day.

I've tried, but I still can't get the curl as good as Aunt Paula. You can see some of her hairdos in the new pictures I posted here.

Party Girl

As I have mentioned before, we lucked out with an exceptionally easy baby. She sleeps on the go, she doesn't cry much and she is an overall happy girl. We are social people and we really haven't slowed down too much since Samantha has joined us. I didn't think much of it until our friend Andrew pointed it out, but we just pack Samantha up and bring her along everywhere we go. Most of our friends do not have babies so parties are still late but Samantha does not seem to mind. In fact, she is usually the hit of the party. I figure we should take advantage of this age when she can sleep in our arms and doesn't have a set bed time.

Samantha has been to a fashion show, out to eat all over town, to the bowling alley and to a handful of parties. This weekend, at Autumn and Mike's birthday party, someone who I had just met said to me "It's awfully late to have a baby out at a party". My initial reaction was to feel defensive but I decided instead to feel grateful for our sweet baby (that guy was obviously just jealous anyway). With parents like us, of course Samantha was destined to be a party girl. I will let you know how that works out for us in about 16 years.

Being a Woman is Hard

This is my first week back to work. I really have the most ideal work situation. My mom watches Samantha, I work from my parents house two days a week, go into the office two days a week and have Fridays off. I keep saying that I wouldn't be able to leave Samantha with anyone but my mom, but the truth is, everyone does what they have to do. Lucky for me, I have an extraordinary mom and employer who are both helping me create a great arrangement.

I have to say that once again I have been struck by how difficult it is to be a woman. I don't want this to be a complaining rant but rather an explanation of how much we should appreciate women. We carry children for 10 months and go through difficult labors. We learn to breast feed and wake in the night often to care for our children. We have a profound attachment to our children and love them like crazy. We bathe them and sing to them and interact with them all day long. For some of us, we return to work where we drop kids off at daycare, pack lunches, pump milk on our breaks and still miss our babies so much we want to cry.

After having Samantha I have such an appreciation for my own mother and for other moms I know. There is nothing like a mother's love, like her dedication to children and to everything that is involved. It is hard work but worth it. Moms don't get enough credit and we don't tell our friends, our sisters, our moms, our grandmas how much we admire them. Do me a favor today and tell a mom somewhere what a great job she is doing.

Back to Boot Camp

Samantha is three months today! I can't believe how quickly the time has gone. I love being a mom, I knew I would enjoy motherhood but I love it far more than I could imagine. Samantha is really fun and I just can't get enough of her. I remember telling my mom I wanted her to stop growing after the first week because I loved the stage she was in. My mom told me that every stage would be my favorite and so far it is true. These days she is all smiles and really taking in her surroundings. She is such a good baby. I posted new pictures today for you all to see how cute she is.

Last night I started my Fit Quest boot camp class again. I'm only taking it once a week while I get back into the swing of things and normally I will take it on Mondays. It was definitely tough to get back into the gym but it feels good too. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger right?

Next week, I'm back to work- I'll let you know how it goes!