Samantha: 33 Months, Week 3 {First Time Using Scissors, First Real Babysitter, and Overnight in Brown County}

This week was another busy, full week for our family, but it was one that I was really looking forward to because we had a couple of nights out planned with child care arrangements made.

Monday was kind of an odd day all around.  We got some snow and ice overnight on Sunday, so the area schools called a snow day for Monday, meaning gymnastics was cancelled.  Luckily, Samantha didn't really even remember that we had gymnastics that morning, so she didn't realize she was missing anything.  We just had a relaxed morning at home playing and relaxing after a full weekend of having company over.

Then, shortly before lunch a received a text message from Ben saying that he found out they offered the Grove City job to someone else.  We both had kind of expected this to be the case since it had been so long since we heard anything from anyone at the school, but at least for me, it was nice to have a final answer and an official closed door.  We were obviously both disappointed and confused, wondering what was in store for us in the future.  The possibility of a job for next year just seemed so good, but Ben and I both know that there is a reason that it didn't work out and that God did not intend for us to be there next year.  However, in the midst of rejection, it's hard to feel that confidence in God's providence and plan for your life and your future.  We know that He has always led us in the right direction, and when we look back, we see that what we thought would be a good option at the time really would not have been good for us and our family.  It was hard for me not to get discouraged and worried, mostly for Ben's sake because I didn't want this to be too big of a discouragement to him.  I love him and think he is a wonderful man and a wonderful teacher, but I know for every position there is only one person that can get it, meaning everyone else has to experience the bitterness of rejection.

Monday after lunch, I took this funny picture of Samantha.  She was playing with a little play ring, and she decided to put it on her toe, saying, "I look like Aunt Christy!"  (Samantha thought it was pretty interesting to look at Christy's toe ring over the weekend.)

Samantha took a good nap on Monday afternoon which is always good on days I have piano lessons.  Daddy hung out with Samantha during my lessons, and then we had a good dinner of baked chicken, carrots, and potatoes.  It was a very easy recipe I got off of a Campbell's Soup Cream of Mushroom can label, and it is definitely something we will have to try again another time.  Samantha even liked it too, even though she passed on the potatoes, only eating the chicken and carrots.

Here is a picture of Samantha sleeping on Monday afternoon.  Isn't she just so peaceful?

After playing at home for a little while after dinner, we took Samantha over to a friend's house so that she could play with Colton and be watched by Miss Jen, while Mommy and Daddy went to a Taylor alumni event from seven to nine at a local church.  At first, we weren't sure if we even wanted to go, but we were so glad we did.  It is amazing how God can speak to us in so many different ways.  On our way to pick up Samantha after the event was over, Ben and I had a great conversation about our future, especially in relation to hearing from Grove City that morning.  Ben asked me if going to that event made me feel more excited about possibly going back to Taylor someday for him to teach.  I hadn't really thought about it that way, especially since they just recently hired two new political science faculty.  Ben then went on to talk about how Taylor is a true Christian school, trying to ensure that their students are being discipled, in addition to receiving a high quality undergraduate education.  He told me how he did not get that same impression from Grove City when he talked to the various administrators and faculty members, even telling me of an interesting conversation with the president, which I hadn't heard before.  Throughout the day, and through comparing it to our experience at Taylor, I think Ben and I both reached the same conclusion about Grove City.  I think the most appealing thing about it was the fact that it was a job offer, and it was so close, right within our grasp.  The idea of making more money, moving to a more permanent location, buying a house, and moving on from the graduate school way of life was very appealing to us.  But is that the only reason we wanted it so much?  Did we really feel like God was calling our family, and more particularly Ben, there?  Speaking for myself, I was definitely excited about moving on and the prospect of a job, but I always felt a little hesitant about it.  Especially with the "reputation" that it has and how surprised people were when they heard about Ben being there, I wondered, "Is that really a place Ben would like to be?"  Even a pastor at our church found it hard to imagine Ben at a school like that, and he doesn't even know Ben that well.  So, I think after hearing the official news, even though it started us back at square one in the job front, it was almost like a weight was lifted from our shoulders.  God closed that door for us so that we wouldn't have to worry about whether or not that was the right place for us.  If Ben would have been offered the job, it would have been really hard, if not impossible, for us to turn that down.  God is good, and I think we both felt so much better after talking about our future that night.

After picking up Samantha from Colton's house around 9:20 and getting a good report, we were so glad that she was very respectful, even though she was out of the house over an hour past her bedtime.  The kids had a good time playing around in the fort they had made in the living room, watching Super Why, and having a little snack.  Samantha even went up and gave Colton a hug and kiss before she left.  Our little girl just gets along with everyone she meets.  Maybe Ben and I should go out and arrange babysitters more often! :)

Tuesday we followed our routine of taking care of Sadie and going to story time at the library.  We had a really great morning, and Samantha was a good listener even though she still woke up at the same time, around 7:10, after being out late the night before.  She didn't fight me at all when we were getting ready to leave for the library, to leave to come home, or to get ready for nap time.  Transitions have been hard lately, so that is a pretty good accomplishment for her to be compliant and respective at each of those transitions.  She played really well at the library and has really enjoyed the train table lately.  She will usually wait until some of the kids leave the train table so there are enough trains and space for her to play.  In fact, she has liked the trains so much lately that I came up with the idea of getting her a train set for her birthday.  We don't have a dedicated table we could build it on, but we could just put it together and then take it apart to store it in a box.  Another thought I had was attaching it to some kind of board that we could then slide under her bed when she is no longer playing with it.  We'll have to see, but she certainly likes playing with trains lately.  She could stay at the train table and just pull her train around and around for close to half an hour.

After story time on the first Tuesday of the month, they have something called preschool science with different hands-on science activities on different themes each month.  This week the theme was shapes, so Samantha glued shapes together to make a train car to add to the train track they had up on the wall, she used a stencil to draw squares, and best of all, she got to use scissors for the first time ever.  At first, I was a little hesitant to let her use the scissors because I thought her hands would just be too little to hold them and move them correctly, but like with most things, she really surprised me.  Once I showed her how to put her fingers in the scissors and how to move them up and down, she got the hang of it really fast.  The hardest part was that she had to remember to come at the paper with the scissors perpendicular, and she kept wanting to come at it parallel.  She REALLY enjoyed cutting the paper and probably spent about twenty minutes cutting around the edges of her paper.  She even discovered how, if she cut in different directions, she could cut different shapes like squares and triangles out of the edge of the paper.  I held the paper for her, but she did all the cutting herself.  I was pretty proud of her, and she was extremely proud of herself.  She wanted to show everyone her paper.  We displayed it proudly on our refrigerator when we got home.  And, now she wants us to get scissors for her to use at home, too.

Being out late on Monday night and not getting to sleep until 10:00 must have really tired Samantha out because on Tuesday afternoon she took a three hour nap.  She fell asleep with me in the room, on her side, with her blanket pulled up over her head.  I can't even remember the last time she took a three hour nap.

After dinner that night, Samantha decided she wanted to paint for awhile since she "taked a nap," as she puts it.  This time while she was painting, she was really interested in mixing the colors together and noticing what new color she created.

