Samantha: 18 Months, Week 1

After our busy weekend of traveling, we all woke up pretty tired on Monday morning.  Samantha woke up Monday morning saying "bus" and "Texas."  She must have had a really good time there.  :)  You know what they say, once you go to Texas, you never leave.  Good thing we got Samantha out while had the chance.

The hardest part about returning to Indiana was going from weather in the mid-70's to weather in the 30's with snow!  Samantha was pretty excited to see the snow on Monday.  She didn't really know what to think of it, but enjoyed repeating the word "snow" whenever she saw it outside.  Of course it didn't stick for very long, but it was our first snow of the year.

In honor of the snow today, I put on some Christmas music that night at home.  Samantha danced around to the music, having a good old time.

Samantha took most of the week recovering from our trip to Texas, taking extra long naps in the afternoon and getting back to our normal routine, just in time to go on another trip to Florida!  We had one of our old stand by's for dinner on Wednesday night of this week: Mother Bear's Pizza.  Samantha loves pizza (probably because Mommy loves pizza and she had quite a bit while in utero).  Lately, we have been letting her dip things, and it was no different with her breadsticks and cheese sauce.  Ahh, like mother like daughter.  Here is a video of Samantha dipping:

We had a girl's night at our house this week, so I made cookie dough brownies for us to enjoy.  Samantha was very interested in what I was doing in the kitchen, so I pulled up a chair for her to stand on and let her watch me bake.  She was very intrigued by the whole process, especially the mixer.  Whenever I turned the mixer on, Samantha wanted me to pick her up and hold her so that she could see into the mixing bowl as it was mixed together.

Also, my friend brought her baby who was just a little over a month old over that night.  Samantha was very excited to see the little baby, almost too excited.  She kept wanting to go up to the baby and hug him and take his hat and blanket off of him.  Eventually, I had to just take Samantha upstairs for Ben to put her to bed so that she wouldn't wake the baby up by bothering him.  She really loves little babies lately.  It's pretty cute to see how much she adores them.

On Friday, Samantha turned 18 months old.  It's hard to believe she's already a year and half old already.  This semester of school has sure flown by.  We had quite the busy day in preparing to leave for Florida.  Once I got home from school, we packed up the last few things for our trip and headed out.  We drove for a couple hours, stopped at Wendy's in Louisville to pick up dinner, use the bathroom, and change Samantha into her pajamas, and then we hit the road again.  We had fun playing with Samantha in the car and she did great.  As long as she has someone sitting with her, someone to talk to, someone to read her books, and someone to make her laugh, she was a happy girl.  Around 8:00, we stopped for some coffee and gas, read Samantha some books and left her alone in the backseat to fall asleep.  It didn't take too long before she was comfortably sleeping.  Our plan was to drive until Chattanooga and stay in a hotel there for the night.  It's hard traveling in a car with a sleeping baby.  We tried not to talk too much because we didn't want to wake Samantha up.  We got to the hotel after 11:00, checked in quickly, brought all of our stuff to our room, and by that time Samantha was re-energized.  It was difficult to calm her back down and get her ready for bed.  Our hotel room was quite small, so her pack and and play was pretty much right at the foot of our bed.  When we got into bed, we put Roscoe up on the bed with us, it's his special treat for hotel rooms.  However, Samantha wasn't asleep yet, and of course Roscoe had to lay right at the foot of the bed.  Samantha thought it was HILARIOUS watching Roscoe up on the bed with us.  She stood their pointing and laughing at him.  We tried to ignore her as much as possible, but really, we were laughing so hard on the inside, trying not to make any noise, hoping that she would calm down and fall asleep soon.  I think it took almost forty-five minutes for Samantha to calm down enough to lay down and fall asleep.

Saturday, we had a good breakfast at our hotel before heading out.  We drove most of the day, only to stop for lunch and some coffee, getting to Florida right around dinner time.  Samantha warmed up to her great grandpa pretty quickly.  We went on a family walk after dinner since we haven't been able to do this in Indiana for a long time because of the cold weather.  Samantha was very interested in the palm trees.  We let her get up close to them and touch them.  She probably thought they were pretty funny looking.

The next day we went to church with my Dad, Grandpa, and his friend, Peg.  We dropped Samantha off in the nursery and when I picked her up the ladies were fighting over who wanted to keep her and take her home since she was such a sweet, easygoing little girl.  We love getting good reports about our little girl.  After the church service, they had a lunch at the church and Samantha was getting very, very sleepy.  However, once we got back to my grandpa's house, she had trouble sleeping that afternoon because she had developed quite the stuffy nose.  Ben actually ended ended up going in with her and holding her, letting her take a nap on his shoulder while he sat upright in bed.  It must have helped her stuffy nose a lot because she finally was able to fall asleep in this position.  (I think Ben may have taken a nap as well!)

