Samantha: 21 Months, Week 3

This week we continued to unpack our belongings and get everything situated and organized how we like it in our new apartment.  I discovered that I can't quite relax when my house is in a state of disarray, much to Ben's chagrin sometimes.  We were pretty tired and just wanted to be done and settled. The upside was that we were coming up on Spring Break, and I could not wait to start our week off and to spend our time in Washington D.C., just Ben and me.

Here is Samantha reading to her monkey and penguin.  I think she likes having an audience.  :)

We also were blessed with a surprise snow day this week, so I got to stay home with my little girl.  Oh, how I love these little snippets of time where I get to spend time with our crazy, little toddler.  We had fun hanging out at home, enjoying our new apartment, and coloring with penguin and monkey.

Friday after school we got on the road with all our belongings.  Ben and I packed in two small carry on bags, and we brought TONS of stuff for Samantha, just to make sure we covered all our bases and gave Papa and Ema anything they might need to take care of Samantha while we were gone.  I normally end my blog on Sunday and that's how I delineate her weeks.  However, this blog I am going to extend all the way to Tuesday, March 12th since that is when we got back from our trip to D.C. and Samantha's vacation with Ema and Papa ended.  Also, I will start with stories and pictures from our trip to D.C. and then tell of Samantha's time away from us, since this blog is mainly about her.

Ben and I got a really good price on airline tickets out of Dayton, Ohio, to Baltimore.  We flew out in the afternoon on Saturday, leaving from Upland in the morning after we all got up and ready for the day.  It was a bit weird leaving without Samantha, especially leaving in the car and not having to deal with a toddler to entertain in the backseat.  I have been feeling a little bit nauseous in the car lately, and felt pretty tired, so I actually took a bit of a nap on our drive out to the airport.  (I know, what an exciting start of the trip for Ben.)    Our trip there was rather uneventful, and once at the airport in Baltimore, my friend picked us up and we went to Panera to catch up for a little while.  She then did a wonderful thing for us and drove us all the way to the metro station that would take us downtown by our hotel.  We got a little confused trying to get out of the station, but eventually found our way to our hotel and checked in, before meeting Ben's friend at a local church and then back to their house for dinner.  We were pretty tired after our long day of traveling and were glad to get back to our hotel for the evening.  It was in the evenings when it was most particularly weird without Samantha.  We got back to the hotel and thought to ourselves, now what do we do?  We have all this time to ourselves, so strange.

This was the view from outside our hotel building on the night we arrived.  Pretty cool.

The next day we went out and walked along the National Mall for awhile and made our way over to the National Museum of American History, eating lunch there before heading over to the Holocaust Museum.  We spent the next few hours walking around the museum.  It is obviously very solemn and not too uplifting, but it is very well done and informative.  We walked along the Mall back to the National Air and Space Museum while we were waiting to hear from Ema and Papa about doing Facetime with Samantha to see how she was doing.  Talking to our little girl on the phone was really good.  It was clear that she was having a great time and was not at all distraught about us not being around.  She talked about us and asked about us quite a bit, but was not overly sad and continued on in her normal Samantha ways.  That evening Ben and I went out and got pizza and gelato for dinner, and then took a nice walk around the National Mall, looking at many of the monuments and having great conversation.  Adult conversation is hard to come by when you have a toddler, especially Samantha, because she demands a lot of attention and interaction.  She much prefers us to talk to her instead of each other.

The next day, Monday, we had a tour scheduled for for the U.S Capitol building through our local Congressman.  We had a great time touring the building, Ben was like a kid in a candy shop, and we even got to go down on the House floor, something that most people don't get to do.  

After that we switched our luggage to the other hotel, The Willard, relaxing for a little while in the hotel before heading to the Art Museum.  Here are some beautiful cherry blossom trees that we passed on the way over to our hotel, The Willard Intercontinental.

The following pictures are from The Willard Hotel, of the lobby/reception area, plus our room, which would have cost us about $1,000 per night if we had not used our free night for this stay.  We certainly felt out of place in the this hotel full of business men/women and upper class people.

After our rest in the hotel, we went to the Art Museum, which was a beautiful building in and of itself, especially the open area with all the flowers and the domed ceiling.

At this point, I was very tired.  We had walked everywhere over the last two days.  My legs and feet were very sore and I honestly didn't think that I could walk anymore.  We still had some monuments we wanted to go see, so we decided to rent bicycles and ride around the tidal basin to see the Jefferson Memorial and the new MLK Memorial, which I'd never seen before.  We had a great time riding our bikes, and it was much more relaxing than walking all that way.  

We had perfect weather for our trip as well.  It was in the low to mid 60s the whole time we were there with no rain until the last day when we were heading out on the train.  I have to admit, I was rather sad to see our vacation ending.  It was almost like we went on a second honeymoon and even though I thoroughly enjoy my time with Samantha and being together as a family, it was refreshing and rejuvenating getting to spend time with Ben alone, with no other distractions.  I believe it was just what our marriage and our relationship needed, especially looking back as I now write this blog entry.

Here is Samantha and Papa hanging out on the day we came back after our trip.  It took her a long time to even realize we were standing there.  It was almost like she couldn't believe we were in the same room.  She seemed shocked, but excited, and didn't want to leave our sides the rest of the night.

Now, for Samantha's time on her vacation sleeping over at Papa and Ema's house, I decided to let them tell the story for us.  These are Papa's words, but first of all, here are some cute pictures of Samantha from the Friday we got to Upland.  They had a bag of dress up clothes for Samantha to pick out dresses to take up to Alaina's house the next day.  Well, we found some Minnie Mouse ears in the bag and just had to try them on.  I let Samantha go into the bathroom and stood her up on the counter so she could see herself in the mirror.  I think she thought she was pretty cute wearing the ears.

Anyways, back to Papa's description of Samantha's first time away from Mommy and Daddy.

Papa and Ema had the privilege of watching Samantha for 4 days while Ben and Jenny were away in Washington DC.  I (Papa) took two vacation days so I had a lot of one-on-one time with her.

There were 3 phrases I heard over and over.   She spent a lot of time playing with blocks so I heard “build a tower” many times.  As would be the case with any almost two year old, every time I also heard “known it down”.  She is very good at building towers.  She is even better at knocking them down.

The other sentence is a good one to hear from someone who is becoming more independent and wanting to do things on her own – “I will do it”.

What I enjoyed most hearing from Samantha was simply ”Papa”.  We spent so much time playing, rolling on the floor, etc. that we became “close” – whatever that means for an almost two year old.  What I enjoyed about “Papa” is the way she said it – Papa had a possessive sound to me; so that I was her Papa.  I like that.

She is just simply a “cool dude”

Ema and Papa took Samatha to Warsaw to see Aunt Jeni, Uncle Andrew, and cousin Alaina.  Samantha and Alaina have been aware of each other, know the other’s name, talk about each other, and can recognize the other’s picture.  But this time they were together they interacted with each other much more.  They played peek-a-boo in a tunnel toy, dressed up in princess dresses together, and really communicated while jumping in Alaina’s bed.

We encouraged the girls to give each other a hug and kiss before we left Alaina’s house.  In their own way they expressed love for each other.  This picture is precious.