Samantha: 32 Months, Week 4 {Some Older Pictures, Preschool, and Grove City}

As I was looking through our video camera, uploading pictures onto my computer, I noticed some older pictures that I had never put on my blog, so we will have a little throwback first before getting to this week's pictures and activities.

These first pictures are from back on December 6, of Samantha posing by the Christmas tree, while the ground outside is covered in snow.  It's kind of sad to think that the ground is just as much covered in snow right now as I write this on February 15, as it was back on December 6.  It was pretty and exciting then.  Now, we are just ready for winter to be over and for spring to come.

Here is Samantha later in that same day, "resting."  For some reason she was under the impression that when she rested she had to take her clothes off and lay under her blanket.

These next pictures are from December 16 and show Samantha and I sitting on a blanket playing with dominoes like they are a road.  We were on a pretty big dominoes kick for awhile after playing with large dominoes at the Children's Museum.  It's fun being creative with Samantha's toys, we even built a little hill by going up and over the book.  I'm pretty sure this was the day her friend, Vivian, came over to play for the morning, so we were playing and anxiously awaiting the arrival of her little friend.

And here are some pictures from the next day, December 17, just some cute pictures of Samantha playing with her little people family that she checked out from the library.  For some reason, she always wants to line her toys up.  She likes things to be in order and gets upset when they fall over and knock each other down.

After having Christmas and being pretty busy for awhile, I decided to get back into doing preschool with Samantha.  She was really excited to start this up again, even though we are moving through it slowly, doing it whenever we are home and don't have other things planned.  We were on the letter D and numbers 1-10.  For the first day I chose the theme of dinosaurs.  As you can see in the pictures since Samantha is wearing different clothes, we did these activities on two different days, January 27 and 28, whenever we could fit them in and whenever Samantha had the patience for them.  Here are my plans mixed in with pictures from those activities.

Day 1: Dinosaurs

Books: Read dinosaur books from Samantha’s room: Dinky Dinosaur: Who’s My Friend? By Darrell Wiskur and Dinosaur Babies by Lucille Recht Penner.

Song:  Sing the song “The Dino Dance-O (sung to the tune of "The Hokey-Pokey").  You put your dino up, You put your dino down, You put your dino up, And you shake it all around.  You do the Dino Dance-o, and you turn yourself around.  (Stomp twice on the ground.)  Dino Dance-O.  You put your dino in front, You put your dino in back, You put your dino in front, and you give your knees a slap.  (repeat chorus).  You touch your dino to your head, You touch your dino to your toe, You touch your dino to your head, Then you shake it to and fro.  (repeat chorus).  You do the Dino Dance-O You do the Dino Dance-O You do the Dino Dance-O That's what it's all about. Dino Dance-O.

Craft: Make dinosaur fossils in play-dough.  Press small dinosaurs to make an impression, or to leave footprints.  We can leave it to dry, or reform it and make another dinosaur impression.

As with many of our preschool activities, they often morph into something else, and that is perfectly okay with me.  After forming many dinosaur footprints, Samantha smashed the yellow and blue play-dough together, making it look green, and then started breaking it up into these little pieces.

Letter Activity: Discuss how the letter D has 1 sound, practice that sound, and review the sounds that A, B, and C make as well.  Give her some play-dough and show her how to roll snakes and then turn them into the letter D.  Show her how to write a D on her easel.

Snack:  Make Dino Bones.  Use 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup dry milk, and 2 tbs honey graham crackers crushed.  Combine peanut butter and milk, add honey.  Mix well and divide into equal portions after shaping them into bones.  Sprinkle with crackers.

Gross Motor: Play “Dancing Animals.”  Say the name of an animal that starts with the letter D, such as: dog, ducks, donkeys, deer, dragons, or dinosaurs.  Put on some dance music.  Have her pretend she is the animal and try to dance like the animal might.

Number/Shape Activity: Discuss how dinosaurs hatch out of eggs.  Place colored plastic eggs out with small fuzzy craft balls inside.  Practice filling eggs with fuzzy balls with a one to one correspondence, or counting up with 1 in the first, 2 in the second, 3 in the third, etc.  You can also pretend that the eggs hatch.

