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.