Since she took such a good nap on Tuesday afternoon, we decided that we would try out the Evening Family Story Time at the library.  We have never gone to it before, but thought we'd try it out because of the funny story teller we heard at Tuesday Tales a couple weeks earlier.  Samantha was very excited about seeing this funny man with the puppets and was even more excited about wearing her pajamas to the library.  Unfortunately, when we got to the program room, there was a different librarian in there because the funny man was sick that night and unable to come to story time.  Samantha still had a good time, but was acting pretty tired, despite her long nap that afternoon.  She looked around the room, trying to find other kids in their pajamas and didn't notice any, even though it said in the library brochure that pajamas were encouraged.  It's interesting how young the comparison with others starts, trying to figure out if you are the only one doing something a certain way.

When we were getting ready to leave the library, Samantha got really upset because she wanted to stay and play, even though we had already played there that morning, and it was approaching her bedtime.  We didn't prepare her very well ahead of time with the plan of what we were going to do and when we were going to leave, which never helps her very much, so since she didn't want to leave she decided to scream really loud.  Daddy took her to the bathroom to give her a time out for screaming, and after she calmed back down, she came out, apologizing to me and the librarian for screaming, before we headed out.  Maybe going to the library at night like this is too hard for her.  The story time was interesting, but it makes for a long day for a little girl.

Samantha has really been enjoying both puzzles and her sticker books lately.  She is getting much more detail oriented, and she loves the princess reusable sticker book that Daddy got for her.  She was so creative with her sticker picture on Tuesday that I just had to save it to show Daddy and take a picture of it.  Do you notice the placement of all the stickers?  The girl laying on the bed reading a book, the girl sitting on a stool brushing her hair in front of the mirror, and the girl standing with a purse in one hand and flowers in the other hand.  She did this all by herself, and it is so realistic looking.  When she first started playing with these stickers, she would just place them randomly on the page, but now she is doing it with some story behind it.  Pretty creative, I think.

It is so fun just to sit and watch Samantha play sometimes.  She is so independent now and really loves to play by herself, especially in the morning.  On Wednesday morning I just had to take some pictures of her playing with her Little People because she was doing such a nice job playing independently and creatively.  She is becoming more of a big girl each and every day.

Wednesday was a good day at BSF, but not quite as relaxing for me because I was on duty for volunteering in the infants and toddlers room, meaning I missed out on our group and lecture time.  However, it is interesting to see how they have the program designed for the various age groups, and it was fun to see how much Sadie enjoyed her class, her friends, and her teachers. 

After a somewhat tiring morning, the afternoon nap time was a little difficult for both girls.  Lately, Sadie has been waking up in the middle of her nap and crying for awhile, so it's always hard for me to know whether I should go in the room and see what's wrong, or just leave her for awhile and see if she will go back to sleep.  Our trick of staying in the room with Samantha while she falls asleep still works on most days, but it seems to be taking longer that it used to, and I have to do a little more to try and keep her in bed.  It used to be that she would fall asleep in ten minutes or so, but now it seems like I have to stay in there much longer than that, with several reminders of getting back in bed or laying down, or even taking her blankie away if she is playing with it.  It's even more difficult on days that I have Sadie because I lay Sadie down first and then put Samantha down for her nap, so the longer it takes for Samantha to actually fall asleep, the less time I have to myself before Sadie will inevitably wake up, as she usually takes shorter naps than Samantha.

My pregnant self has been getting a lot more tired lately, particularly on days that I have Sadie and Samantha, so that nap time to relax, sit down, or even to just get things done or respond to emails, is cherished time to me, especially knowing that once Aedan comes, this free time will pretty much be gone.  I have been having a harder time sleeping at night lately and will wake up frequently throughout the night because I am uncomfortable.  Or, it will take me awhile to fall asleep because Aedan is moving around quite a bit, or it is difficult to find a comfortable position for my ever growing belly.  I am at 33 weeks now, and I can't exactly remember how I felt at this point with Samantha, but I can tell I have entered the more uncomfortable part of the final trimester.  I think I may need to start going back to taking a nap during the afternoon when I can, like I did occasionally during the first trimester, because sometimes when it hits bedtime for Samantha, especially on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I feel like I am totally spent and have no energy left.  Now, if I can just keep getting Samantha to nap so I can take naps, too.

Thursday morning, we had nothing scheduled so I decided to do another morning of preschool as well as a quick trip to a local gymnastics center for open gym since we missed gymnastics class on Monday due to school being cancelled.  Here are the lesson plans we followed for preschool that morning:

Day 2: Eggs

Books: Read Horton Hatches the Egg by Dr. Seuss and Guess What Is Growing Inside This Egg by Mia Posada.

Song: Sing the song, “I Wish I Were a Teeny Tiny Egg” to the tune “If You’re Happy and You Know It: “Oh, I wish I were a teeny tiny egg.  Oh, I wish I were a teeny tiny egg.  I would roll and roll around, Rolling all around the ground.  Oh, I wish I were a teeny tiny egg.”  (Let her roll around like little eggs as we sing.)

Craft: Paint with plastic eggs by dipping them in paint and then rolling hem in trays or buckets lined with paper.

There are a few things to notice about these two pictures.  First of all, Samantha is wearing what she calls "her mock" instead of smock.  It's just too cute to correct her.  Also, do you notice the crazy hair?  If we don't put her hair up every day, this is what it would look like, and no matter what, always hanging in her face.  We started off the activity following the directions, but she didn't like getting her fingers dirty and sticky with paint.  In fact, that only lasted a few minutes before she wanted to go wash her hands and do something else.  So, I decided to change the activity a little bit by having her hold the plastic egg, dip it into the paint, and then make different colored circles on her piece of paper.  She seemed to enjoy this non-messy version of painting much better.

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

Snack: Have scrambled eggs and hard boiled eggs.  Have her decide which one she likes best.
(We actually had eggs for breakfast, so we didn't have this snack.)

Gross Motor: Go on an egg hunt.  Hide the little pastel Easter eggs around the house.  Have her search for the eggs and place them in her basket.  Then, practice sorting the eggs by color, counting how many of each color she has found.

We had already done the egg hunt several times before I took this video, so she was starting to lose interest.  Samantha even hid the eggs for me a couple times, but she mostly hid them in the same place, in one of her bags of toys on the bookshelf.  Nevertheless, she thought this was pretty fun.

Number/Shape Activity: Alphabet Eggs: Cut egg shapes out of heavy paper.  Print uppercase alphabet letters on half of the shapes and matching lowercase letters on the other half (for letters A-E).  Place the uppercase-letter eggs in a box and hand out the lowercase-letter eggs to your children.  As you remove each uppercase egg from the box, display it and have her find the matching lowercase egg and bring it to me.  Continue until all the letters have been matched.

           Fine Motor:  Color matching colored Easter eggs to colored egg carton cups:  Get an egg                    carton and color the inside of each egg cup a different color.  Then set out the colored Easter              eggs and have them match the correct color of egg to the same color in the carton.  Also, have            her fill the eggs with little puff balls, putting one in the first one, two in the second one, etc.

