Samantha: 24 Months, Week 4

This past week was my first full week at home with Samantha.  We had a great time together.  It's amazing how much more time I have on my hands, how much more relaxed I am, and how many more precious snuggles, hugs, and kisses I get from my little girl.

On Monday, I decided to go to school and get my bean bags and some Christmas lights to make Samantha a little reading corner in our extra bedroom.  I nailed an old sheet into the wall and draped it over a bookshelf, stringing the Christmas lights in and out of the sheet, creating a little fort/cave for Samantha to lay in and read books.  She was SO excited about it.  We spent the rest of the morning playing in it and reading in it.  Even while I fixed lunch, she stayed upstairs and played in her reading corner.  When Daddy got home, it was the first thing she wanted to show him, and then they spent quite some time reading together.

On Tuesday we ran a few errands and were going to go to an open gym at a gymnastics place, but it ended up being closed, so we went back home and played outside instead.  I pumped air into the tires of my bike, hooked on her bike seat, and we went for a ride around our apartment complex.  Samantha kept shouting, "Go really fast!"  After we were done, she asked, "Go again sometime?"

When we got back to our home and were just playing outside, we got a call from our friend Michelle saying that we could come over to visit her new baby, Sadie.  Samantha has been so excited to meet baby Sadie and is really looking forward to when she is going to come to our house on Mondays and Tuesdays, and we get to care for her and play with her.  I was very clear with Samantha before we left that she was not to touch the baby because she's too little and will be sleeping.  We brought our lunch with us and went over to see the new baby.  Samantha did a really good job not touching Sadie, but instead wanted to touch all of her stuff, her swing, her car seat, her teddy bear.  We finally settled on it being okay for her to put her dolls in the car seat, but she wasn't allowed to touch the baby swing any more because she was being a little rough with it.  However, Samantha is definitely in the two year old "testing" phase of development.  When we tell her not to do something, she will go and do it, slowly and looking right at us, checking to see if we will follow through.  On this day, she went toward the swing and gently touched it again, while looking right at me.  So, I scooped Samantha up and set her down in the hallway for a time out.  It's amazing how it seems like she is wanting us to follow through, just waiting to see what we will do, and I think this makes her feel more secure.  She knows her boundaries and knows how we expect her to behave.  Not that she obeys perfectly all the time, for that would be impossible for a two year old, but I am pretty proud of her behavior and attitude so far.

On Wednesday we met some church friends at our favorite park for play time in the morning.  Samantha was busy running around and playing on the playground.  There was even one point where she came over and just sat on my lap for quite some time because all the playing tired her out.  That evening, Daddy, Samantha, and I decided to make our first trip to our local pool.  We were excited to see how Samantha would like the toddler wading pool area because when we took her here last year she wasn't as sure on her feet and was a little nervous walking into the deep end.  Well now that she is three feet tall, she had no problem getting around the pool.  Like she normally does in new situations, she stood back and observed, just walking around the outside of the water.  Then, she started venturing in, playing with the water spouts, and walking under the waterfalls.  She was so tired when we got home that she fell right asleep when we laid her down.  Lately, she has been talking in her bed for twenty minutes or so after we lay her down, but today, after playing at the park all morning and playing at the pool all evening, she was one tired toddler.

Thursday afternoon when Samantha woke up from her nap, we headed off to the library for a special show, a man who was a juggler and ventriloquist.  Daddy met us at the library to go to the show with us.  We got our seats in the front section of the library auditorium, and Samantha seemed to be overwhelmed with all the kids and noise around her.  She just sat on Daddy's lap and sucked on her fingers (this is a nervous habit that has started lately).  The show was about forty-five minutes long, and Samantha sat still, sucking her fingers, through the whole thing.  When we looked at her it almost was like she was in another world, we weren't sure if she was enjoying it or not.  But then later on that night, she said, "Juggling, like this," and she would move her hands up and down like she was juggling. She also mentioned about the times he dropped his balls on the floor while juggling, so apparently she was paying attention and enjoyed it, with how much she was talking about it afterwards.  It's always interesting to see how Samantha takes in new experiences.