Samantha really loved this activity.  She played with it for quite awhile this day, and wanted me to take the eggs out for her several days after that so she could play with them again.  She really enjoys filling containers, so this was the perfect activity for her.

Fine Motor:  Go on a dinosaur dig.  Fill the black dish tub with shaving cream and bury the plastic dinosaurs in it.  Have her dig the dinosaurs out and practice cleaning them off, she can use her hands or a brush and towel.

The funny and completely adorable thing about Samantha is that she is very conscientious of making messes.  Sometimes when we do activities like this, it's hard for her to really get into them right away because she doesn't want to make a mess.  In this picture below, you can see Samantha cleaning up the floor with a paper towel.  She really enjoyed playing with these dinosaurs in the shaving cream and spraying/dumping water on them until they were clean.  It's always interesting to see what activities she really gets into and which ones she doesn't like quite as much.

Here are more of my preschool lesson plans that I did later that week of January 27, but I didn't take any pictures of Samantha doing these activities.

Day 2: Donuts

Books: If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff.

Song: Sing “The Disappearing D-O-N-U-T” to the tune of BINGO.  Find the magnetic letters for DONUT, and use them to hold about a donut cut into five sections.  Then sing, “I know a treat that has a hole, as you can plainly see.  D-O-N-U-T, (Point to the letters as you sing.), D-O-N-U-T, D-O-N-U-T.  Save a bite for me!  CHOMP!  (Remove D.)  Continue song, clapping for each section of disappearing donut, pointing to blank spaces and remaining letters until the donut is all gone.  The last verse would be, “I know a treat that has a hole, but now where could it be?”

Craft: Cut out large donut shapes for her.  Give her a bowl of colored glue and a small paint brush.  (Mix food coloring in white glue.)  Have her frost her donuts with frosting (colored glue).  Then, let them sprinkle on sprinkles to decorate their cookies.

Letter Activity: (Review the sounds that make A, B, and C.)  Practice the sounds that D make.  Have her color the D pages from her alphabet book, and write any words we can think of on the back that begin with the letter D.

Snack: Have a donut for a snack.

Gross Motor: Play “Mmm Donuts!”  Cut 10 donut shapes from colored paper (all different colors).  Spread them on the floor.  Sing this rhyme song and have her run to pick up the right color donut and pretend to eat it.  “Down around the corner at the bakery shop, There were (#) little donuts with sugar on top!  Along came (Name) all alone, And she took the (Color) one home!”

Number/Shape Activity: Make play-dough donuts.  Roll out play-dough until it’s nice and flat.  Use a large circle and small circle cookie cutter to make donuts for play-dough donut shop.  Also, roll out the play-dough like a snake and show her how to curve it around to make it look like the letter O, like a donut!

Fine Motor:  Make letter puzzles for A, B, C, and D to practice letter recognition.  Take a small 3 x 5 index card.  Turn it onto the plain side and make it stand up tall.  With a large black or blue marker, print a large upper case D.   Now, with a pair of scissors, cut the letter across the middle with a puzzle cut.  Give the two pieces of the letter to her and have her put the letter back together.  Add the other letter puzzles to the pile for her to sort and make into whole letters.

Now that I've caught up from past weeks that I forgot about, we'll move onto this week, February 3-8:

Monday morning this week Ben was still in Grove City for his campus visit/interviews.  So, I got to spend the day as a single mom.  I got a chance to talk to Ben first thing in the morning before he headed out to his breakfast, so that was nice.  Then, Samantha and I just hung out at home for the morning until gymnastics.  After gymnastics we had kind of a crazy day because we had to pick up Roscoe from the vet where we kept him over the weekend while we were in Upland.  Then, we had to get back home, have a quick lunch, and at least try to get a nap in.  Samantha did not nap, which was okay since we had to leave the house at 2:30 so I could drop her off at a friend's house to play while I gave piano lessons.  Normally, Ben comes home in the afternoons on Mondays to be with Samantha while I give lessons, but since he was out of town, I had to find another solution.  I thought about just keeping her at the house with me, but I didn't think she would be patient enough to play quietly in her room while I gave lessons for two hours.

Samantha had a great time playing with her friend Abigail, and I got to hear all about the princess books they read, the fun princess toys they played with, and the yummy snack they got to eat together.  She did a really good job even though she had never really been with this mom and friend before.  No one stays a stranger for too long in Samantha's world.