After we finished our preschool that morning (it's amazing what you can accomplish when your child wakes up around 7:00 a.m.), we decided to go to a local gymnastics center to try out their open gym.  It only costs $4 to go play for an hour, and Samantha had a really good time.  At first she was a little hesitant, as she is in many new circumstances, particularly when it involves something physical, but she quickly warmed up and started running around, jumping on trampolines, hanging on bars, and playing with all the various things they had set out.  It was a great place to go and get some exercise on a day when it's too cold to go outside and play.  There were a lot of other kids there with their moms, so apparently it was a pretty popular idea.  Samantha and I will definitely have to go back again another day.

Nap time on Thursday was difficult, even though she had a busy morning of preschool activities at home and playing at the open gym.  As I mentioned earlier in this blog post, Samantha has been resisting nap time a little more, trying to push the limits, but I was still able to get her to fall asleep, which is always a good thing, especially since we had a busy night planned.  

After Samantha took a nap, Daddy took her grocery shopping, their normal Thursday routine, while I gave piano lessons.  When they got back, we finished putting the groceries away and made some mac and cheese for Samantha before the babysitter arrived for the evening.  We got a recommendation from a friend of a lady from our church who likes to babysit as a break from working with college students.  She arrived at our house around 5:30, we showed her around the house, where Samantha's room was, and how to work the TV.  At first, Samantha was acting a bit shy, but then within five minutes she was wanting to show the babysitter how she sits on the big potty.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that earlier!  All of a sudden, after coming home from BSF on Wednesday, Samantha has wanted to sit on the big potty by herself without using her potty seat.  She tried it with her teachers during BSF, realized she could do it, and really enjoys the independence it gives her, making her feel like an even bigger girl.  It's nice for us now, too, because we no longer have to drag her potty seat around with us everywhere.  Now, Samantha's "diaper bag" will be transitioned to a diaper bag for Aedan when he arrives, and we won't have to worry about stuffing a big potty seat in there as well.

Anyways, back to our babysitter.  Samantha was so excited that someone was at our house to play with her, that she could have cared less about this lady pretty much being a complete stranger.  In fact, Samantha went to sit at the table to eat her dinner, and she looked at us and said, "Good bye Mom and Dad!"  

Ben spontaneously got a call from his parents on Thursday afternoon asking us if we'd be interested in staying Friday night at the lodge in Brown County State Park with them.  They were going to book two rooms, and Aunt Jeni and Alaina were even going to come.  We certainly couldn't turn down that offer.  Samantha squealed with joy when she heard of our plans.  What could be better than staying in a hotel with Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Jeni, and Alaina!  Plus, the hotel had a pretty nice swimming area with a shallow play area, a small lazy river, and a water slide.  Samantha was SO excited, she could hardly wait.

Friday morning, Samantha and I had to go out and buy new swimsuits because we both outgrew ours from last year.  We decided to try Once Upon a Child first, and luckily, we found exactly what we needed there.  Samantha chose an Ariel bathing suit, and we even got her a floatie thing with the floaties on the arms and across the chest with a buckle in the back, called a Puddle Jumper.  I found a maternity bathing suit that was adequate, plus it only cost me $8, much cheaper than anything I would have found at Target.

Nap time on Friday afternoon was definitely a challenge because Samantha knew that after her nap, Daddy would be coming home, and we were going to go to Brown County and be able to swim in the pool.  This little girl LOVES being in water, and it has been entirely too long since we have enjoyed swimming in a pool.  It took me quite awhile, and a little bit of fighting, to get Samantha to sleep.  In fact, it was one of those afternoons where I just did not feel like a good mom.  I don't like having to play the bad guy at nap time, having to take her blankie away, or raise my voice at her in order to coerce her into sleeping.  She eventually did fall asleep, which I was glad for, because that was going to make the evening much better.  She only slept for about an hour, but it was enough to tide her over until bed time.

After having stir fry for dinner at home and loading up the car, we headed for Brown County State Park.  As soon as we got checked in (as we arrived before the rest of the family), we changed into our swimsuits and enjoyed some wonderful playtime in the aquatic center.  Here is a picture of the center, so you can see all that there was to offer.

At first, Samantha was a bit hesitant to wear the floatie that I bought for her, but I convinced her to try it on and then carried her into the deeper water where she figured out that the floatie enabled her to float on top of the water.  When she realized that, she squealed with excitement!  After that, there was no stopping her, she was swimming around everywhere in the water, with no fear of getting her head too far under water.  She loved going under the water fountains, getting dumped on by the water in the buckets, floating around on the lazy river, and even going down the water slide.  For some reason, the lifeguards said she would have to go down by herself, Daddy couldn't ride down with her, so we were a bit nervous about letting her do that, especially since the slide splashed right out into the pool where it was too deep for her to touch.  However, since she had the floatie to keep her above water, we knew she would be okay.  Daddy took her up to the top of the slide and explained to her that she would have to go down by herself, and she still wanted to go.  (Our child has no fear!  I think she may have gotten that trait from me.  I'll try anything once!)  She went down the slide with no problem, and I was waiting for her at the bottom, ready to catch her once she hit the water.  They wouldn't let me wait for her in the water, so I stood on the side of the pool until I saw her about ready to hit the pool.  She was a little surprised when she splashed into the pool and probably got a little water in her face and mouth.  She looked at me and started to cry a little bit, but I immediately asked her if she had fun and told her how proud of her I was, that she was brave enough to do that big slide all by herself.  She immediately stopped crying and smiled from ear to ear.  I think she really enjoyed herself, but when we asked her if she wanted to go again, she said, "No."  I think one time was enough for her.

After having our fill in the pool, we went back up to our rooms to change, and shortly thereafter, Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Jeni, and Alaina arrived.  They all came into our hotel room so the girls could hang out and play for a little while until it was time for bed.  We decided to put the two girls down to sleep in the same room, so that the adults could stay up a little longer and talk in the other hotel room.  We were a little nervous how this would work out, especially with our little socialite daughter.  We were afraid she would be in the room trying to talk to Alaina instead of sleeping.  However, both girls were up an hour and a half past their bedtime, so they had no trouble falling quickly asleep.

Once the adults were ready for bed, Daddy and Grandma helped carry Samantha's pack and play (with Samantha still sleeping in it), back over to our hotel room.  She did wake up, looked confusedly at Grandma carrying one end of her pack and playing, but then fell right back asleep after she was back in our quiet, dark hotel room.  Throughout the day on Friday, Samantha had developed a bit of a cold, mostly in the form of a stuffy nose, and it really seemed to bother her on Friday night.  She woke up quite a bit in the first couple hours of the night, sniffling and moaning, like she was pretty uncomfortable and couldn't breathe very well.  I felt so bad for her, especially after having a short nap that day and going to bed late, I knew she really needed her sleep.

Samantha slept in until about 7:45 on Saturday morning, which is later than we expected considering our exciting location.  We got up and dressed, and then went over to the other hotel room for breakfast.  Grandma had brought some donuts, juice boxes, cereal, and milk for us all to share for breakfast.  Samantha is a huge fan of donuts, although she got her fill after about half of this chocolate frosted donut. I actually think she much preferred the Apple Jacks to the donut.

