Christmas with Samantha

This past week was the second Christmas with our daughter. Christmas 2005 was fun because it was the first one ever for Lynn or myself with a child. At that point, Samantha had just started sitting up, she was not independently mobile yet. She could roll, but was not crawling as I recall, so if you put her somewhere, she generally would sit there, and not move around.

Fast forward to Christmas 2006, and she's definitely NOT that baby anymore. She's got a well over 100 word vocabulary. She can talk on her own, understands way more than she can speak, and she's more or less a toddler now. We don't have a "baby" anymore, she passed that sometime in 2006 somewhere, although I don't know where. From what I can gather, one is still a baby and not a "toddler" until after they're two, but Samantha wasn't informed of that. She is standing straight in toddlerhood with both feet firmly planted (except when she jumps, which she just started doing two days ago).

So Christmas morning we got up before Samantha. We of course had everything set up from ourselves, and then there was of course Santa's visit. I got ready with the digital camera (in video mode), and captured Samantha's first look at her presents. Now she normally comes out and says "Hi" to the tree in the morning, but when she got around the sofa, she could see all the presents, and just stood there looking stunned. Once she recovered from that, she took a beeline for a doll that Mommy had bought her, "Cindy Baby!". She picked it up, hugged it, and fell immediately in love with the doll. This warmed my heart, because the doll was bought for her by Mommy, and it made Mommy feel great! Cindy Baby is now part of Samantha's regular daily routine. Cindy Baby is so important, that she's made it into the crib for "Night Night" (which Samantha also now will ask for when she's tired). There were plenty of gifts from the family that Samantha loved, but Cindy Baby was a highlight, and it was first. It set the tone for Christmas. She loved the simple toy - which is good on several levels.

What was most important to me that day was watching my daughter get so excited. As I write this, today is a day where Mommy is at work, and it's Daddy's day with Samantha. I was watching her play with a toy that I had gotten her for Christmas (A Fisher Price Little People School Bus, which she calls "Yellow Choo-Choo"), and it occurred to me that I finally "get it". Christmas is about watching your children be happy. It's such a stereotype before you have kids to say "I don't want them", or "I don't need them to be happy", and then all the other stereotypes people say about kids after they've had them. But one is so true, and that's that I feel so much happier in general now that I've had a kid. Samantha has been a true blessing from God, and we're lucky that she's such a happy child. She has her moments, sure - every kid does. But overall, she's a happy kid. Mommy & Daddy are very grateful for that.

This started out as a recall of Samantha at Christmas, but I ended up writing my feelings about Samantha at Christmas. I suppose that's the important part - not the gifts, which were nice. But my daughter's face at Christmas was the single best moment of the season for me.

I love my daughter way WAY more than I ever thought I would.