That night, after dinner, we went over to my grandpa's friend Peg's house to visit.  Samantha has fun playing there and enjoyed being the center of attention.  It's nice that we can take her anywhere with us, and that, almost always, she will do a wonderful job acclimating to the situation.  Not all parents would drag their eighteen month old daughter across the country to Florida, but I am so happy that she is getting the opportunity to meet her great grandpa.  I'm sure it means a lot to him to see her in person.

Stay tuned, there will be more Florida adventures to come...

Samantha: 17 Months, Week 4

This week was a short one because Tuesday was election day and we had teacher in-service instead of school.  Also, we were planning on leaving for Waco, Texas on Thursday after school, so much of the week was spent preparing for our trip.

The time changed on Saturday night and Samantha had a lot harder of a time with it than we thought she would.  She was very tired at night, was getting hungry early, waking up earlier in the morning, basically acting like she was back on her normal schedule.  It took her several days to adjust.  It's funny how little things like that really mess with little kid's schedules.

Samantha also went to the dentist this week.  She was very excited to go back into the room, especially since all the rooms are painted in different themes.  She enjoyed seeing the animals painted on the walls and pushing the stool around the room.  However, once the doctor came in, she wasn't so sure.  After talking to us for a few minutes about her eating habits and how we brush her teeth, we had to lay her back with her head in his lap so he could take a look at her mouth and make some notes.  She was not a fan of that experience.  As soon as we started laying her back, she started crying, and she cried the whole time he was trying to look in her mouth.  The only comment he made to us was trying to brush her front top teeth a little better because she has the little connective tissue between her teeth that makes them more prone to collect plaque.  However, that tissue also makes it harder to brush because it seems to be a little more sensitive to her.  He also encouraged us to start flossing her teeth once a week or so.  The tears quickly subsided, and she was excited to get her own little goody bag with stickers and a new toothbrush shaped like a crayon.  She even learned how to say the word "dentis" while she was there.

In preparation for our first flight, we ran a few errands around town during the week.  We went to the dollar store, and I let Samantha pick out some coloring books and crayons for the plane ride.  She chose one with Elmo, one with Minnie Mouse, and even found Minnie Mouse two-sided crayons, which I thought were a brilliant idea because they were fatter, and it always seems like Samantha tries to color with the wrong side of the crayon.  I also had ordered a reusable sticker book from Melissa and Dog and a Magna-Doodle for her.  I tried to think of as many things as I could to occupy her little hands and mind while we were cooped up in the plane for a couple of hours.  

On Wednesday night, before we left for Waco, we made a family trip to Samantha's favorite restaurant, Chipotle (she loves the kids meal quesadilla with black beans and rice and chocolate milk).  After we ate, we walked over to the library to check out more books and pick up the Elmo DVD and Veggie Tales DVD that I requested.  Samantha loves the library.  We picked out several books that were big hits like Rap a Tap Tap and Choo, Choo.  Ben and I were both pretty nervous about how the plane rides were going to go because of course, being a toddler, she is very active.  Sitting still for a couple hours is not Samantha's idea of a good time.  We were also very nervous about how she would react to the pressure in her ears since she doesn't really know how to relieve the pressure yet.

Since we were planning on leaving as soon as I got out of school on Thursday, we tried it get ourselves packed up as much as we could on Wednesday night.  Samantha was very excited about our trip.  We even taught her how to say "yee-haw" and "Texas" before we left.  Samantha was so excited that she climbed in our suitcase the night we were trying to pack.

Our flight left at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, so we drove up to Indianapolis right after school.  We weren't sure how long everything would take since we have never traveled with a toddler before.  We ate sandwiches in the car and arrived there in plenty of time.  Samantha had a fun time playing in the airport before it was our turn to board.  She enjoyed going on the moving walkways, playing with the stuffed animals in the gift shops, and walking around saying hello to all the people waiting to board their planes.  I'm sure everyone was thinking, "Oh great, we get to ride on a plane for two hours with a toddler!"  Samantha got to ride on almost every form of public transportation available.  After we parked the car, we rode a bus to the airport (which she loved), then there was the plane, and at DFW we rode a train around to a different terminal for our flight to Waco.  Samantha's favorite was probably the bus.  I don't know why she loves buses so much, but after our ride on the bus, that was her favorite word to say.  She would just repeat it over and over again: "bus, bus, bus."