After breakfast, we decided to go out for a walk on a little trail before the pool opened for the day.  It was a little chilly outside, but nothing in comparison to the harsh winter temperatures we've had this year.  The girls had a good time going up and down stairs and looking at nature all around them.

After we got our fill of walking, burning off some donut calories, we went back to the hotel to change into our swimsuits and hit the pool.  Samantha was, once again, SO excited to go swimming and for everyone else to go with her.  She is such a little fish in the water, and this time her favorite activity was standing on a little seating bench in the water and jumping off into the water.  She would open her mouth and take a deep breath before she jumped, but I'm sure she wouldn't remember to actually keep her mouth closed once she hit the water.  However, her floatie would bring her right back up to the surface, she would swim back over the to bench, climb up, and jump right back in again.  I'm so glad I got her this floatie.  It's like she has a new found freedom in the water.  Back last summer when we would take her swimming, she had no fear of the water or getting her head under the surface of the water, but it was much less safe and much more scary for us because we would have to constantly be watching if she jumped under the water so that we could help her back up again.  Now, she can jump all she wants without worrying about "drowning" as she puts it.

The girls played in the pool for over an hour, and it was getting close to the time we had to check out of our hotel rooms, so we decided to leave and get ready to go.  We ate lunch at the lodge restaurant, as they had a very delicious buffet where we could find more than enough food to fill us up.  We then decided to go visit the nature center and walk around a bit more before heading out of the park and back to Bloomington.  Even though it is a relatively short drive back home, Samantha was pretty tired, and we convinced her to take a nap in the car so that she'd have more time to play with Alaina, Aunt Jeni, Grandpa, and Grandma, once we got back home.  Her little runny nose was still quite a nuisance, so she was snoring and sniffling the whole time she was sleeping.  It was so cute that Ben and I just kept looking at each other and smiling.  I took a video of her sleeping, but I'm not sure you can really hear how she was breathing and snoring very well on the video.

We had a fun evening with everyone back at our house, even though the girls were both still very tired.  We ordered pizza from Mother Bear's and brought it back home for dinner.  The girls got to play some more, and it was fun to have Alaina and Aunt Jeni over at our house.  Samantha enjoyed showing off her room and toys.  The family all left shortly after dinner, and we had a pretty quick evening of giving Samantha a bath and putting her to bed a little earlier since she didn't have much of a nap and would lose an hour of sleep to daylight savings time.

Speaking of daylight savings time, we weren't sure exactly how this would affect Samantha.  She had been pretty regularly waking up between 7:00 and 7:15 most mornings, so we weren't sure if her body would continue to wake up at the same time or if she would sleep later, especially since it would be darker out in the morning.  Well, Sunday morning she ended up sleeping in until 8:20.  We were so surprised, and it was a bit strange having all that extra time to ourselves between when we woke up and when she woke up.  It will be interesting to see if she continues to sleep in until 8:00 or 8:15, since that was her normal wake up time for so long.  We wouldn't mind, as long as it doesn't mess up her nap time too much.  Sometimes that 7:00 wake up time came too early, even for Mommy and Daddy.

Samantha: 33 Months, Week 2 {Samantha Singing, Her Zoo, Christy and Matt Visit}

I feel like we go through swings of having really busy weeks and then weeks with not much going on.  This week was a really busy week.  It felt like we were running all over the place.

Monday was probably our most relaxed day because we just had gymnastics scheduled that morning.  However, I also planned some preschool activities because I would like to keep progressing with Samantha on that.  Plus, she just enjoys it so much.  So, we started on the letter E and had the theme of elephants.

Day 1: Elephants

Books: Read Engelbert the Elephant by Tom Paxton and Steven Kellogg

Song:  Sing the song “Elephant” to the tune of “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush.”

This is the elephant's tail so thin,
Tail so thin, tail so thin,
This is the elephant's tail so thin.  Swish, swish, swish.

These are the elephant's feet so huge,
Feet so huge, feet so huge,
These are the elephant's feet so huge.  Stomp, stomp, stomp.

This is the elephant's nose so long,
Nose so long, nose so long,
This is the elephant's nose so long.  Blow, blow, blow.

These are the animals all around,
All around, all around,
These are the animals all around.  Run, run, run!

Craft: Make elephants using handprints.  Paint my hand and her hand the color of her choice for the elephants, make handprints side by side.  Then, turn the paper around so the handprints are upside down.  Write “E is for Elephant” at the top of the page and draw two lines on each finger with black pen and three lines on the thumb.  Add a dot for an eye, a C curve for an ear, and a tail.

(We followed the directions on this craft, except we used both of her hands instead of one of mine and one of hers.  She really likes it when I paint her hands, and they feel all wet and sticky from the paint.  This may be a project of hers that I keep.  I just love her little hand prints.)

Letter Activity: Discuss how the letter E has 2 sounds, practice those sounds, and review the sounds that A, B, C, and D make as well.  Make Salt E’s.  Take a small shoe box lid and cover the bottom with some salt.  Let her take turns writing E’s in the salt with her fingers.

(We also hid our magnetic letters in the salt and practiced matching them up and sticking them on the oven.  She really enjoyed this activity and could have played in the salt for a long time.)

Snack:  Make Elephant Ears.  Cut one tortilla into multiple (thick) strips.  Place the tortilla strips on a microwaveable plate.  Rub butter generously over one side of the strips.  Place the plate of strips in the microwave and microwave on high for two and a half minutes.  Sprinkle generously with cinnamon and sugar.

Gross Motor: Play “Elephant Toss.”  Before you begin this game, talk with her about how elephants use their trunks.  Invite her to use her bodies to show how elephants move.  Give her a bucket and encourage her to pretend she is an elephant at play by holding the bucket with both hands and keeping her elbows straight as I throw the beanbags into her bucket.  The “elephants” will try to catch the beanbags in the bucket.  If the beanbags fall, children can use the same motion to pretend to be elephants scoping the bags from the ground.  We can then switch jobs.

Number/Shape Activity: Get one die and a piece of paper with the numbers 1-5 written on it.  Roll the dice, count all the dots, and circle each number until you’ve rolled them all.

Fine Motor:  Make letter puzzles for A, B, C, D, and E 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 letter.   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.  Do this also for the numbers 1-5 to help with letter and number recognition.

Our little girl LOVES to sing.  Lately, she has really enjoyed sitting at our piano, pretending to play, and then singing the many songs that she knows by memory.  One afternoon while I was making lunch, she was at the piano playing and singing, so I asked her to sing again and caught it on video.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how different our life will be once Aedan is born.  Most days, I feel so overwhelmed with love for Samantha that it is hard to imagine my heart loving another little baby as much as I love her.  In fact, on Monday night while I was drying Samantha's hair after her bath, Ben just looked at her with tears in his eyes, saying something like, "Don't you ever look at her and wonder why we were blessed with such a cute little girl?"  I love Samantha so much that sometimes it feels like my heart could burst.  And now, less than two months from now, we will be welcoming Aedan into our hearts to love, making me think, how will I have enough room in my heart for all that love?  I have had so many mixed feelings lately with being 32 weeks pregnant, with my due date approaching more rapidly than I would like at times.  I feel like we have gotten into a pretty good groove as a family of three.  Samantha is totally potty trained, sleeping in a big girl bed, sleeps through the night for a solid 11-12 hours, eats all the food we eat all by herself, drinks out of a big cup, plays independently, gets her own snacks from the pantry and her own cups from the refrigerator, and gets dressed and undressed mostly by herself.  Life is good.  We can go do really fun things with her, she interacts with us, talks to us, and just is a joy to be around.

