Samantha: 20 Months, Week 2

Well, the biggest news of this week is that I found out that I am pregnant!  I took a pregnancy test on Tuesday morning, and it was positive.  I went in our bedroom and snatched up Ben's iPhone to take a picture of the pregnancy test, then I snuck back in the room to wake him up by showing him the picture on his phone.  I had felt like I was pregnant for a couple weeks prior to this and had taken a couple other pregnancy tests, but it was too early, and they all came out negative. However, I was feeling bloated and my sense of smell was heightened.  I also could have sworn that I felt some fluttering in my lower stomach area although you don't normally feel any movement this early even though they are moving like crazy, but just are too small to feel.  We are so very glad that the test came out positive, and it's funny, because once again, we got pregnant the first month we tried.  It's a good thing I took birth control religiously for the first five years of our marriage!

The next morning I took another test just to be sure, and it also came out positive.  It's always nice to have your feelings confirmed, and I was so hoping and praying for another baby.  Samantha will be a wonderful big sister, and we are ready (as ready as we can ever be) to expand our family to a family of four. :)

Here are some random, cute pictures of Samantha in the tub while Mommy was out at her exercise class at church.

Ben and I were trying to decide how we were going to let everyone know about us expecting another baby.  We had some hand me down clothes that said "My Brother Did It" which we thought would be funny to use if we could add the word sister on it as well.  So, we made our own little signs for Samantha and taped one on her shirt and gave one for her to hold.  We figured we'd take some pictures with the shirt and some with the sign, put them in a little picture folder on the computer for my parents, and let them look through the pictures, having the ones announcing Samantha as a big sister as the last ones.  Here is what we came up with:

Samantha has no idea what we're talking about when we say that Mommy has a baby in her tummy, but she likes trying to lift up my shirt and say hi to the baby.  I think she thinks the baby is in my belly button.  :)

Over the weekend my parents came to visit.  They actually came on Thursday night and watched Samantha on Friday so that Ben could go to school and get some work done.  They enjoyed spending time with her and taking her to the Banneker Center.  On Friday night we went for pizza at one of Samantha's favorite restaurants, Mother Bear's, and we had a good time eating together.  On Saturday night we used a coupon I had for a little indoor play place called Jumpin' Joeys.  They have several large inflatables for kids to climb around on and jump in.  They had one particularly for toddlers and younger, but Samantha wasn't too interested in that one.  At first, she was unwilling to even go in.  Samantha wanted to go in all the big kids ones, so I took her in a couple of them and we went through it together.  She had a good time, but I think she was a little too young for it, and we probably wouldn't go back until she gets quite a bit older.  It's always fun to try new things though!  Samantha always has a good time when visitors come over to her house.  She is definitely a people person.  I think it tires us out more than her.

Samantha: 20 Months, Week 1

This week's post is going to be pretty short because it really was just a normal week.  We went to work, played with Samantha in the evening, and had a good time being a family together.  Samantha turned twenty months old, which is really strange.  Only a few more months until she's two.  Sometimes I look at her and can't believe how big she is.  She seems so tall and so grown up sometimes that it just blows my mind.  All those people that tell you kids grow up so fast are definitely right.  Time just seems to fly by.

Here's a cute video of Samantha's new word: helicopter.  She has a Thomas the Train book that has a picture of a helicopter and this is her attempt at saying that word.  It's pretty cute, so we had to get it on camera.

The other exciting event of the week was Daddy and Mommy going on a date night together.  One of my students at school gave me a Christmas present of free babysitting, along with a restaurant and movie theater gift card.  We decided to take them up on their suggestion and made plans to see Les Miserables and go to Sweet Grass to eat.  The family followed me home from school on Friday, and Samantha was actually still napping.  We decided to let her sleep because she is much happier when she wakes up on her own.  Even though Samantha didn't know who the people were that were watching her, she didn't mind at all.  Samantha enjoyed playing with the family as they had two kids, a girl in third grade and a boy in fifth grade.  She ate a good dinner and loved every minute of her evening.  They even had the house all picked up when we got home!  We were so grateful for their willingness to watch Samantha for us.  Out date night was great fun and was much needed.  Samantha talked about that family for the next week after, that's how much fun she had with her new friends.  Maybe we'll have to have them come back again sometime soon!

Samantha: 19 Months, Week 4

This week was a sad one for Mommy because I had to go back to work.  It was WONDERFUL having two weeks off to be with Samantha.  I miss her even more after spending long amounts of time with her.  It really makes me look forward to the summer and next year when I don't have to work and get to stay home with my little girl, and be a stay at home mom and wife.  Ben was really kind to me though, knowing that it would be a difficult day for me.  He took this adorable video of Samantha eating breakfast, attempting to say, "I love you Mommy."  He then sent it to me at school so that I could see that my little girl was thinking about me and missed me too.  What a sweet, thoughtful husband I have!

