The Hillian Collection

Today, Sean and I part ways as he heads to South Bend, IN for his interview at Notre Dame. Samuel and I will be in Tallahassee playing with Magnus, seeing alligators at the natural history museum, and tons of other fun things. We'll all be back in town on Monday. Sammy and I will definitely miss Daddy. Please pray for him as you think about his time there this week.

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Earlier this week, Sammy and I were picking Sean up from campus, and on the way home, I heard Sammy laughing and laughing at his daddy. Then I heard his daddy laughing and laughing back at him. When I asked Sean what was so funny, he said that Sammy was putting his pacifier in his mouth to make him look like he was smiling. I couldn't wrap my mind around that until Sean showed me this gem of a picture he took of our goofball of a son.

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Pre-bathtime. It's always a party at the Hills come 6pm.

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It happened. As soon as I let my over-protective guard down and decided to go to Tallahassee to celebrate my brother Josh turning 17, my baby got sick. There's an epidemic going around Tallahassee, so on Sunday morning, my mom, Sammy and I stayed home due to illness. Sean finally succumbed to it on Tuesday night.

I am thankful that this was a very gentle way to break me into caring for a sick child. Sammy's nose never go so congested that he couldn't breathe, and the highest his fever got was 102.5º. The hardest part was just comforting my very, very sad baby. For about 36 hours, the pathetic poor guy constantly had a soft whine accompanying him everywhere.

We're all better now, so, parenting challenges, keep on coming!

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Well, we've made it this far. Sammy is 66.67% done with his first year of life, and oh, what a life he lives.

Very shortly after his seven-month birthday, he started crawling. Immediately after crawling, he started pulling up on everything imaginable. So now, instead of sitting and playing with him like I did before, I spend my days following him from one side of the room to the other, making sure he doesn't do any serious damage to himself.

He notices and explores anything that stands out to him now: door hinges, outlets (don't worry; we've got those covered), specks on dirt on the floor (he hasn't eaten any yet, despite his best efforts), vent covers, you name it. Toys interest him for a few minutes, but then he's off to stand against the coffee table and chew on the foam corner pads. Whenever he takes a scary tumble, a quick step outside instantly makes the crying cease. Getting the mail is one of his favorite activities.

At about 5:30pm, he needs extra stimulation, so outside we go. Sean and I have been playing HORSE on the basketball hoop in our cul-de-sac, while Sammy watches being held by Sean's left arm. He loves it outside.

He started babbling with English consonants at seven months, but it was limited almost exclusively to [babababa]. Now he's adding the /m/ too. Hopefully, he'll be saying "mama" soon. I've been trying to get him to so hard! No sign of the /d/, though, Daddy. I hope I win the first-word contest.

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