Now, I know that life with Aedan will be just as wonderful, if not more so, but sometimes it's hard to imagine.  Sometimes I am sad about my dwindling days of having just Samantha to play with and take care of.  Sometimes I wonder if she will feel left out because our attention will have to be split between two kids.  Sometimes I wonder how I will handle having a newborn and an almost three year old.  Sometimes I wonder, when things are so good the way they are, what makes me want to throw it all into a whirlwind by adding another kid into the mix.  My mind is filled with doubts and questions, but I'm sure that is a normal thought process when you are going from one to two children.  The thought of transition from none to one was overwhelming and scary as well, just in different ways.  And in no way would I want to have only Samantha as an only child, nor would I change anything about being pregnant with Aedan right now.  It's just such a a weird phase to be in.  I am beyond excited to meet him and hold him and watch him grow up, just as we have with Samantha.  But I am also nervous about labor and delivery, nervous about handling two children, and nervous about going back to the diapers, breastfeeding, spit up, waking through the night phase.  Our life is obviously going to change at the end of April when we welcome Aedan into the world, and it's hard to imagine what it will be like, but all we know is that we will feel doubly blessed when we look at both of our children, Samantha and Aedan, and our heart will expand with a greater depth of love than we ever thought possible.

The rest of week continued on with something planned every day, which sometimes is good to get out of the house, but sometimes we miss our downtime to just be at home together.  On Wednesday, after BSF, we had an out of class fellowship planned at a local coffee shop.  Samantha, Sadie, and I headed over to the coffee shop right after class, and I was a little nervous about how it would be dealing with the lunchtime craziness with both girls, plus being out at a restaurant, but it actually went really well.  We had reserved a little room downstairs at the restaurant, and it was the perfect size for our group.  There were three other little girls there with their moms, so Samantha had plenty of kids to play with, without there being too many to make it overwhelming.  I got a cheese quesadilla for Samantha and I to share, and she did a fairly good job of eating lunch before having time to play while the ladies talked.  Then, I fed Sadie her bottle and even gave her some baby food.  It went really well, both girls were happy and well fed, and it was so good to have some fellowship time with these ladies outside of class.  We will definitely have to get together again another time.

On Thursday we had REST Stop at church, which is always a wonderful time.  This week we had two moms come in to share some parenting advice with us.  It's always good to hear things from the perspective of someone who has been through it and survived it.  I know I tend to get caught up in the every day problems, sometimes turning them into a bigger deal than they need to be, forgetting about the bigger picture, or comparing myself to other families or other moms, which makes me think I am doing something wrong in my own family, causing me to doubt my motherly instincts or the decisions Ben and I have made as parents.  It's nice to know I am not alone in these feelings.

After REST Stop, I had an appointment scheduled to meet about getting connected with a doula.  Ben came to the appointment with Samantha and me, which I was appreciative of.  He's always so supportive of me, and it's wonderful that he has a flexible enough schedule that he can carve time out of his day for things like this.  We were asked a few questions about what we are looking for in a doula, why we would like one, and what my previous birth experience was like with Samantha.  The coordinator will then match us with one of their volunteer doulas, and they will contact me shortly to begin getting to know me and our family before the birth of Aedan.  I am excited to use a doula for this birth and to try to give birth naturally, if at all possible.

I'm not sure why, but I was a little nervous about how my doctor would take it when I told him we were going to use a doula.  When I told him about it at my appointment on Friday morning, he seemed more than okay with it, and in fact said that he thinks they are great for women who want to try and do a natural birth.  I love that my doctor is so laid back and supportive.  I need someone like that because I can tend to be kind of high strung about things sometimes.  My appointment was short and sweet, just like normal.  My blood pressure and weight were good, and Aedan's heart beat continues to be strong.

We had another good week of napping, too.  On Monday, she was very tired, so she fell asleep in under five minutes, with me sitting in the room.  I think she took a nap every day except for Thursday again.  I always feel so happy when she takes a nap.  It makes the rest of the day so much better, for everyone involved.

After Samantha's nap on Friday, Daddy got home early from campus that day, and we spent some time playing in her room.  She decided it was time to set up another zoo in her room.

Then, on Friday night, we had more visitors arrive at our house: Uncle Matt and Aunt Christy.  We gave Samantha a little earlier than normal so that she could have some time to play with them once they arrived, before she had to go to sleep.  Samantha was very excited to see them and squealed when she heard them come in the door.  She just loves having visitors, but especially loves when her family visits.

On Saturday, the weather was a bit warmer than normal, so we decided to take advantage of it and go downtown Bloomington to walk around for awhile.  We then decided to stop at the library to let Samantha play for a little while, giving Christy and I, as well as Matt and Ben, a chance to sit and talk with each other while she played.  I love our library.  It will be hard to leave Bloomington and leave these wonderful places they have for kids.  

After coming back home for lunch and nap time, the weather was still rather warm and it just felt wrong to sit inside the house on an afternoon when it was not frigid and snowing.  So, we all got ready and went to play outside on our patio.  We had not been out on our patio for months, so things were kind of all over the place and a bit dirty.  Samantha tried to go in her little playhouse and go down the slide, but there was bird poop on the top of her slide, so she just burst into tears.  Daddy helped her out and cleaned it off for her, after which she then agreed to go down the slide, but it seemed like this was just the beginning of many emotional outbursts that day.  A little while later, she tried sitting in her house on her little red chair, but the ground was pretty muddy and mushy from all the snow we've had and the chair, as well as her feet, started sinking into the mud.  This also made her cry.  I thought maybe she had pinched her fingers in the chair somehow with how much she was crying, but it actually was just because of getting her shoes all muddy.  We took care of the mud, and I held her until she calmed down and stopped crying, and we thought we were in the clear.  However, a little while later she decided to join Daddy and Uncle Matt in the grass beyond our patio while they were playing with her toy softball bat and ball, but as soon as she walked out into the grass, she froze, like she remembered getting her shoes muddy (even though there was no mud where she was standing), and just burst into tears again.  I'm not sure what was going on this afternoon, if she just did not get enough of a nap that day or what, but it was very unusual for her to be this emotional.  Maybe it had just been too long since she'd played outside and had to deal with things being dirty and muddy?  Who knows.  It's so hard when she's overly emotional like this because it's so sad when she cries and gets upset, but it is also so cute that it's hard not to laugh and smile.

Sunday morning was going to be a regular morning of going to church and to Sunday School, but it started snowing/sleeting/freezing rain over the night, and our church actually cancelled services so that people could stay home and stay safe.  It was a bit odd getting up and getting ready for church, just to find out that it was cancelled, but it was good because it gave Samantha more time to play at home with Aunt Christy and Uncle Matt before they had to make the drive back home to the Chicago suburbs.  We let Samantha have a pajama day.  In fact, I don't think we even brushed her hair or teeth that morning.  That kind of thing doesn't matter when you are too busy having tea parties and reading books.

