Samantha: 46 Months, Week 4
Aedan: Week 50
This week was a bit different than usual because it was spring break for the Talawanda school district, meaning Samantha didn't have preschool or ballet that week. Even though we had extra time, it was hard to do much because it literally rained every day that week, limiting our activities to things that were indoors. Also, Aedan was still recovering from his cough that he caught from Samantha over the weekend, so I wanted to give him plenty of time to rest as well.
Since we were gone for Easter weekend, I did not go grocery shopping the previous Thursday like I usually do. We were out of everything, so I really needed to make a trip to Kroger. I usually just go with Aedan and some days that is hard enough as it is. I decided to be brave and take both Samantha and Aedan grocery shopping. I waited until after Aedan's morning nap, and we headed out, prepared with snacks and toys. However, after our hour and a half shopping trip, I decided that I will never do a large grocery shopping trip with both kids ever again. Aedan was pretty fussy for some reason, even though I tried giving him snacks and toys. Samantha kept getting in and out of the cart, as well asking many questions and talking to me when I was trying to concentrate on my shopping list and price checking. The trip took much longer than it should have, and checking out was not much better. We got back home close to 12:30, and I still had to put away all the groceries, make lunch, and get the kids down for their naps. It was an exhausting morning. I think now I understand why some moms go out shopping at night, all by themselves.
Tuesday was a rough day for Daddy, so after taking Samantha to ballet, we stopped to pick up Jimmy John's for dinner and strong coffee from Starbucks. Daddy was only going to be home for a couple hours before he had to go back to campus for a lecture that his students were asked to attend. After dinner we went outside to play together since it was so nice out. Then, it was my job to get the kids ready and into bed by myself. We stayed outside a little too long so they got to bed a little later than I would have liked, but it went fairly well.
Here's a picture from Wednesday morning after breakfast: both kids in their pajamas, Aedan very interested in Samantha's computer. He will pull up on anything to get to his sister.
Aedan's way of playing and interacting with us these days is by pulling up on things and standing as much as he can. The following videos show how good he is. He is getting much more stable on his feet and can even stand while only holding on with one hand. Also, he's getting much better at lowering himself back to the ground gently instead of falling and crying. It's funny because Samantha used to be safe if she would just sit on the couch because then Aedan couldn't reach her. However, now that he is pulling up, nowhere is safe. If she is playing with something or doing something that she doesn't want him to get, she has to sit at the kitchen table or go up to her room.
Here are the two cuties that I get to hang out with every day. :)
Daddy ended up taking Samantha to the baseball game for a little while before it began to rain. They sat in the front row, right behind home plate, and Samantha asked a TON of questions about what the players and umpires were doing, as well as how the game was played. When it started raining, Daddy offered to take Samantha to get frozen yogurt at Orange Leaf as a way to lengthen their shortened date. Samantha even commented, "That was a short date night, Daddy." They will definitely have to try again some night when the weather is better because I know Daddy likes to share these special experiences with his little girl.
This was the first time I have ever attempted to do a day trip like this with both kids, this far away and for this long of a time commitment, all by myself. We had a really fun time together, but there were definitely some challenges. Samantha woke up too early and was acting a little bit tired and disrespectful not long after we arrived at the museum. Also, the family we were with enjoyed spending more time playing in certain areas that Samantha didn't find as interesting. It was hard for her to understand that we needed to wait for them so that we could stick together. We let Samantha and Daniel switch off choosing what area of the museum we would go to next, and that seemed to help some. Samantha just isn't always the most patient person, especially when she is tired.
After playing in the ball area for awhile, we moved on to the water area. Usually Samantha really likes to play with water, but for some reason she finds this area to be boring and doesn't like to spend much time there. Daniel, however, finds this area to be his favorite, so I was trying to encourage Samantha to find other ways to play while we let Daniel get his fill of the water. I even put a smock on Aedan and let him play in the water. He LOVED it! He just splashed his little hands up and down in the water, getting his face, hair, and clothes all wet. Seeing him play like this in the water made me think that a water table would be a great birthday gift for him!
From there, we went to the younger kid area so that I could let Aedan crawl around more easily. Samantha and Olivia came with me as well to play in the house, with the sand, and riding around small push toys.
Samantha pretended she was a princess in a castle...
...and Aedan loved discovering all the new things to play with. I didn't have to say no or redirect him much here!
Then, Daniel and Samantha crawled into the tunnel that goes inside the fish tank. I have no idea what they were pointing to or what they were talking about, but it was cute to watch them interact with each other. I like being able to do things like this where Samantha can get social interaction with kids her age. It's good for her to have someone else to talk to besides Aedan and me.
After playing in the forest for awhile, we decided it was time for lunch. However, this is when Samantha started to lose it. She was probably acting cranky because she was hungry, but she didn't recognize the fact that she needed to stop so she could eat. She loves playing in the forest since it's her favorite, and she didn't want to leave. Even though I gave her a warning about us leaving in five minutes, when it was time to go, she melted into the floor and refused to get up. It was hard dealing with her throwing a little fit while also dealing with Aedan who was getting hungry, too, and tired since he had only napped for five minutes that morning. I had to give her a time out so that she knew she would have to get her attitude in check if she wanted to continue playing at the museum. Getting her to eat at lunch time is always a battle with her, even when we are at home, so lunch at the museum wasn't much different. Aedan was getting very cranky, hungry, and tired, so I was trying to feed him and appease him as much as possible, while also trying to get Samantha to eat her lunch instead of looking around so that we would have more time to play.
