Samantha: 32 Months, Week 2 {Disney on Ice and Grandparents Visiting}

This week started off pretty normally with Daddy going off to campus, and Samantha and I falling into our normal weekly routine.  Mondays we have gymnastics, Tuesdays we have Sadie and usually go to the library for story time, and on Wednesdays we have Sadie and go to BSF.

Samantha has enjoyed being creative in playing with her toys.  Over the weekend, I had pulled out some of Daddy's sports memorabilia to use when we decorate Aedan's room, this small football helmet being one object I found.  She searched all morning trying to find a toy whose head would be small enough to fit inside the helmet, and we finally decided this little doll would work.  Naturally, after the doll had her football helmet on, it was time for her to take a ride in the swing. 

Well, this week we had something extra special planned for Samantha.  A while back we purchased tickets for Disney on Ice in Indianapolis.  That was on the schedule for Wednesday night at 7:00 pm, but we didn't really tell her about it ahead of time.  We wanted it to be a surprise for her.  On Tuesday night we busted out her bag of dress up princess clothes, just to make sure one would still fit her.  She chose the Belle dress, which I figured she would choose.  She was excited to just try it on again, without even mentioning what the dress would be for.

In the picture above, Samantha is still wearing her pajamas, even though it is the evening because she actually ended up taking a nap that afternoon in her big girl bed.  At first, she was doing what is normal for her over the last week.  It seems like now that she knows she can get up to play with toys, she doesn't even care to pretend to try to sleep.  I went in her room once because she was crying, to discover that she had broken the zipper on her pajamas.  So, I changed her pajamas and told her that I wanted her to nap.  She said, "No, I want to play with all the toys around my room."  I even remarked to Ben in a text message, "Who knows, I guess she'll never let herself fall asleep in her big girl bed."  Then, just fifteen minutes or so later, I no longer heard much noise in her room, so before I went downstairs to feed Sadie her baby food, I peeked into Samantha's room, our eyes met, but she had tucked herself back into bed.  A few minutes later, I just had to sneak back into her room to get a picture of her.  She must have been tired and decided it was worth it to sleep.  She makes me smile.  I wish she would have just fallen asleep right away, but I was relieved to see that maybe she would indeed choose to sleep if she felt like her body really needed it.

Wednesday was a fairly normal day, but Samantha was pretty emotional most of the day, crying for really no apparent reason.  Ben and I really hoped that she would take a nap that afternoon since we had plans to go to Disney on Ice and were going to be out late that night; however, that did not happen again.  It was a bit crazy that afternoon getting both Samantha and Sadie ready to go.  Neither one was being very helpful or cooperative, making it difficult to get out the door.  Both girls were crying when we left, and I was pretty close to crying myself.  I was supposed to have dropped Sadie off at 4:30 that evening, but we didn't even leave the house until 4:30.  I always get so frustrated with myself when I try so hard to get ready and leave somewhere on time, but it seems like no matter how hard I try, I just don't account for kids that don't listen as well as I would like, or really how long everything will take to accomplish.

Anyways, we finally made it out the door, dropped Sadie off with Michelle, and then were on our way to Indianapolis.  We were going to try and go to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner, but since I got us out late and we hit some traffic, we didn't have time for a sit down dinner like that.  We ended up just going straight to where we would park and got a quick dinner at Arby's before walking the couple blocks to the arena.  A cold front had started to come through on Wednesday, so it was bitterly cold on our walk there.  The low for that day was -2.  However, the arena was nice and warm, and there were little girls dressed up as princesses everywhere.  Samantha loved it!  I don't think she's ever been in a place where there were so many beautiful princess dresses.  We found our seats and had plenty of time to use the bathroom and get some cookies for a snack before the show started.

The show started off with Tinkerbell, and she would be the one to introduce each new set of princesses and heroes.  

As you can see in the following video, Samantha was VERY interested in the show.  She could not take her eyes off of the characters dancing on the ice.

The show started with Minnie and Mickey skating around on the ice, asking for all the princes and princesses to stand up and wave.  Samantha was happy to oblige. :)

The first prince and princess combination was Aladdin and Jasmine.  Samantha has never actually seen the movie or anything, but knows a little about the story and the genie.  This was the perfect event for her because there is so much action and movement, there is always something to hold her attention.  Although when the show first started, she kept asking about where the ball was, since all princesses go to the ball, of course.

The next part that Samantha really enjoyed was when the seven dwarfs came onto the ice.  She couldn't wait to see Snow White, but kept on asking where the mean lady was.  She wanted the whole plot line to be represented in the show, but in order to cover as many princesses and heroes as possible, they tended to only focus on the positive, action oriented scenes of each movie.

Samantha was enthralled.  Many other kids were very fidgety, not paying too much attention to the dancers.  Samantha couldn't take her eyes off of them.

As you can tell by the princess dress that she chose to wear, Belle is her favorite princess right now.  Belle was always my favorite, too.  I felt like I could relate to her bookish tendencies and was always jealous of her gigantic library at the beast's castle.  Anyways, here was part of the dance for Belle, but Samantha kept asking about where the beast was, and he never showed up.  We saw a commercial for Disney on Ice the next day and saw the classic dance with Belle in the yellow dress and the beast, but for some reason that was not a part of the show that we saw.  Ben and I guessed that maybe the beast was sick that night or something like that.

