Samantha: 28 Months, Week 4 {Dress Up, Tea Party, and Zoo Boo}

Back in the middle of September, on a day that it was just Samantha and me, I decided to surprise her and have a tea party.  I had Samantha dress up in her Belle dress (her favorite one), and we had lunch at the coffee table, using her tea kettle, little cups, real plates, and little dishes of finger food.  She LOVED it, even though she was too distracted and excited to really eat any of the food that was out.  It was a lot of fun, but I forgot to add it to my blog last month.  Here is a cute picture from that day.  I sent it to Daddy, and he was sad that he missed the tea party.

Samantha has really taken to her blankie and blanket lately, which will come up again in next week's post as not such a good thing, but this week, she has enjoyed bringing it downstairs and curling up underneath it while laying on the rug by the patio door.  She does look pretty comfortable!

This week was a pretty average week, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Daddy was feeling pretty good, and Samantha and I followed our normal weekly schedule.  I think she really enjoys having Sadie come over on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  She loves to bring her toys, talk to her, and hold her.  These pictures are sort of old, but they are too cute not to include.  I think Samantha will enjoy being a big sister full time come April.

Whenever the weather is nice, we like to go on family walks together.  On this particular walk, Samantha wanted to bring her dog along, which sometimes is named Bowie and sometimes is named Bella, it just depends on the day.  The only problem with the dog coming with us on walks is that Samantha gets tired of pulling it about halfway through the walk and will just leave it on the sidewalk.  However, our rule is that she has to either pull it or carry it, and sometimes that becomes a bit of a problem.

We have started letting Samantha dress up in her princess clothes when she goes poo poo in the potty, mostly as an incentive for her to go in the potty rather than in her pull up at nap time or bed time.  Monday night was one of those nights where she got to play dress up, and she was pretty excited.

And this is the princess song that she sings every time she dances like a princess.

Of course, Samantha had to dance with her Daddy, it's just the way it has to be.  Whenever she sees the Disney princesses dancing, or listens to a song of them dancing, she will ask, "Where's her Daddy?  Is she dancing with her Daddy?"

Wednesdays are our BSF days, and I don't know why, but this was the third week in a row that Samantha didn't take a nap on a Wednesday.  I don't know if she gets overstimulated by all the attention she gets in her class or what, but she will not sleep, even though she is tired and desperately needs sleep.  Needless to say, we were very happy to see Daddy when he got home for the day.  (She ran out to say hello to him and then decided to pretend like she was driving his car.)

Thursday morning was another meeting of Mom's REST Stop, which is always a wonderful place to go.  It's fun to have a morning away with other moms, and Samantha always has a great time playing with other kids.  However, we had something else interesting happen on this day.  When Ben was walking Roscoe in the morning, a cat started following them and Roscoe could have cared less.  The cat followed them all the way home.  Then, for most of the rest of the morning, that cat sat outside our door meowing.  When Samantha and I got home from church, we couldn't get in the door because that cat was ready to run right in the house with us.  It seemed like a nice enough cat, and we were sure it belonged to someone and that it wasn't just a stray.  Ben called the offices of our apartment complex and the apartment complex next to ours to be sure no one had reported a lost cat.  Nothing came up, so I decided to take it to the animal shelter so that it could be cared for and fed.  I got Roscoe's kennel and brought it outside, and the cat walked right in and laid down.  It did not act nervous or scared at all.  Samantha went with me to the animal shelter and was very concerned about the kitty, wondering why it was lost and why it left its home.  It turned out that the cat had a microchip and was just adopted back in August, but the people who adopted it live on the opposite side of town from us, so who knows how it ended up near our house.  Hopefully its owners will come claim it or some other nice family will adopt this friendly little cat.  If I wasn't allergic and we didn't already have Roscoe (who is not a fan of cats), we may have considered taking it ourselves.