After lunch we played for a little longer in the sand area together, which is another of Samantha's favorite places. There were quite a few kids in the sand, and the last time we brought Aedan here to play he wasn't crawling yet, so this was a new experience for him. He wanted to crawl all around and discover all the toys and trucks. However, some of the other kids weren't very careful with the sand. One little boy started tossing handfuls of sand into Aedan's face, so I had to quickly jump into the sand in order to pull Aedan out. It didn't really seem to phase him, but I decided that we would just play in a different area after that.
They had a small area for younger kids with books, and the wooden cubes with balls on rails at the top. There was another little girl and her mom there playing as well. Aedan was having fun, but I could tell he was getting pretty tired. He actually kept crawling over to the other mom and laid his head on her lap. He's been doing this a lot lately when he is tired and ready to go to sleep. I think it's adorable, and I love the extra snuggles that it brings. However, I took that as a cue that it was time to make our way to the nursing mother's area so that I could nurse Aedan and then possibly put him in the Ergo so that he could nap.
Our friends decided to stay in the sand area and leave from there, so we said good-bye and parted ways. Since we were on our own again, Samantha had to come into the nursing room with me, which actually worked out better than I thought it would. They had shelves full of books that she could look at while I sat and nursed Aedan. He was definitely ready. Samantha did a great job of sitting and reading quietly, and I think it was a good decompression break for her. Aedan fell asleep nursing; however, I didn't bring the Ergo in with me so that I could put him in while still trying to keep him asleep. I tried carrying him out while he was sleeping and then transferring him to the Ergo, but it didn't work. He woke up and wouldn't go back to sleep. I was going to give Samantha more time to play, but she was acting rather aimless and getting tired herself, so we decided to call it a day and head back home.
It was a bit hectic at times taking the kids to the museum by myself, but it also gave me great confidence that I could start doing things like this by myself more often. Especially when Aedan no longer nurses in the middle of the day or even when he goes down to one nap a day, this kind of outing will become much easier. I'm glad we did it. I had two tired kiddos on the way home, and they both fell asleep in the car fairly quickly, sleeping until we got back home to Oxford. Once home, I actually took Aedan up to his crib to see if he go back to sleep again, and he ended up sleeping until dinnertime.
In continuation of our week of rain, we had a really strong storm come through as we were eating dinner on Thursday night. The dark clouds rolled in pretty quickly, and it started pouring and then hailing! It was so loud hitting the back of our house that Samantha actually started crying. However, once we explained to her what was going on, she calmed back down again. Daddy actually went outside after the storm to pick up some of the hail to show Samantha what it looked and felt like. She thought it was interesting to feel how cold and wet it was.
After having a rather busy day on Thursday, on Friday we just stayed home to play and so I could clean the house. I took this great picture of Aedan that morning while I was cleaning up breakfast. We call him our little stinker. He especially likes to stick his tongue out when he's getting into something like this. :)
Samantha and I had some good play time that morning while Aedan napped. She wanted to build a new train track for her trains so we picked out a plan, I told her what piece came next, and she built it from there, with very little help from me. It's great to see how much she is enjoying building things now. She is able to follow picture directions pretty well, especially when putting together Legos.
It was a fun, yet productive day with lots of time to play; plus I got the house cleaning done. That evening, once Daddy got home from work, we decided to eat a quick dinner and go to a Miami baseball game. The weather was beautiful, the game was free, and we thought it would be fun. We got there after it started, but that didn't matter. Aedan enjoyed looking around at all the new sights for awhile, and Samantha walked up and down the bleacher rows before going to sit up in the front row by herself to watch the game. After awhile we moved over to a grassy area on the side to allow Aedan to crawl and Samantha to run around more freely without bothering other people. I think we lasted about 40 minutes at the game before we decided to just go walk around campus by the bell tower instead. We often talk about how we need to enjoy Miami's campus more, so we took advantage of that. Samantha ran around in the grass with Daddy while I pushed Aedan in the stroller.
Saturday morning we went out to breakfast together at Frisch's Big Boy. We hadn't been there in a while, and they have pretty good breakfast bar. Samantha and Aedan both really enjoy breakfast food, plus they are both still free. The rest of the day was spent giving Aedan a morning nap, playing, and going shopping for new bathing suits for Samantha and Aedan. It's nice to spend a weekend at home, just being together as a family. I love having Ben around, and Samantha and Aedan love having the extra time with their Daddy.
Here is Aedan showing off his style in Daddy's Cubs hat.
On Monday, we didn't have too many plans. Samantha, Aedan, and I made a quick trip to Meijer to look for a bathing suit for Aedan since we didn't find one for him when we went to TJMaxx on Saturday. After getting our shopping done, we went to the music class I signed Samantha and Aedan up for called Music Roots, which is lead by a local mom. Both kids love music so much that I thought they would really enjoy this class. Aedan loved the parts where they could shake the egg shakers along to the music and bang the rhythm instruments together to the beat of the song. Samantha sat and listened attentively, participating well, and singing along to the songs when many other kids did not. I think both kids will enjoy going to this class for the next few weeks, especially if we can work in a morning nap for Aedan before we come. On this day Aedan ended up sleeping in late in the morning, making it so that we didn't have time to give him a nap.
Both kids were tired out and took great naps that afternoon. Samantha still continues to do an excellent job napping every day. She never fights me about it anymore, never gets out of her bed and plays. She sometimes will fall asleep with me in the room and other times just falls asleep after I leave. I am so glad that we pushed through and didn't give up nap time. There have been so many times throughout the last year that I have been ready to give up trying to to get Samantha to nap because it turns into a battle for a couple weeks, but every time it has worked itself out and now she takes a nap for about an hour to an hour and a half every day with no fuss. She is much more pleasant in the evenings because of this daily rest, and I am glad to have a small break of time each afternoon to be by myself, to get work done around the house, or even to occasionally rest and do something fun for myself.
Here are my little sleeping angels. :)
(Blog about April 7-13, 2015)
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