Samantha: 14 Months, Week 3

After being gone for many weeks this summer, it was nice to finally be back at home in our own environment.  My dad came down Monday of this week to bring Roscoe back and stayed the night with us.  We had a good time being with each other, and I think my dad was surprised at how much she's grown and how active she is.  On Tuesday morning we made a trip to the art museum on the IU campus.  It was interesting, though small, but the security guards were a little uptight.  I don't know if it was just because they weren't used to having babies come or if they were just bored and had nothing better to do, but they would not stop following us around.  I was not letting Samantha run around or touch anything (I think I know better than that!), but they didn't seem to trust us.  This art museum wasn't as good as the one in Ann Arbor that we visited over the summer because it had more artifacts than paintings, and no portraits (which are Samantha's favorites, she loves to look at people's faces).

One of my favorite things is getting Samantha from her crib in the morning.  She always wakes up happy.  If she is ever crying when she wakes up from a nap or during the night or in the morning, that means that she isn't done sleeping, it's usually pretty easy to tell.  Well, she is very cute when she wakes up so I just had to include some pictures of her in the morning.  Wouldn't you like to wake up to this happy face every day?

This picture was taken with the screen facing her so she could see herself.  It's about the only way we can get a close up of her face while she is still!

We didn't do too many other things this week, just errands around town, hanging out at home, and spending time together as a family before my week of teacher inservice.  It was still pretty hot this week, so we went to the pool for the first time over the weekend.  They have a little kid area with a zero depth section, water spouts, and various other water elements.  She had a wonderful time!  Unfortunately, we didn't bring our camera, so we don't have any pictures, but maybe I will post some later at another pool outing.  Samantha loves to watch other kids play and try to join in with them.  We also took her into the big pool and carried her around in the water with us.  The pool has a couple slides and a diving board which Samantha really enjoyed watching.

Samantha has a new favorite game where she knocks the blocks out of her lap with her arms.  She loves it, the more we throw at her the better!

After being around so many dogs this summer, Samantha has really grown to like them.  She gets really excited anytime she spots a dog.  Now that Roscoe is back home, she is extra interested in him.  She likes to try to give him his toy and watch him play fetch up and down the hallway of our apartment.  Roscoe does really well with her, largely ignoring her and sleeping most of the day.

Another new thing we tried this week is having Samantha try using a fork.  She doesn't quite know how to hold it, but she's working on it.  It makes her feel a lot more independent trying to feed herself, and especially using a fork like adults do.

To end, I will include some pictures of Samantha sporting a Cubs hat.  She saw Daddy wearing it when we went to the farmer's market, so after that she kept grabbing it, trying to put it on herself, and asking us to put it on her head for her.  We think she looks pretty adorable in it.

 These pictures show Samantha reading one of her favorite books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  She loves any books about animals, and particularly likes the duck page.  We think ducks are her favorite animal.  That was the first animal sound she learned how to make.  Any time she sees a picture of a duck in a book, a stuffed animal duck, or a real duck, she will make her duck noise.