Since Samantha enjoyed our last Indians game so much, we decided to go on a little family trip this weekend.  We planned a trip to Indianapolis for another baseball game on Friday night since they have fireworks after the game, and we thought Samantha would enjoy the fireworks.  We booked a hotel for the night with our credit card points that was within walking distance of the stadium and planned to go to the zoo on Saturday.  

Once Samantha woke up from her nap on Friday, we hit the road and Samantha was so excited to go on our family trip that the hour long drive up to Indianapolis was almost too much for her.  We checked into our hotel and decided to go swimming for a little while before heading to the game.  Samantha enjoyed the hotel pool but didn't want to stay in for very long because she just wanted to get to the baseball game.  (I think Daddy is pretty excited to have another baseball fan in the house.)  We got lawn seats, found our spot on the lawn, and enjoyed our picnic dinner.  Samantha enjoyed the game (even though she wasn't paying much attention to the actual game), made a new friend out of the girl sitting next to us, and really enjoyed the fireworks, too.  Samantha was sitting in my lap when the fireworks started, and she started shaking a little bit when the fireworks first began.  But once she realized what they would be like, she relaxed and enjoyed the flashing lights.

We didn't head back to our hotel that night until around 10:30.  Luckily, it was just a short walk down the road.  We got Samantha ready for bed and she was asleep by 11:00, which is WAY past her normal bedtime.  We were a little worried about how she would fall asleep knowing that we are laying in bed right in the same room as her, but it didn't seem to bother her at all.  I'm sure she was tired enough that she couldn't help but fall asleep.  We were just hoping that she would sleep in on Saturday morning so that we could have a good day at the zoo.

Daddy and Mommy woke up around 8:30 to find Samantha still fast asleep.  We decided to get up, sneak past her pack and play, and start taking showers and get ready for the day.  Even through all that, she didn't wake up until around 9:15, and we were so glad that she got some good sleep.  After some breakfast in the lobby, we headed off to the zoo.  Samantha was so excited to get to the zoo and see animals, particularly a bear because of the book Never, Ever Shout in a Zoo, one of her all-time favorite books where a girl drops her ice cream cone, shouts, and starts a chain reaction of waking up animals that come out of their cages.  We saw a dog show, a dolphin show, and walked around and saw most of the animals at the zoo.

I think the highlights of the day were seeing the dolphins swimming around the water, trying to pet the shark, and watching the penguins swim around their tank.

We left the zoo around two, I read a couple books to her after we cooled off in the air conditioning, and we asked Samantha to close her eyes and try to take a nap while we were on the way home.  She was tuckered out from her family trip and fell asleep pretty quickly.  She looked pretty comfy back there in car seat.

Saturday night is bath night at our house (she should at least be clean for church, right?).  We took a cute video of Samantha in the bath washing herself, rubbing the washcloth on the parts of her body that I called out to her.

And, to wrap up our weekend of family fun, we went to the splash pad on Sunday night.  This picture below is our girl, extremely excited to be riding in the car in her bathing suit. She loves playing in the water.

I took Samantha to the splash pad a couple of times last year, but she wasn't as confident on her feet since she was just learning how to walk.  It's hard to believe that a year ago she was learning how to walk, and now look at our big girl, jumping and running around, seemingly without fear or apprehension of new, unfamiliar situations.

I've been liking to post comparison pictures lately, when Samantha is doing similar activities as when she was younger.  Well, here is another one.

This is Samantha on June 25th last year at the splash pad.

This is Samantha on June 9th this year at the splash pad, playing with the same water fountain.  What a difference a year makes!

Summer has already brought on so many fun experiences with my little girl.  Each day is such a precious gift to me.  Two year olds are challenging, but so fun.  I love to watch Samantha's personality develop, to hear the things she wants to talk about, the way she participates in imaginative play with her dolls and ponies, the way she'll pull on my shirt until I sit down next to her and play with her, and how, when I tell her, "Let me know if you need me," she'll call out, "I need me, Mommy!"  Precious summertime days with my precious daughter, my gift from God.