This week progressed like normal, getting back into the swing of things, getting used to getting up early again, and no longer having much or any free time.  Samantha had a good week playing with her friends and the two week break didn't seem to make any difference to her.  We are so glad that we have such an easygoing, flexible little girl.

On Friday, which is Ben's day to take care of Samantha, he took her to the Banneker Center again.  Samantha LOVES this place, especially the little cars you can ride around in.  However, one time, there was another boy in the car and Samantha went up to him and said, "out."  Daddy stepped in at that point and told her no, that she couldn't do that, and Samantha got upset at him for telling her no.  Daddy put her in a time out, having her sit down in a chair, even in the midst of all the kids playing.  Samantha is such a compliant girl that she sat there quietly until Daddy told her it was okay to get up and play, just as long as she didn't try to take toys away from any kids.  The time out system seems to work pretty well with Samantha.  We don't use it very often because we can also redirect her pretty easily to ward off any tantrums or negative behavior, but when we do use it, she seems to get the point.  For example, with hitting, we started giving her time outs when she would hit or kick someone and she hardly ever does that anymore.  Hopefully discipline is always this easy with her.  :)

Later that evening, we took a trip up to Indianapolis to having dinner with Grandma and Grandpa Toll.  We ate at Jason's Deli and then walked around the mall for a little while.  Samantha loved going into the Disney Store, seeing all the dolls, stuffed animals, and dress up clothes.  On the way to Indy in the car I was drawing and writing things on her Magna Doodle.  I was drawing shapes and had her identify them for me, and then I wrote, Samantha Loves Mommy and handed it to her.  Well, this is what she did to the board.  Is that what she thinks about loving Mommy? :)

On Sunday, Ben and I decided we needed a chocolate fix, and we let Samantha in on it.  She helped Daddy mix up the cake, as she is still very fascinated with the mixer. 

 It was very hard for Samantha to wait for them to bake and then to cool enough to frost them.  We let Samantha have her cupcake before she went to bed, even though it wasn't quite cool enough yet.  She loves chocolate!  I don't even need to describe how much she loves it, you can just watch the video below.

Here is Samantha all dressed up for church on Sunday.  This was a cute little hand me down dress that looked adorable on her.  She loves wearing dresses for church.

Samantha: 19 Months, Week 3

We left Chicago on December 31st to come back home to Bloomington.  Samantha was still pretty sick with a runny nose and pretty bad cough.  She was very tired from being away from home for so long and not sleeping as well because of her cough.  We actually ended up just sleeping out in the living room on our air mattress at my grandma's house so that we wouldn't disturb Samantha's sleep.  The first night we tried sleeping with her, but when we laid down on the air mattress we woke her up because of the squeaking rubber sound.  Especially with her not feeling very well, we wanted her to get the best sleep possible.  Here are some pictures of Samantha on the morning we left, sitting next to a giant Winnie the Pooh animal.

That night, once we finally got back home, we decided to just pick up dinner from Chipotle, Samantha's favorite dinner.  You can see her tiredness in her eyes, such big bags.  However, she did really enjoy her cheese quesadilla, rice, beans, and chocolate milk.  What a great kids' meal!

We were so glad to be back home again in our own beds.  When I laid Samantha down that night, she looked around her crib and sighed a huge contented sigh of relief.  It was adorable.

Samantha had a great night sleep and actually took an earlier nap the next morning because we had plans to go to the Indianapolis Auto Show, as a Christmas present to Ben's dad.  Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Timmy all met us at the car show.  Samantha really enjoyed herself (way more than her mommy who isn't too fond of looking at cars).  She wanting to get in every car, sit in the driver's seat, and have me close the door.  I think she enjoyed pretending like she was an adult.  When she's sixteen, she will enjoy these pictures. :)

After having our fill of the Auto Show, we went out to eat at The Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant.  Samantha was still not feeling up to par and was definitely not acting like herself.  She wouldn't eat hardly anything and was pretty fussy, which is very unlike her, especially when we are surrounded by people she can talk to.  We hoped that she would go to sleep on the ride home, but that was not the case. Ben ended up crawling in the back to sit with her and entertain her as we drove the hour home.  We felt bad dragging her out after we had just gotten back from our week and half long trip.  Looking back, Samantha and I probably should have just stayed home and rested.