After my lessons were over, I went to pick Samantha up and then took her to Chick-fil-a for dinner.  After having a long day of taking care of Samantha, I didn't feel like making a meal just for the two of us.  Plus, Chick-fil-a has the added bonus of the indoor playground, which is always a big hit.  We got to talk to Daddy in the car on the way home from eating, so that was really good for Samantha.  She really missed him a lot today.  She kept asking about him, and every time we prayed together at the dining room table, we would pretend to hold his hands as well.

I tried to get Samantha to sleep at a decent time that night, especially since she hadn't napped that day, but with doing everything by myself and having to deal with our dog needing to go out as well, she got to bed a little later than I would have liked.  Luckily, she was tired and went right to sleep.  I was feeling very exhausted and was starting to not feel well, so I just relaxed on the couch until I got to talk to Ben on the phone while he was driving back home.  We ended up talking for two hours, and it was great to hear how his campus visit/interview went at Grove City.  Going into it, he wasn't quite sure what he thought of the school.  It has a fairly conservative reputation, which isn't bad in and of itself, but Ben wants to make sure he is in a place where people have the chance to believe whatever viewpoint they want as long as they know why they believe what they believe.  He also didn't want to feel pressure from the administration to fit into a certain viewpoint, or to be at a place where everyone is expected to have the same beliefs.  Whatever happened during his visit, he was looking forward to the experience and the practice.  However, after visiting and getting a chance to speak to the other political science faculty, the provost, the president, and many others, his opinion of the college greatly changed.  He was very impressed by the faculty he would be working with, feeling like he would get along well with them.  He was impressed with the student body, recognizing that although most of them were fairly conservative, they seemed to have foundation for their beliefs, but most importantly, they were strong Christians who wanted to interact with politics.

Here is what I posted on Facebook that night after he got home:
"I have been a single mom since yesterday evening while Ben went to an on campus interview/visit at Grove City College in western Pennsylvania.  I have much admiration for the women that do this every day as I certainly would not make it.  Especially when Ben is gone, I have an even greater appreciation for all the ways he helps and supports our family.  Samantha asked about him and said that she missed him several times today.  Our life is just not the same without Daddy in it.  We even pretended to hold his hands when we prayed at our dining room table.  I am so proud of all he has accomplished in grad school, his work ethic, and his solid focus.  I am so proud that he has gotten so far in this hiring process, from 50 to 25 to 5, and how down to 2, no matter what the end result may be.  Please pray for our family as we wait to hear back sometime next week about this job, and for the clarity on where God is leading us in the net step of our journey, whether to Grove City or somewhere else."

We have no idea what will happen or what will come of this job interview, but we know that God will make it clear where He wants us to be.  In every place we've moved in the past, we have very clearly felt God leading us there, made the decision, and never looked back, never wondered "what if" we would have chosen another option.  We trust it will be the same thing this time.  God knows where He wants our family to be, where He wants us to put down our roots, and we will wait for Him to reveal that to us in His timing.  In the meantime, here are some pictures Ben took of Grove City while he was there:

Tuesday was an early morning for us after Ben getting in late from Grove City the night before.  I let him sleep in some, with him getting up and leaving the house at about the same time Samantha, Sadie, and I were leaving for our weekly trip to the library. Here is a cute picture of Samantha reading her Cinderella book to Hannah Penguin while I was working on lunch.

After having a long weekend in Upland and then a couple of late nights with no napping during the day, Samantha was very tired at nap time.  She was being a little silly about going to sleep, sitting up in her bed, dangling her feet over the side of the bed, and then all of a sudden she said, "I'm tired."  Right after that, she fell asleep and took a three hour nap that afternoon.  I was so grateful, and her little body clearly needed some good sleep.

That afternoon/evening it started snowing, really heavy snow, making traffic very hard to deal with.  Michelle hit a lot of traffic coming across town and didn't pick up Sadie until almost 6:00.  Ben had a fairly difficult time getting home as well, but was very excited to get some good hang out time with Samantha.  It's amazing how much you can miss your little girl when you don't see her for a couple of days.