We had a yummy lunch of tostadas that I made in the crock pot, Christy and Matt said good-bye and hit the road to avoid the next round of snow that was forecasted, and Samantha, Mommy, and Daddy all took a good, much needed, Sunday afternoon nap.  I think Ben and I are going to have to find a way to keep this tradition alive.  It's so restful and restorative, just perfect for a Sunday, as we get ready to face the activities of another week.

Samantha: 33 Months, Week 1 {Aedan's Room, Belly Pictures, and the Children's Museum}

This past week was a really good week, but also a really busy week.  On Monday Samantha had gymnastics and for some reason she has just been SO tired in the mornings, particularly on Monday mornings.  She was so tired for gymnastics that she was not a very good listener.  When Miss Michelle asked the kids to sit on the line and wait their turn, Samantha would not do it.  It was probably one of the roughest classes we've had so far.  It made me think a little more about whether we should continue on in gymnastics or not.  It probably would be better to go at an earlier time than 10:45 because by that time of the morning she has already had a full morning of playing, but we can't make it work any other day of the week.  I really like for Samantha to be involved in gymnastics because it's a pretty good price, and she gets the chance to get some physical activity in, which is important during this seemingly never ending winter.

Slowly, over the last couple of weeks, I have been getting things organized and ready in Aedan's room.  I have washed all his clothes and blankets, and have things pretty well arranged how I like them in his room.  I still have to get his cloth diapers washed and ready to go and his closet a little less cluttered and more organized, but that won't take too much time.  I have decided that April 9 is the last day I will watch Sadie so that way I can put the finishing touches on his room, clean the toys, and get it all ready for his arrival (not that he's even going to use his room right away, but I am just too much of a planner to not have everything put away and in order).  I can't remember if I wrote this on my blog yet or not, but we ordered a really cute set of bedding called Teammates from Lambs & Ivy.  Once I got them in the mail, I washed them and was so excited to get them on his crib, but when they came out of the washer, the quilt and the bumpers looked worn and faded already.  I was really disappointed and upset that that happened even though I followed the directions on how to wash them.  So, I contacted the company to see if they could do anything about it.  The customer service people were very helpful and responsive.  Unfortunately, the Teammates bumper is no longer available (bummer!), but they said I could choose a bumper from any other collection and they would send me that plus a new quilt at no cost to me.  I found bumpers from another collection that I think will work fairly well with the pattern of the rest of the bedding, and I am currently waiting on the arrival of the new quilt and bumper pads.  It should arrive sometime this week and then the decorations for the nursery will be complete.

On Monday Ben normally comes home early to be with Samantha while I give piano lessons, but we had a chance for some pretty bad ice, so all of my lessons called and cancelled for the afternoon.  In some ways it was kind of nice because Ben still got home early, so we had an extra long evening together as a family.  I had Ben help hang up the decorations for the walls in Aedan's room.  We didn't even have to buy anything new because we used all his old Cubs' decorations from his room when he was a little boy.  We used to have these hanging in our spare bedroom/office back before Samantha came along, and we thought they would be the perfect decorations for a little boy's room.  Here are some of the pictures of our wall decorations, as well as the curtains that I made.  I think it is all coming together nicely.

Samantha has really enjoyed dressing up again more lately.  We let her dress up after nap time, if she wants to, as an extra incentive for how much more fun the evenings can be when she naps during the afternoon.  She almost always chooses the Belle dress first, then switching to the Snow White dress, but on this day, she was very interested in the Super Woman costume.  I asked her what her super power was, and she said it was to fly, so she would zoom around the house in her costume like she was a flying super hero.

And of course dressing up usually involves dancing with Daddy.

The other thing I did on Monday night, since we had more time together than usual, is I made a chocolate cherry cheesecake.  I was going to make it last week for Valentine's Day for Ben, but we had brownies and other sweets, so I thought it would be better to save it for a few days.  Samantha helped me smash up the chocolate cookies for the crust, but was more interested in eating a cookie than really helping with the crushing.  Here's how it turned out:

That same night, I asked Daddy to take some pictures of my pregnant belly.  I don't think I really have any belly shots from this pregnancy, so I thought that would be a good idea.  Plus, back when I was pregnant with Samantha, we made a similar cheesecake for Valentine's Day and have a pregnant belly shot of me, so I figured it would be a nice comparison.  Here are Samantha and I showing off our bellies!

We give Samantha a bath every other night, and bath time is always an exciting time in our house.  She has loved it ever since she was a baby.  However, now she uses a loofah and a big towel, rather than a baby washcloth and towel.  She still doesn't mind being wrapped up and held like a little baby to warm herself up after her bath.  I just had to catch this moment in a picture, the two loves of my life:

Tuesdays are library day with Sadie, and it's always a good time.  However, something kind of sad, but funny, happened when we first got to the library today.  Up by the main circulation desk, they usually have something set up for their theme of the month, and lately they have had it set up for the winter reading book club.  They have a mannequin sitting on the floor with a blanket covering him, pretend hot chocolate in his hand, sitting by a fire, and reading a book.  They also have a pretend cat curled up on a little bed on the floor.  We have looked at this cat many times before, and Samantha loves to look at it, but this time when she went up to look at it, it moved!  It's head moved back and forth and the cat blinked.  It had never done this before and definitely surprised Samantha, so much so that she jumped back and started crying really hard.  I scooped her up and tried to calm her down and explain to her that it was just a pretend cat and must have batteries in it that make it move.  I told her that maybe every other time we'd seen it, the batteries weren't working.  After a few minutes of crying, I finally got her calmed down enough to go down the elevator to story time.  It was really sad to see her burst into tears like that, but it was also hard for me not to laugh because she is just so cute when she cries.  It's hard not to smile. :)

I am always really impressed with how good of a listener Samantha is during story time.  They usually have the same few librarians that take turns leading story time each week, but this week we had someone totally different.  We had a man who apparently leads the Evening Story Time on Tuesday nights.  We had never heard him tell stories, and his style was a bit different from the usual female librarians.  He used puppets, made jokes, talked in silly voice, and was really funny with the kids.  Samantha just sat as still as a rock, watching him so intently, hardly moving a muscle or making a peep, which says a lot considering how much she moves and talks the rest of the day.  Even when the other kids would laugh, she would just sit there and watch him.  I think she just thought that he was so interesting and different, that she got completely wrapped up into what he was saying and doing.  She really enjoys watching people with puppets, too.  He had a knight puppet that he had talk in a Scottish accent, and the knight was afraid of kids.  Samantha still talks about that knight a week later, talking about how funny he was.