Another of Samantha's favorite parts was with Ariel and the mermaids and friends dancing under the sea.

It's always interesting seeing things through the perspective of a little kid.  The theme of the show was princesses and heroes, and for the most part, they avoided the evil enemies that are a part of each Disney movie.  The only exception to that is they had quite a long segment on Sleeping Beauty where Prince Phillip is fighting the fire breathing dragon to get to Sleeping Beauty in the tower.  I have always found this Disney movie to be the most scary anyways.  In fact, Samantha has never actually watched this one.  They had a pretend dragon come out on the ice that breathed out fire and caught the ice on fire in an S shape.  This frightened Samantha a little bit, and she covered her face with her hands.  I was not expecting anything scary to be a part of this show.

Then, towards the end of the show, the coach came out and actually at one point had some fireworks shoot out of it, which also surprised and frightened Samantha a bit.  I don't know if it's just the loud noise of fireworks, or just that it catches her off guard, but she gets a little scared of fireworks when she is not prepared for them.

At the very end of the show, all the princesses and heroes came out on the ice and danced together.  Samantha liked that part.  After the show was over, she said, "I want to watch this show again another day."  She really enjoyed herself.

We then had to make our way back down the street a couple blocks to our car, and it had started snowing; the wind was blowing pretty hard.  Daddy did his best to protect Samantha from the bitter cold wind, and I did my best not to slip and fall on the ice.  We were all very glad to finally get back into the warm protection of our car.  We stopped to fill up our car with gas, and I changed Samantha into her pajamas.  Once we started driving I read her a book, sang her songs, and prayed with her, tucking her in for sleeping in the car on the way home.  It didn't take her too long to fall asleep, to which we were very grateful.  The roads were not too bad yet either, so we were able to get home safely that night.

Due to the snow and cold temperatures, schools in Bloomington were on a two hour delay on Thursday, meaning REST Stop was cancelled again, which really was for the better.  We didn't have to get up and rush out of the house after being out late.  We were able to just relax at home, and Samantha took a good nap that afternoon.  She fell asleep around 1:40 with me in the room with her.  It's nice that it seems like she will still nap when she really needs to, like on days when we are out late the night before.

Then, that evening we had an appointment at a local church to get our free set of cloth diapers from a group called Heiny Helpers.  Since we don't make very much money with Ben in grad school and me now staying home, we meet the income qualification for this free service.  Ben was actually the one that discovered it, and it is really neat.  This church just does it as a service to local families, expecting that you'll use your cloth diapers, take care of them, and return them when you are finished so that they can let other families use them.  The whole cloth diaper scene seems a little bit overwhelming to me since we've never used them before.  With Samantha, particularly since I was working full time, we just used disposables the whole time with her.  Our families were nice enough to give us a box of diapers pretty much every time they saw us, so we hardly had to buy any diapers for ourselves, which we really appreciated.  With Aedan, especially since I am staying home now, we figured we could venture into cloth diaper territory.  (Because now I have more time to do laundry, right?  Haha...)  Anyways, I ended up picking out a combination of pocket diapers and all in one diapers, and they even gave you a wet bag to use in between washings, which is nice. The diapers I chose seemed like the most practical for what we need, the easiest to use, and the most like disposables.  They are a variety of different brand names.  Those of you who have used cloth diapers, do you have any advice or input for me?  Any tricks that you used along the way?

Friday morning, Daddy stayed home with Samantha so that I could go to the hospital to get my glucose test done.  I don't remember doing this last time, but it wasn't bad.  I just had to drink this bottle of juice in five minutes, then sit and wait for an hour before having my blood drawn.  Then, that afternoon, my parents arrived in town for the weekend.  Even though she was tired, Samantha didn't take a nap, which made the evening a little more interesting.  We just had a lot of time to talk and play together.  Daddy and I went out grocery shopping and picked up pizza from Mother Bear's for dinner.

On Saturday, I had thought about making a day trip to the Children's Museum with my parents, but it had snowed over night and the roads were not great, so we decided to just stay home and play.  Grandma read Samantha a lot of books up in her room, and Grandpa had a lot of time to play with Samantha in the morning when she woke up.  This winter has just been brutal and has cooped us up inside a lot more than we would like to, but in some ways I think it's good for me because I always like to be busy, going out and doing things.  Sometimes, though, it's good to just be home, playing and making memories in your own space.  Samantha is happy either way.  She doesn't need some fancy, elaborate, planned out day; she just wants to spend time with the people she loves.

Sunday was a typical morning of going to church and the ACG that Ben is teaching.  After church my parents took us out to HuHot for lunch.  Even though Samantha was pretty sleepy, she did a fairly good job eating her food and waiting patiently while we all went up for multiple plates.  We tried to get her to take a nap when we got back home, but there was just too much excitement from the day and from having Grandma and Grandpa there with us.  After about an hour of making her stay in her room, we went to get her so that she could have a little bit more time to play with them before they had to head back to Chicago.

Before they left, Grandpa took this classic picture of Samantha:

Daddy posted it on Facebook with the caption, "Ohh my, what are we in for?"  We thought she looked like a little teenager.  And no, we did not pose her like this.