Tuesday night I was feeling even worse and was developing a pretty bad cough and runny nose.  I was hoping with all the snow that there would be a snow day, or at least a delay of some kind, even for IU, but we were out of luck.  Pretty much everything in the whole state of Indiana was either on a delay or cancelled, but not IU, and I could have really used a snow day with the way I was feeling.  I tried to fight through it, staying home and taking care of Samantha and Sadie, but I just kept feeling worse and worse.  As the morning progressed, I realized that I couldn't do it anymore, so even though I knew Ben had meetings to go to that afternoon, I called him and asked him to come home and help me out watching the girls so I could go rest.  (There is something nice about having a husband in graduate school with a very flexible schedule!)  He arrived home around noon to watch Sadie and Samantha for me, putting him in charge of the worst time of day, lunchtime and nap time, when both girls are the most demanding and sleepy.  But he did a great job, and he allowed me to go right upstairs to bed, sleeping on and off for the next five hours.  My cold was just terrible.  I had chills and a fever, I couldn't breathe, my eyes were watering, and I felt really lousy.  I was so glad that Ben came home to help me out, but felt bad that I made him cancel meetings and miss out on some good time to get work done on campus.  However, I have a great husband who is willing to help me out when I need him, and I am so grateful.

Daddy was able to get Samantha to take a nap that afternoon, after going in her room and being rather stern with her when she was kicking around in her bed and woke Sadie up from her nap.  Luckily, Sadie went back to sleep, and Samantha ended up sleeping a little under two hours that afternoon.  Since I was feeling sick and because of the large amounts of snow we got that day, Michelle came to get Sadie a couple hours early that day, giving Ben a little bit of a break from watching both girls at the same time.

I got out of bed right before dinner that night, making myself sit up for awhile to see how I felt.  I still had a fever, so I cancelled my lessons for the next day, rescheduling them for Friday instead.  However, just being up for a couple hours was too much for me that day so as soon as Daddy put Samantha to bed for the night, I laid back down on the couch.  I just literally had no energy and still felt pretty lousy.  Ben had gotten me some medicine that the doctor said would be okay to take while I was pregnant.  It may have helped a little bit, but definitely not enough.  I was hoping that I would feel much better the next day after having an afternoon and full night of good rest.

Having all the snow was kind of a blessing in disguise because many things were cancelled, like BSF on Wednesday, and we didn't have anywhere to go, so we just spent a lot of time hanging out and playing at home while I recovered from my cold.  On Thursday morning Ben let me sleep in, which I greatly appreciated, and I think the rest did me a lot of good.  I was feeling a bit better that day and decided that I could handle Samantha by myself, allowing Ben to go to campus and get some work done.  Samantha and I just played at home, read a lot of books, and did puzzles together while I tried to rest on the couch as much as possible.  She did not take a nap that day either.

On Friday I was feeling a little better, but still wanted to take it easy at home and not go anywhere.  So, Samantha and I did another day of preschool, finishing our week on the letter D.

Day 3: Dr. Seuss Day

Books: Read these books by Doctor Seuss: Green Eggs and Ham, The Foot Book, The Cat in the Hat

Song: Sing “The Cat in the Hat Song” sung to “Addam’s Family.”  “The cat in the hat (snap, snap).  The cat in the hat (snap, snap).  The cat in the hat, the cat in the hat, the cat in the hat (snap, snap).  He causes so much fun, But when the fun is done, You will be the one, To send that cat away.” (Repeat).

Craft: Since most of the creatures in Dr. Seuss stories are imaginative and unusual, give her toilet paper tubes, pipe cleaners, yarn, puff balls, googly eyes, and other miscellaneous items to have her create her own creature.  After they’re dry, help her create a story about it.

(I didn't take a picture of just her creature, but you can see it drying in the top right hand corner of this picture.  She was pretty proud of it.  It was made with a toilet paper roll, brightly colored pipe cleaners, a pink and purple puff ball, and two googly eyes.)

Letter Activity: (Review the sounds that A, B, C, and D make.)  Make Oobleck by mixing equal parts of cornstarch and water.  Have her practice writing letters in the oobleck.