Our local recycling center has a place where you can give things away that you no longer want or need, and Samantha loves looking through there when we go to the recycling center together.  She has found a baby doll, some toy polar bears and house, and now this time she really scored big.  A little old man came up to us right when we were about to leave and asked Samantha if she wanted any of the toys in his bag.  He had a whole bag of little girl toys.  Samantha immediately went for a drawing board with princesses on it and a giant tea pot with cups and plates with pictures of Belle from Beauty and the Beast.  I was hoping we'd leave there with no toys this time, but instead we left with several things because we just couldn't resist the generosity of this little old man.  Maybe next time Samantha will have to bring a toy to donate to the recycling center if she wants to get a toy.  We have so many toys, we don't need any more!  Anyways, here is Samantha enjoying her "new" tea party set once she woke up from her nap.  I guess free is better than whatever you would have to pay for something like this brand new!

Thursday night, just before bedtime, Grandma Toll arrived at our house to help watch Samantha the next morning while I took Ben to get his colonoscopy.  Samantha was so excited to have Grandma staying with us and couldn't wait to play with her.  They did a lot of playing both inside and outside that morning.

Ben's colonoscopy went well.  We were just glad to get to this point to hopefully get some answers about what has been causing him so much pain lately.  Unfortunately, the doctor said that more of his colon was affected than he hoped, which means that surgery would be more difficult.  In order to remove all the affected parts, the doctor said he would have to remove half to a third of his colon, which is not ideal and a much more invasive surgery.  So, for right now, we are just going to wait and see if he gets another diverticulitis attack.  If he does, then surgery will become more viable again.  We will just continue to pray that maybe his bout with diverticulitis is over, and that maybe he will never have another attack again.  That would be wonderful!

After several weeks of a low fiber diet, Ben's doctor gave him the go ahead to resume his normal diet and go back to eating foods that are high in fiber.  After resting most of the day and allowing the sedation to wear off, Ben was craving one of our old standbys, Mother Bear's pizza.  So we went out for dinner as a family that night and then walked around campus, looking at the fountain and strolling along downtown.

This pregnancy has not treated me well in the category of sleep.  I normally sleep straight through the night without waking up once.  However, now I wake up multiple times throughout the night because I am uncomfortable, because I need to turn over, or because I wake up on my back and have to turn back over on my side.  I think this waking up multiple times a night is really taking its toll on me and is causing me to be so tired all the time.  I think it's more than just a first trimester symptom at this point.  So, Ben being the great husband that he is, got up with Samantha on Saturday morning so that I could sleep in.  It was wonderful and made me feel so much better.  Here's what they were doing while I was sleeping in.

After breakfast on Saturday, we decided to go to the Zoo Boo at the Indianapolis Zoo.  We went to Kroger and bought some sandwiches for a picnic lunch and headed to Indianapolis.  Since the zoo is all decorated for Halloween, the kids are encouraged to dress up as well.  Samantha, of course, chose to wear her Belle dress.  She thought it was pretty awesome that she got to wear her princess dress at the zoo, and she really enjoyed seeing all the other kids dressed up, too, especially those dressed as princesses like her.

This picture below is when we were waiting for Samantha's turn in the bounce house.  They had several special Halloween activities like pumpkin bowling, trick or treating in the Plains area, the carousel going backwards, and a special themed train ride.  Samantha had a wonderful time, and the weather was perfect for a day at the zoo.

I think it's funny that she chose to ride the tiger because right now it is one of her favorite animals at the zoo.  It has been so active the last couple of times we have gone to the zoo, and Samantha loves to watch it walk around really close to the glass.  If you ask her what her favorite animal at the zoo is, she will say, "Tiger."  If you ask her why it's her favorite, she'll say, "It's my favorite because it's my favorite!" 

We stayed fairly late into the afternoon.  I think it was after three o'clock when we left the zoo.  We had done everything we wanted to do, and Samantha was getting tired.  Once again, she took a nice nap for us in the car on our car ride home.

And here is our little girl checking out some berries on a tree outside of church.  I don't think we'll have too many more days where she can wear a sleeveless dress and sandals to church.  We had a great family weekend together.  I am always sad to see weekends end because that means Daddy goes back to work.  I am such a quality time person, that I like to soak up as much family time as I can get. :)