Ben and I were much more nervous about the plane ride than we should have been.  Samantha did great.  We were prepared with fruit pouches that she could suck on to relieve the pressure in her ears.  We had sippy cups and of course snacks for her to chew on.  The take off and landing didn't see to bother her one bit.  She enjoyed looking out the window at the people and cars driving around at the airport.  Her favorite activity was probably the Magna-Doodle.  She played with that for quite awhile.  We played with the sticker book, we colored, we read stories, and finally, when she was getting sleepy, we busted out the computer and played some of the Elmo DVD for her.  She really enjoyed that, and it allowed her to space out for a little while since she was very tired.  Samantha never did fall asleep though.  She is much too social to fall asleep in a plane full of people.

We had a short layover at DFW before our 20 minute flight to Waco.  It ended up being cheaper for us to fly all the way to Waco then to stop at DFW and rent a car.  We changed Samantha into her pajamas and got her ready for bed, and we had a very sleepy girl on her hands.  She kept walking around the airport, saying hello to people, but she kept saying "nigh, nigh" and tried laying on her blanket on the floor.  Luckily, the flight to Waco was short and not very full.  Samantha sat on Daddy's lap this time, mostly just looking out the window, eating some snacks, playing with her Magna-Doodle, and before we knew it, we landed again.  The family we were staying with were nice enough to pick us up at the airport, and even though it was 10 o'clock Waco time, 11 Indiana time, Samantha was still running around the airport and didn't even fall asleep in the car on our drive to their house.  We laid her down for bed right away, and she was very happy to see the pack and play.  We weren't too far behind her as we were very tired too.

The next morning, Samantha was very excited to see the kids that lived in that house.  She loved playing with all the new toys, particularly the doll stroller.  After a little while we decided to make a trip to drive by our old house and then go over to Baylor to see the Baylor bears.  It was weird driving around these old streets that once seemed so familiar to us.  Samantha enjoyed the warm, sunny, breezy weather.  After that short trip, we decided to go to one of our favorite Texas restaurants: Rudy's, mmm...barbecue.  Indiana just does't have anything that compares.  Samantha was a fan of the sausage.  Ben really enjoyed his brisket.  After our good lunch, it was time for a nap for Samantha and some downtime/work time for Mommy and Daddy.

That evening we got together with some dear friends in Waco that were a part of our old small group.  One couple has a little girl several months younger than Samantha, so they really enjoyed playing with each other that night.  We had a yummy dinner, good conversations, and Blue Bell ice cream to top off the night.  We were setting up the pack and play for Samantha that night, and she was so sleepy that she was practically begging to get in it.  We put her in it and then Emily also wanted to get in it.  Emily was playing around in the pack and play, and Samantha kept trying to lie down in it, occasionally looking up at Emily like, "What are you doing?  I'm trying to sleep here!"  We put Samantha to sleep there for a little while so that the adults could have some time to catch up and talk.  It was so good for my soul to be around old friends and have good conversations, just like we never had left.  I really miss these Waco friends.  It would be wonderful to have Emily and Samantha grow up together.  They sure became fast friends!

This was my attempt at taking a picture of both the girls together. It didn't work so well! 

Saturday morning the kids had a great job playing together.  Samantha loved playing outside in their backyard, something you would never be able to do in Indiana this time of year.  Samantha loved the swing.  She would absolutely love having a swing set in our backyard.  Someday!  I went in the house to take a shower and get ready, and when I got done in the shower, she was still on the swing.

For lunch this day we went to Chuy's, our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant.  We had a very good lunch, and driving around the streets of Waco seemed so familiar, yet so strange.  Samantha had another good afternoon nap, and then it was time to go to Brandi's party, the whole reason we traveled to Waco for the weekend.  Our dear friend Brandi was diagnosed with a brain tumor about a year a half ago, right around when Samantha was born.  Ever since then, they have been trying various things to get rid of the cancer, to remove it, to heal Brandi.  Some things have made small improvements over the year, but they just recently did a brain scan and noticed that the tumor had grown right through the new chemo treatment.  They are now out of medical options that can kill the tumor and instead they are focusing on how to have quality time instead of quantity time.  Her husband, Stanton, planned this celebration party in her honor.  They took pictures of all the families that came and we wrote out cards for Brandi that they will match up and put in a book for her.  We had a great service of worship, testimony, and prayer.  We were all in tears, pouring our hearts out to God to heal this wonderful woman, wife, and mother of two little ones.  If you are a prayer warrior, please lift Brandi up in prayer when you think of her.  Samantha had time to play with the kids in the nursery and enjoyed meeting some new friends.

