AC Capehart capehart

Dear Sam, It’s been a while since I (Dad) have written your monthly newsletter. I’ve been fortunate that your mom has been willing to take up the challenge during the time that I was out in California without you guys, and during your transition out here. But I’m back (and with a new interface on the blog) and do I get a great month to write about. Tonight, the night of your 14 month birthday, we’re leaving you with a baby sitter for the first time in your life.

OK, it’s not really her first steps, but today Sam walked unsupported for the first time in her life. Of course, I wasn’t home for it. 🙁 But I did get to see a repeat performance later in the evening which I captured to share with you. In other firsts today, Sam also cried when I left for work. She and mom stand at the picture window at the front of the house and wave as I go by (the path to the sidewalk is on the east side of the yard, and I head west on the sidewalk).

Addictive little shockwave game. You have been warned. 🙂

Dear Sam, I’ve been writing this letter to you in mind for weeks now, but until now I haven’t managed to spill the words onto a page. I hope you’ll cut me a little slack, because, you know, in addition to everything else going on during your 11th month, there was the little matter of that CROSS-COUNTRY move. Oh yes. You began this month in Altoona, PA and ended it in El Cerrito, CA.

Dear Sam, I’m writing this to you in your Uncle John’s old room at Gradyville, PA. You are asleep in my old room, clutching a toy car and set of plastic keys. The knees of your purple pants are filthy, your feet are covered in carpet fuzz and cat fur, and your round little tummy rises and falls rhythmically, straining against the straps of the car seat you fell asleep in.

I’m back in PA with my family. So nice to see them. It drives home my impatience for the resolution of this whole transition though. I’m not quite back to my former status with Sam, but I was clearly no stranger either. The things that struck me most about her after having been gone for almost 2 months: Larger: Project Fatbaby has been largely successful. More alert: Actually attentive to things rather than just responsive to stimuli

There was a time when it was perfectly normal to set an alarm to wake Sam up to feed between 2 and 3AM. At the time, those days seemed eternal, stretching out for miles. The notion of sleeping through the night too dim to even imagine in the distance. And then, of course, things changed. Now I am all too happy to forget that old routine. Here’s our current routine at Mom-mom and Granddaddy’s:

This morning on the floor of the offices of Fay Real Estate, Sam executed her first forward crawl on hands and knees. She was going after one of Camus’s catnip toys. Camus and I are very afraid…

Dear Sam, I have big shoes to fill (you can take that figuratively or literally, as you like, because yes, your daddy has big feet). Since your daddy spent this past month in California, it is up to me to provide the chronicle of your ninth month. Nine months! Good lord, child, you’ve now been out for as long as you were in. How did that happen? When I look at your impish smile and the light tripping in your eyes I can barely recall the tiny, sleepy newborn Sam that used to fit along the length of my arm from elbow to palm.

by themselves… Thursday, I received a certified letter from the IRS containing a Notice of Deficiency which has to be cleared up in 90 days. The relo company — which has had my approximate schedule for some time now — now needs 3 weeks advance notice before having a surveyor come walk through the house and tell them how much it will cost to move us. Because it’s summer.