The next day, we spent the day putting together and taking apart pieces of furniture.  We bought a new crib/changing table that changes into a toddler bed from our dear friends, so we had to take apart Samantha's changing table and crib to allow space for her new bed.  We also had to put together the little wooden table that was given to Samantha for Christmas from Uncle Timmy.  It took awhile to get her room all situated, but it looked great when we were finished.  Her room was transformed from a little baby's nursery to a toddler's room.  Samantha really enjoyed it, had no problem sleeping in her new crib (even though it was still the same mattress), and really enjoyed her new Dora hopscotch play mat.

Here is Samantha sporting her "new" hand me down clothes that she picked out of the bag herself.  Don't you like her fashion sense?  Her sweater has Minnie Mouse on it, which is pretty awesome in Samantha's world.  The picture below is Samantha listening to Ema and Papa read her the book "Good Night Moon."  It is one of the record-able books, and they took turns reading pages out loud.  At the end, they say, "Good night, Samantha.  We love you very much."  Samantha LOVES it.  She wanted to listen to it every time she took a nap or went to bed for almost the entire next week.

Also, just to round out this crazy day of house cleaning, rearranging, and reorganizing, Ben's college friend, Andy came to stay with us for the night.  Samantha was already in bed when he arrived, but we waited and ate dinner with him, playing a game afterwards, and having a good time talking about the past and looking forward to the future.  Samantha was very excited the next morning when she awoke to find a new friend to play with.  She instantly attached herself to him and even learned how to say his name.  We went out to Scholar's Inn Bakehouse for lunch, to which he treated us, which was greatly appreciated.  Samantha did a wonderful job in the restaurant eating her mac and cheese and stealing all of my pickles and pretzels.  Andy hit the road after lunch, but Samantha still talks about him to this day.  She'll ask, "Andy?" and we'll say, "He's in Iowa."

Here's our little girl bundled up to go outside in the cold weather and over a foot of snow that still remained on the ground from the storm the day after Christmas.  Do you see Dora on her shoulder?  That was my attempt to try and get her to smile for the camera.  My attempts were unsuccessful, as you can see.

On Thursday we went out to run a couple of errands in the evening, stopped by my school to see the Narnia decorations, and something very strange happened on the way home.  Samantha just started crying in the car, not just a tired, whiny cry.  She also began holding her ear.  She hadn't shown any signs all day of not feeling well and hadn't been indicating any ear pain, so we at first didn't think anything of it.  However, once we got home and tried to distract her with playing, she continued to just stop, hold her ear, and cry.  This is very unlike her and even though the symptoms seem to have just started, I decided to call the doctor to see if it sounded like she had an ear infection (since she had never experienced one of these before) and see if she could get into the doctor any time soon.  They suggested that we give her some ibuprofen for the pain, which seemed to help a lot, and luckily they had an opening at 7:45 that same night.  We took her to the doctor, and  they confirmed that she had an ear infection in both ears.  Samantha got her first prescription, amoxicillin, that she had to take twice a day for ten days.

While we were waiting at Kroger for her prescription to be filled, she got to ride around the store in the little car, which she has never done before.  Needless to say, for a girl who had a double ear infection, she was having a pretty good time riding in the car.

Even that night when we got back home and it was after nine o'clock, Samantha seemed to instantaneously feel better.  She loved the flavor of the pink medicine and especially liked the fact that she was allowed to eat pretzels afterwards since she shouldn't have the medicine on an empty stomach.  We were so glad that an antibiotic could make her feel better so quickly.  We continued giving her some ibuprofen at bedtime for a couple nights just to help her sleep better and take away any lingering pain, but she seemed to be on the mend very quickly.

Every once in awhile Samantha will pick her own clothes out of a basket of clean laundry.  On this day, she had just woken up and was still wearing her pajamas when she found some pink kitty pajamas that she wanted me to put on over her pajamas, and then a little pink summer shirt that she wanted me to put on top of that.  She was pretty proud of her style.

With all the new toys she got for Christmas, I decided we needed a new storage area to keep everything.  The three baskets on this shelf were previously used underneath Samantha's changing table, but since we took that down, I had to find a new use for these handy baskets.  While Samantha was taking a nap, I took a trip to Good Will looking for a shelf and found the perfect one.  The baskets fit just right on the shelf, leaving space for other containers that hold her other little toys like her cars, little people, and blocks.  The shelf only cost us $6 so I think it was worth the investment to get all the toys off the floor in an organized, easy to reach place.

It was nice to finally be back home, all settled in, and back in our old routine.  Samantha enjoyed going to church and looked pretty cute in her new dress that I got at Once Upon a Child.  That monkey that Samantha is sitting next to was Ben's when he was little.  Samantha loves it and gives it great big hugs.