This week, Samantha and I made a trip to the library to check out some new books after I picked her up from the babysitter's house. She LOVES the library. The children's section there is wonderful. We went to the board book section where they have puzzles and trains. Once we got there, she found a stroller for a baby, went up to it and looked inside, saying "baby." The baby wasn't actually in the stroller, but was standing, holding onto a toy. Samantha tried to go up to the baby and give her a hug (she really loves babies lately). I told her to be gentle and leave the baby alone, so then she went up to the nearest chair laid her head down on it, and pretended to hug the chair. It's hard to depict what she actually did, but it was pretty cute. The parents of the baby thought it was hilarious as well. Samantha loves giving hugs, especially to things she loves. And lately, she LOVES babies. Even when we read books about babies, she tries to lay her head on the page of the book and then wiggles her body like she is trying to give them a hug. She's such a loving little girl, what a wonderful personality trait God has gifted her with, even at such a young age.
On Friday this week, my school had Fall Break, so I had the day off, which was a wonderful time for me to spend with Samantha. We started off the day with a great family breakfast before Ben headed to school to study. Samantha and I then headed to a play date with some friends at the Banneker Center. They have a great play room there. Samantha enjoyed riding in the car the best. Once she discovered this car, she rode in it the rest of the time. She still cannot quite figure out how to push herself forwards, so she would just go backwards until she got stuck. Then, I would turn her car around so she could go the other direction. Hmm..maybe an idea for a Christmas present for Samantha? Too bad we don't have much room for anything like this in our little apartment right now.
The next day, Grandma and Grandpa Toll came to visit us. We had great, unseasonably warm weather. We went out for lunch at our favorite restaurant, Sweet Grass, and then laid Samantha down for her nap. During her nap, Ben, his parents, and I had a conversation about our plans for next year. Ben and I have been talking about having another baby sometime late fall next year, and with that, have discussed the possibility of me staying home next year rather than teaching. However, in order for that to be feasible, with Ben still being in graduate school, we needed to figure out how we would make ends meet financially with me not working full time anymore. Anyways, a long story short, and Ben's parents have agreed to help us out financially a bit next year so that I can stay home with Samantha and baby number two. I am going to try to make some money by either tutoring or giving piano lessons or watching someone else's kid, but needless to say, I am ECSTATIC! This year has been extremely stressful for us with Ben working really hard on his exams and feeling the pressure of deadlines and things winding down, but being much more critical than classwork. My year has been extremely stressful too with new curriculum, bigger classes, and more behavior problems. Plus, Samantha being a toddler makes our evenings much different than they were a year ago and she was merely laying or sitting on a blanket playing with toys. There would be no way we could bring another baby into the mix and keep up the status quo. Things will be challenging for us, and we will have to keep a very tight budget next year, but the good thing is that it will hopefully be Ben's last year of graduate school and after that, he can get a job being a professor somewhere. I am so grateful for Ben's parents helping us out, and I am so excited to expand our family again sometime next fall, adding a new little brother or sister for Samantha. I am so grateful that I will get to be a stay at home mom. :)
After Samantha woke up from her nap, we went to a local pumpkin patch that also had a petting zoo area. Samantha had a great time wandering around the pumpkin patch and trying to lift up the heavy pumpkins.
Her favorite part, by far, was he animal petting zoo area. She LOVES animals, all shapes and sizes. She was particularly interested in the horses, which seem to be her favorite animal as of late, and the goats because she watched the other kids feed them and also got to try and feed them herself. She seems to have no fear in approaching animals, which hopefully will continue to be a positive thing. Sometimes when their faces get close up to hers she will back away, but she always wants to approach them, whether it be a horse or a dog. When we got to the area with the goats, we scooped up some dropped food off the ground and let Samantha hold it out for the goat. However, she didn't understand the concept of holding her hand out flat for the goat to eat out of it. She wanted to hold the food between her fingers and give it to the goat, but I was afraid the goat would end up biting her if she held it out that way. She thought it was so funny when she felt the goat's tongue and breath on her hand as it ate the food from her. I think Grandma really enjoyed how much Samantha loved the animals in the barn, since she is a farm girl herself.
After picking out her own little pumpkin, we went back outside and one of the employees encouraged us to use a wagon to get around and get a pumpkin. Even though we weren't planning on buying a large pumpkin, we decided Samantha would enjoy a wagon ride. We put her in the wagon and Ben pulled her around as you can see in the video below. However, what the video does not show is Samantha's reaction when she had to get out of the wagon. She loved it so much that she didn't want to stop. She cried and cried so hard when we made her get out of the wagon. Even simple distraction didn't work to calm her down. She definitely showed us that she enjoyed her wagon ride. Hmm...maybe another idea for a Christmas present for Samantha?
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| Yay! Family picture! We learned to do the family picture first next time rather than waiting to the end when we are dragging Samantha away from something fun to do. :) |
We had a very exciting day because later, after dinner, we all went to the IU versus Ohio State football game. It was an 8 o'clock kickoff, so we had a pretty tired girl on our hands, but she did a wonderful job even though it was way past her bedtime. Here is Samantha in the backpack carrier on Daddy. She will usually last the whole first quarter in the carrier before she starts to get antsy and wants to get out and move around. Samantha really enjoys the big scoreboard, all the people around her, and the beginning of the game when the band plays and fireworks go off.
After the first quarter was over, Samantha and I went down to the Knothole Park area for little kids and let her run around in the play area, so that Ben and his parents could enjoy the game without having to wrangle a toddler. We have to be pretty careful because even though the area is only for kids six and under, there are always some bigger kids there. Plus, they are throwing balls back and forth and are not always watching where they are going. After a while, I picked her up and set her on the fence overlooking the field. We were right behind the Ohio State cheerleaders and had a pretty good view of the field. When we go to IU games, we always put Samantha in her little IU cheerleader uniform that we got handed down to us. Needless to say, she is pretty adorable in her uniform, and sitting on the edge of the fence, she attracted a lot of attention from people.
Brutus, the Ohio State Buckeye mascot came into Knothole Park to mingle with the Ohio State fans and pose for pictures. Samantha was intrigued by this person with a buckeye for a head, so we went up to him to check him out. Since his head is so big and he can't see very well, he turned quickly and accidentally knocked into Samantha and knocked her over. He then knelt down quickly to make sure she was okay, and I think this big head in her face kind of scared her and she started crying even more than she was before from just being knocked down. Brutus felt really bad, and I took Samantha away to calm her down. Well, later on, she was sitting on the railing again, and Brutus walked by her. Samantha was again very interested in him. She kept pointing them him and whining like she wanted to see him again. He came up to her and tried to get her to give him a high five. Samantha pulled her hand away and shook her head no. It was hilarious, especially as an exchange between an IU fan and the Ohio State mascot. There was a camera and spokesperson from the Big Ten Network nearby and they witnessed this interaction. They then came up to Brutus and asked him to do that again so they could record it. So they went through the whole interaction again and it appeared that Samantha was on the screen for quite awhile. It still don't know if they ever actually played in on TV or not, but it was hilarious to watch. Samantha was famous again! (Last year when Samantha was little and would fall asleep at the games, the IU cameramen put a shot of sleeping Samantha up on the big screen.) Well, now Samantha really enjoyed the attention she was getting from Brutus, so every time he walked by she tried to get his attention and he would wave to her or come up and tickle her feet. It was great, Samantha was just thrilled with the whole thing, and it is something I will never forget. Through all this, I think we realized that Samantha would rather be an Ohio State fan than an IU fan, and I think her Daddy and Grandma would be okay with that!
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