Sunday morning was time for church, lunch, and then a quick nap before we had to head to the airport for our flight home.  Our flight was at 4:00, so we got there just a little bit early to check in.  Samantha actually seemed really excited to get on the plane and had a hard time waiting in the waiting area.  She saw the ramp to the plane and wanted to run down it, even though it was not our turn to get on the plane yet.

Here is Samantha at the airport in Waco, showing of her new vocabulary:

Just like before, she did a great job on the plane, even though this was just the short one.  Once at DFW, our second flight was delayed for a little while, so we decided to go to a Tex-Mex restaurant for dinner and have a good meal, something that Samantha would really like.  Samantha enjoyed her rice, beans, taco, and the giant chocolate shake that we all shared.  We were a little worried about how this second plane ride would go because Samantha already had a very long, busy weekend, switching time zones, being in a different environment, and a lot of traveling around.  She was very, very tired, but of course is way too social to fall asleep on the plane.  The hardest part for her was the waiting to take off and taxiing part.  She was getting a little impatient and wanted to just take off into the air.  Samantha enjoyed looking at the lights below outside the plane window, eating snacks, playing with her Magna Doodle, and after a while, we busted out the computer and let her watch some of her Elmo DVD and then also videos and pictures of herself, which amused her for quite some time.  There was an older couple sitting in front of us on the plane, and I was worried the whole time about bothering them.  I tried my hardest to not allow Samantha to kick the seat or bang the tray table up and down.  After the flight and we were all waiting to get off, the older lady turned around and commented to us on how well behaved Samantha was, how they enjoyed hearing her talk and laugh throughout the flight.  Another couple behind us also commented on how well Samantha did on the flight, noting that she did not fuss on the flight even once.  We were so appreciative of the positive feedback because I know many people heave a deep sigh of dread when they see they will be aboard a plane with a baby or toddler.  Once in the airport, we took Samantha to the bathroom, changed her diaper, and put her pajamas on in preparation for bed.  We made our way out out the airport, back onto the bus, and to our car in the parking lot.  Samantha got tucked into her car seat (after all, it was around 10:30 when we left, way past this little girl's bedtime!).  She talked to herself quietly for awhile, repeating the words "Texas" and "bus" until she finally fell peacefully asleep, a perfect ending to our whirlwind of a weekend in Texas.

Samantha: 17 Months, Week 3

This week was a big one for the Toll household because Daddy was preparing to take his first exam on Friday for American politics.  We tried to make this week as easy on Daddy as possible as he did his final preparations for Friday.  On Monday, Samantha and I had to go get the car seat from the babysitter since another lady would be watching her for a couple days.  After we got the car seat, I set it on the seat next to Samantha, and Samantha started freaking out about it.  I don't know if it was because she recognized it and wanted to sit in it, or because she thought a baby was supposed to be in it, but she was very concerned.  After we stopped at Target to pick up a couple things, Mommy promptly moved the car seat into the back of the car so that Samantha wouldn't get so upset about it again. One of our main purposes of being out, since Daddy has his late classes, was to stop and get him coffee.  My initial goal was to surprise him and maybe catch him at a break time, but he never left his classroom, and I felt it was inappropriate to barge in with a toddler during a doctoral lecture.  I found a fellow political scientist in the halls, and he offered to hold it for me in the graduate student office for Ben.  I texted Ben to let him know.  Even though she didn't get to see Daddy, Samantha had fun being on campus and seeing the bright lights of the art building at night.

On Tuesday, Samantha got to spend the day at a different babysitter's house.  Like normal, she had a great day of playing, eating, and napping.  I am always so surprised with how flexible she is.  I don't think even I would be as amenable as Samantha is at such young an age.

While we were at Target, I saw these adorable little hats on a rack and had to get one for Samantha.  I let Samantha choose between a dog and a penguin.  She chose the dog.  :)

This is what Samantha did when I told her to stand in the hallway and smile.  :)

Let me explain this picture: I put Samantha's mittens on her that match her hat.  Apparently she didn't want them on anymore and she couldn't get them off since she had no use of her thumbs, which resulted in her crying out of frustration, so Mommy stepped in and took them off for her.