This was another of those activities that I wasn't sure she would like.  Sometimes she is very particular about getting her hands messy, but this, she loved!  She could have played around in this oobleck for a long time that day.  I think she just enjoyed the way it felt and that she was allowed to get her hands as messy as she wanted.  It's so fun to do things like this with her.

Snack: Have green eggs and ham by using food coloring to dye scrambled eggs with lunch meat ham for breakfast.

Gross Motor: Practice balancing: on one foot, on heels, on toes, walk on a line of tape, place a line of wooden unit blocks in a row to use as a balance beam, use bean bags and balance one: on your head, on your elbow, on your back, on your foot.

Number/Shape Activity: Domino Counting Match.  Trace around the dominoes on a piece of paper.  Write the numbers 1-10, one number for each rectangle, and write the number word as well.  The goal is for her to count the dots on the domino and match it to the correct rectangle

Fine Motor: Have a “Foot Spa Day.”  Let her soak her feet in a warm, sudsy foot bath, put some great smelling lotion on her feet, and paint her toe nails.

Friday afternoon Daddy came home to to be with Samantha while I gave my make up piano lessons.  Even though I wasn't totally back to normal, I felt good enough to give lessons.  I've really enjoyed giving piano lessons out of my home.  It's been a great source of income for our family, gives me satisfaction of teaching and of music, but requires little to no outside planning on my part.  It will be nice to continue on with this in the future after Aedan is born, whether we are still in Bloomington or moving to a different city.

On Saturday we had plans to meet Upland Grandpa and Grandma in Indianapolis for lunch so that we could switch our cars back.  With the delay in getting it fixed and then the snowstorm that came through in the middle of the week, this is the earliest chance we had to meet up.  We had lunch at Jason's Deli, our traditional place to meet because of the casual, kid-friendly environment and the free ice cream.  Samantha did a pretty good job, but was a little distracted and getting sleepy towards the end of our time together.  Grandma offered to go to Once Upon a Child with us to look around for things we needed for Aedan, so even though it was already 1:00, we decided to go do some shopping.  We got some really cute newborn and three month outfits for Aedan, plus some swaddle wraps and a changing table cover.  All of that was a much better price than if we were to have bought it all at a full price store.  I love Once Upon a Child.  Samantha knows we shop there a lot and will often look at her clothes and say, "Is this from Rachel or Once Upon a Child?"  Our child knows how our family rolls.  :)  However, since we were at the store during Samantha's nap time, and since she loves spending time with Grandpa and Grandma, she was not excited about leaving the store.  She started throwing a bit of a fit, even going and hiding under one of the clothes racks in an attempt to avoid leaving the store.  After trying to coax her out in various ways, I finally just went and pulled her out from the clothes rack, even though she was crying and refusing to say good-bye to Grandpa and Grandma.  She just always hopes that if she doesn't say good-bye, that maybe they won't actually leave.  We eventually convinced her to give good-bye hugs and kisses after Grandpa made her mood cheer up with a silly, funny face that made her laugh.

After getting back into our own car and heading out, we were hoping that our sleepy, somewhat crabby little girl would take a nap on the way home.  It took awhile for her to calm down, and she tried so hard to keep herself awake, but after awhile of sitting in a warm, quiet car, she was no longer able to keep her eyes open.  She only slept for about fifty minutes, but it was better than nothing and made our evening together much better.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday we just spent time doing our normal family things, playing at home, going to church and Sunday School on Sunday, and having a nice, restful afternoon at home as a family.

The other cute thing I wanted to mention about Samantha for this week is her love of dresses.  We have been aware for awhile of her love of all things girly, but she is particularly on a princess kick lately.  I'm sure it's partly my fault that she loves princesses so much, but I also know that she is just naturally drawn to it.  Lately, in the morning when she wakes up and we go in her room to get her up for the day, she'll tell us that she dreamed about being a princess and that she wants to wear a princess dress that day.  We don't let her wear her fancy church dresses during the week, but we have let her wear her other dresses with pants underneath them.  In fact, when we went to Once Upon a Child, we bought a few more pairs of solid color pants to wear underneath her dresses, since this is becoming an every day request.  If you go back and look at many of the pictures in this post, you will notice our little girl wearing a dress in most of them.  We don't mind.  She is wanting to pick out her own clothes a lot more lately, and we like her new found independence in this area.