After story time, Samantha had the job of asking a librarian to help us find the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  The librarian showed us the fairy tale section of the library, and Samantha was in heaven!  She found books on Rapunzel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, along with several different versions of Little Red Riding Hood, whom she calls "Little Ride Nabing Hood."  It's too cute to correct her.  :)

Another funny thing Samantha has been doing lately involves when we have to reprimand or correct her, even if it is about something little, she will run away in a corner, by the wall, or by the stairs.  She'll do this when she feels bad, like when she accidentally hurt Daddy while playing doctor or accidentally hit me in the face with a book.  We have been trying to work on this behavior so that she doesn't always just run away.  For example, when she hurt Daddy and me; we tried to encourage her just to say I'm sorry instead of running away and pouting in the corner.  It's a work in progress.  She is definitely an emotional little girl lately; she has all this pent up emotion and doesn't know what to do with it, so sometimes it just explodes.

This week was another great week for naps.  Samantha took a nap Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week, and it seems like as long as I stay in her room until she falls asleep, which usually takes about ten to fifteen minutes, she will take a good nap from anywhere around an hour and a half to two hours.  She's been waking up slightly earlier in the morning, but we will take it if that means she takes a good nap and is less crabby in the afternoon and evening.  Plus, she loves her reward of watching a show and eating fruit snacks after she wakes up, and getting to sleep with a stuffed animal at night.  I'm trying not to get my hopes up that this will last forever, but it's nice while it lasts.

On Thursday we had plans for a play date with some friends from church; however, they called and had to cancel because they were having a bad morning of blow outs and melt downs.  Samantha was SO excited about Abigail coming over, and she kept asking every two minutes if she was here yet.  I felt so bad when I got that phone call because I knew she would be so disappointed.  She was just playing quietly, and I finally had to tell her that Abigail wasn't going to be able to come over, and I explained why and that she was going to come the next day instead.  But Samantha just burst into tears, crawled into my lap, and cried for a few minutes.  It made her feel better to know she was going to come over the next day, but she was still so very sad.  I know I don't want to ask for things to make Samantha sad, but I just love it when she needs me to comfort her like this.  I love it when she comes crying into my arms and wants me to hold her, kiss her boo-boos, or wipe her tears from her eyes.  I know that this will not last forever, nor do I want it to, but I just love these precious moments where I get to be there for my little girl.

Since Abigail was coming on Friday instead, I moved a meeting that I had scheduled to Thursday morning instead.  Samantha was excited about getting out of the house to do something fun, since Abigail wasn't coming.  It helped take her mind off of being sad and disappointed.  I met a lady at church about reserving a room for my piano recital, and Samantha got to play in the two year old room while we talked and signed paperwork.  She did a really good job listening to me, so we then went to the Banneker Center to play.  She had a really good time playing with other kids, dressing up, racing back and forth across the room, and playing with the tool table.  She was having such a good time playing, that I let her stay longer than usual, and we didn't get home until around 12:30, ate a late lunch, and then tried to take a nap.  However, nap time was just not happening that day, unfortunately.  I don't know if it was just because of the excitement of the morning or the fact that we got back later than usual and she didn't have enough downtime at home, but there has just been something about Thursdays since she didn't nap last Thursday either.  However, I'm not going to complain because we had a great morning and a great week together.

Thursday night, since Samantha was so tired out from not napping that day, I decided it would be a good night to paint her nails again.  She had her nails painted by Aunt Jeni back a few weeks ago for the first time and most of it had chipped off by this point.  I used nail polish remover to remove the leftovers, which Samantha thought was really funny and tickled her toes.  I had a few different colors that I scrounged up from around the house, and she decided on a light pink for her finger nails and a sparkly purple for her toe nails.  Since she was tired, she sat pretty still for me, and Daddy helped to blow on her nails while they dried.  Samantha is definitely a girly girl through and through, at least right now.  Having painted nails, wearing skirts, dressing up, and dancing are the best activities to her right now.

The last few days of this week Samantha was running a low grade fever.  She had no other symptoms of being sick, so we weren't really sure what was going on.  Maybe her little body was just trying to fight something off.  We gave her medicine to help her cool off, particularly at nap time and bedtime, and besides that just kept our eyes on her to make sure no other symptoms arose.  

Friday morning her low grade fever seemed to be gone, but she still was acting pretty tired.  This has been a trend lately, even though she has been getting pretty good sleep at night and at nap time, all morning long she seems really tired out.  Abigail came over to play that morning, and Samantha was really excited but didn't play very well.  I don't know if the age difference was too great, as Abigail was just two and Samantha is almost three, but they both played with separate toys, not interacting with each other much.  There was even one point that Samantha went upstairs to her room and laid in bed because she was so tired.  Despite that, I think the girls had a fun time playing.  I enjoy having play dates because it's something different, we get to stay in our own house and play, but Samantha has someone else to play with instead of me, giving me the chance to have an adult conversation with another mom.  We will definitely have to do this more often with other friends.

After Miss Spacey (as Samantha calls her, even though her name is Stacy), Abigail, and Hannah left to go home, Samantha and I had lunch and nap time.  I was so glad that she went to sleep easily today because she was acting to tired, and also because my parents were coming to visit us for the weekend.  I knew it would be a long night if she did not take a nap that day.  While Samantha napped, I used my time to clean the house and get things put away before my parents arrived.  They arrived right about in the middle of her nap time, so we had a chance to talk before Samantha woke up.  Samantha was very excited that Grandpa and Grandma were there to visit her.  She immediately had them read books to her, and they even got to participate in her after nap ritual of watching a show and eating fruit snacks.  (Well, Samantha was the only one who ate fruit snacks.)  We had a yummy dinner of chili soup and three cheese bread that I made in my bread maker.  The bread turned out really well, probably the best bread I've made so far.  All of us ate together, and then Ben and I went out to a conference at our church while Grandpa and Grandma babysat Samantha for us.  It's always nice when we get a free night out and don't have to worry about who's taking care of Samantha.

On Saturday we had a big day planned at the Children's Museum.  Ben went to the second day of the conference at church and then had the rest of the afternoon in the house by himself to work.  Grandpa, Grandma, Samantha, and I headed out to the museum a little after 9:30 with our lunches packed.  We started off at the new exhibit about animal secrets.  This area was pretty fun with lots of different animals, animal tracks, fossils, and nests or caves that animals may live in.  However, there was one section with the cave that Samantha got frightened in because it had a small square of real fox fur, and I think it must have just surprised her, but it made her burst into tears, and she definitely did not want to go back in that cave again.

From there we went down to the dinosaur section, which normally is a huge hit with Samantha.  We started on the top floor of the dinosphere, and there was a museum guide doing a demonstration of the skin, muscles, bones, and organs of a T-Rex.  Samantha wanted to sit down and listen, so she sat on a couch and listened intently to the man's demonstration.  She was so quietly listening, so attentive, I was so proud of her.  After that we looked down on the dinosaurs from the viewing window above.  Samantha noticed that in the dinosphere there was a pretend storm with lights flashing for lightning.  She decided this was too scary, and she did not want to go see the dinosaurs.  

Instead, we moved on to the train section.  The museum was super busy so it was important for Samantha to stay right with us.  It's hard for her to do this because she has been to this museum so many times and knows it so well, that she will skip from one place to the next, going to the places she knows she likes the best.  I had to stop her once and tell her that she needed to be sure either Mommy, Grandpa, and Grandma were with her before moving to a new area.

Of course, she had to take a ride in the train car with Grandpa and Grandma.