Wednesday was Halloween, so we met up with friends from our old small group and went trick or treating.  We had a costume that was handed down to us, so we figured that Samantha could dress up as a ladybug this year.  The costume was a little funny looking with the ladybug head sticking out of the stomach, but Samantha looked adorable in it nonetheless.  I tried it on her on Tuesday to make sure it fit, and at first she wasn't too big of a fan of it.  I think it kind of scared her, but she adjusted after a minute or two.  She learned the word "costume," and on Wednesday when we were getting ready go to, I told her to get her costume and she promptly went into her bedroom, got it, and brought it to me.  She was very excited to put it on this day.  When we first started trick or treating, since it was her first time actually walking from door to door, she wasn't quite sure what to do.  At some of the first houses, when the owners would open the door, she tried to go in the house, like we were visiting friends.  She caught on to the fact that we weren't supposed to enter their house pretty quickly.  She also wasn't quite sure about taking candy from a stranger out of a bowl.  Samantha would just look at me like, "Are you sure you want me to do this?"  (Actually it is kind of strange, right?  We encourage our children to approach strangers and take candy from them.  This is the only day out of the year that this would be a fun and good thing to do.)  Of course the boys that we were trick or treating with were running from house to house, so Samantha was always trailing behind, but that didn't stop her.  She still went to every house they did and really enjoyed herself.  She used the orange pumpkin that I used when I was a little girl.  My parents brought it down for me a couple weekends ago.  She accumulated quite the assortment of candy.  Here are some cute pictures of Samantha and her friends on Halloween:

Samantha likes to "stop and smell the roses" or in this case, stop and blow the dandelion.

On Thursday night, we had a family night.  Daddy was all prepared for his exam and took the night off to relax, have a good meal, spend time together, and go to sleep early to prepare for his exam.  We went out to a local Italian restaurant for dinner.  We decided to sit in a booth and let Samantha sit in a booster seat like a big girl.  The booster seat had a strap, so it worked much better than our experience at Olive Garden a couple weeks ago.  She really loved sitting in the chair and feeling more a part of the meal.  Our meal came with a salad, so we shared our olives (which Samantha loves) and our thin carrots.  We had a small container of ranch dressing and Samantha started dipping her carrots in the dressing.  It was pretty cute, and she thought it was great to be able to dip her food.  Every time she would put the carrot in the dressing, she would say "dip."  Towards the end of dinner, Daddy was sitting by Samantha with his arm around her, and Samantha just laid her head right on Daddy's chest and cuddled with him for quite a while.  I know he really enjoyed this little snuggle from his little girl.  

That night, our nursing didn't go so well, and it just confirmed that we should stop, which is what we had tentatively planned for Friday night.  Lately, I have just been nursing her once a day, at night before bedtime, but she has gotten more and more fidgety, she is almost too big to hold in a comfortable position anymore, and she has not been nursing very long or falling asleep while nursing like she used to do.  Well, as I laid her down in her crib, I laid my hand on her chest for a little while and she held my finger, giving me a flashback of when she was a newborn baby holding my finger while she nursed.  It was a wonderful time to mark the end of that closeness we have had for almost eighteen months while nursing.  It almost brought tears to my eyes thinking about ending nursing and never again having those precious moments with my little girl back.  However, it was a great last night of nursing with her holding onto my finger in bed.  Nursing is such an incredible experience, such a bonding time for mother and baby.  I never knew how much it would mean to me before Samantha was born.

This weekend we actually got to spend time at home, hanging out, with nowhere to go and nowhere to be.  It was wonderful!  We haven't had very many of those weekends lately.  We have been incredibly busy this semester. Samantha was a very sleepy girl for some reason today, and luckily, she took a good nap before we headed off to our last IU football game of the season.  It was pretty cold outside, so we bundled her up, packed dinner, and headed to the game.  We stayed up in the stands for the first quarter with Samantha in the backpack carrier and ate our packed sandwiches.  We tried to keep Samantha's mittens on, but she just kept trying to pull them off and her hands were getting pretty cold.  After the first quarter, and buying some hot chocolate for Mommy and Daddy, we went down to Knothole Park to let Samantha run around and play.  She wasn't as interested today, maybe because she was too cold, I don't know, but she was just wandering around sleepily.  We didn't want her to get too cold, and the game wasn't very interesting, so we decided to head home just before halftime started.  It was a cold end of the season, but it's been a lot of fun having tickets to the IU football games this year.  At first I wasn't so sure how it would work with Samantha being a toddler, but she, like normal, was great.  We couldn't stay in the stands for too long with her, but she loved walking around Knothole Park and getting a close up view of the field.  We'll have to see what we will do next year, especially if we have baby number two on the way sometime next fall.

On Sunday, it was still pretty cold outside, so even though we wanted Samantha to wear a dress, we bundled her up in tights and her cute, red, wool cute.  We love picking her up from the nursery because the ladies or men that work in the nursery always give compliments about how happy she is.  We love getting good reports back.  Here are some pictures from Sunday:

Later in the day, after her afternoon nap, we dressed her in her Colts uniform to give the Colts some good luck.  Samantha enjoys watching "ba ball" with Daddy.