After riding on the train car, Samantha's routine is then to play with the train table.  However, there were many kids trying to play at the same time and many of them were not very good at sharing.  Samantha had two train cars she was playing with, and she sent them down a little hill.  She then had to climb under the table to a hole in the middle so she could continue pulling her train along, but before she could get to it, another little boy took it away from her.  She nicely told the boy that she was playing with those trains, but the boy didn't care to share.  This of course made Samantha very upset, and she started to cry.  Who knows where the parents were of the boy, but it didn't look like they were about to make him share.  So instead of dealing with that, we just moved on to another area where they have a second train table that a lot of kids don't know about.  This table was open so Samantha could play with is freely without worrying about kids that didn't share.  When another kid came along, she did a a very nice job of sharing the trains.

After getting our fill of the trains, we decided that it was time for lunch before going anywhere else.  We went up to the cafeteria and enjoyed our sandwiches, crackers, and apples.  Samantha ate pretty well, despite the noise and chaos in the cafeteria.

After lunch, we went down to play with the exhibit meant to look like the glass sculpture in the middle of the museum.  Samantha always enjoys this part, especially knocking all the pieces out and then putting them back in again.

Then, we made our way up to the top floor for a ride on the carousel.  Since being pregnant, the carousel has made me feel too dizzy, so I decided to sit this one out, but Grandpa and Grandma both got to ride with Samantha.

After riding the carousel, Samantha played around in the same room, with the first stop being the little pretend tree house.  You can climb up the stairs to get in and then there is a ladder to climb back down on the inside of the tree, but Samantha knows that she is too little to climb down by herself, especially with so many older kids around.  Even thought it had been a while since we'd been to the museum, Samantha remembered about not climbing down the ladder, instead always coming back down the stairs.  She is such a good little first child, rule follower.  We'll see if our second one is the same, or if he has a different personality simply because he is a boy as well.  

As I was watching Samantha play inside the tree house, something happened that made me really sad and really proud of our little girl, all at the same time.  She was looking at a screen where you could turn a camera on the outside of the tree house and look at the parents down below.  She was very nicely taking her turn.  Well, then an older boy, actually the same older boy that stole her trains on the train table, literally pushed Samantha out of the way so he could turn the camera.  Samantha just stood there, looked up at him with a sad face, and then went to play somewhere else in the tree house.  After a few minutes, she came looking for me, looking sad and crying a little bit, telling me that the kids were being mean to her in the tree house.  I said, "Yeah, I know, I saw that boy push you out of the way.  It seems like he is not very good at sharing.  How about we go and play somewhere else"  Samantha thought that was a good idea, so we went off to play tic tac toe together.  Her and I were right in the middle of a game, when another little girl came up and starting taking our pieces off the board.  Again, there didn't seem to be any parent anywhere watching the behavior of these kids.  However, Samantha didn't really react.  She didn't get mad, she didn't cry, she didn't grab the pieces or push back.  All of which I'm glad for, but sometimes I feel a little bad for her and don't want her to just be pushed around and not stand up for herself at all.  It's a hard situation to know what to do, but she usually decides that it's easier to just go play with something else rather than make a big deal out of it.

After having our fill of this room, we moved on to the Playscape which is specifically designed for kids Samantha's age.  She always has a good time playing in this room with the water, climbing the leaves of the pond, the sand, the music room, and the ball tower.  However, as seemed to be the theme of our day, Samantha encountered another kid that had a hard time sharing.  She climbs up the leaves of the pond, which is basically a climbing structure with a couple boats at the very top, as if they are sitting on top of the pond, and her goal is always to climb up to the top, inside the boat, and she got almost all the way up to the top, but there was an older boy inside the boat and he wouldn't let anyone get past him.  In fact, when Samantha tried to climb into the boat, he kicked her in the head to get her to go away.  So, she just started to climb back down, didn't even cry about it, and went on to play with something else, the sand table.  Poor little girl.

As you can see in some of these pictures, Samantha was getting pretty tired.  It was already way past her nap time, but she was having such a fun time playing and was still being such a good listener, I figured we could do a couple more things before it was time to head back home.

The next room we went to was the Science Works room where Samantha likes to play with the boats in the water, the Health House, and climbing the steps to go through the tunnel and down the slide.  She has gone down this slide dozens of times with no problem, but there were just so many kids there.  Samantha waited her turn in line very patiently and started to climb up the steep steps.  However, the girl behind her was not being patient and was crowding Samantha, almost like she was trying to climb over her because she was older and wanted to go faster.  Well, Samantha got really overwhelmed and afraid with this girl right behind her not giving her any space, so Samantha just stopped in the middle of the steps and started crying.  I was standing just off to the side, so I went in and got her off the steps, trying to comfort her and console her.  I told her that maybe we could try to go back on the slide in a little while when there weren't so many kids waiting in line for it.  Samantha calmed down fairly quickly, but again, I felt so bad for her.  It seemed like she could not cut a break from other kids, all day.  While we were waiting, Samantha decided to go back into the Health House and sit in the pretend bathtub and brush the dinosaur's teeth.  I finally convinced her to go back and try the slide again.  I didn't want her to make that experience frighten her from ever trying it again.  This time, I waited in line with her so I could help her up the steps and prevent kids from crowding her as she climbed.  She did a fine job climbing up by herself, but I had to tell a little boy to wait a minute while she climbed up because he was wanting to rush right up behind her, just like last time.

After a successful trip down the slide, we decided to make our last stop be a last carousel ride.  As we were waiting in line, I think Samantha caught her second wind, as she put on quite the dance show for us in a line.  She thinks watching this video is hilarious.

 We also made a stop earlier in the day for a picture in a race car.

We had such a fun day at the Children's Museum.  In fact, I think it was after 3:30 when we left the museum.  Samantha was very tired, but I wasn't too hopeful that she would take a nap in the car on the way since it was so late and also because she would have Grandpa and Grandma riding in the car, with one of them sitting next to her in the back seat.  We followed our normal routine for nap time, and since Grandpa sat in the back with her, he read her two books, and then I sang her two songs and prayed for her.  She had a blanket and her blankie, but was pretty distracted at first.  I reminded Grandpa and Grandma that you just kind of have to ignore her to get her to go to sleep in the car, that talking to her or looking at her really only makes it worse.  So then, after a while of sitting in the quiet car, Samantha fell fast asleep.  She slept for about thirty-five minutes by the time she fell asleep, before we got home, but I was glad that even a little nap would help the rest of the evening go much better.

Samantha was still pretty tired, but we had good evening of eating Mother Bear's pizza at home, playing, and reading books before it was time for a bath and bed after a full, really fun day at the museum.

Sunday was a fairly typical Sunday for us.  We went to church and then to our ACG.  Ben taught the class, and it was very good.  Samantha had a great morning in her class, and we even got to hear a funny story when we picked her up.  Apparently, during story time one of the teachers got up to put a toy away, and Samantha said to the teacher, "That's not very respectful.  It's story time."  Samantha knows that you are supposed to sit and listen during story time and called her teacher out on it.  Whoops!  Sorry teacher, our child holds everyone to the same standards as herself.  Everyone laughed about it, though.  Oh, our little girl, the rule follower, keeping everyone else around her in line.