Samantha’s 4th Birthday

Can you believe it?  Samantha turned 4 on Monday.  We had an easy party at the park with friends, family, and shade.  What a great day!

We started out by playing hard, so after a while, we had to take a break.

 

Then, Batman showed up.  Seriously, Samantha asked me later “Why did Batman come to my party?”

 

We enjoyed pizza and fruit.  (Easy, right?)

 

Ellie even played hard!

 

After a while, we sang “Happy Birthday.”  Later, Samantha told me that she didn’t sing for her birthday song.  But she could sing for my granddad’s birthday song the next day.  (How did she know not to sing for her own song?)  She was so sweet while we were singing.  I wish everybody could have seen her face.  Nana put it best when she said, “It was like Samantha really knew that everyone was singing for her and that this was a very special occasion!”

 

Enjoying some great gifts!

 

(Sorry about the picnic table, Hallie!  I should have been holding it so it wouldn’t have crashed down on you!)

 

And of course, the hopper.  After she opened her gifts, she carried around the hopper box for the rest of the time.  She literally walked over to some rocks near by, but away from everyone else, so she could sit with her hopper box.  It reminded me of the ukelele incident from last year!  Here’s the hopper once we got home and got it blown up.

 

For her actual birthday, I went to school to have lunch with her.  It was nice to see her in that environment.  And now I can understand more about what she tells me when she comes home!

I had promised her that she wouldn’t have to take a nap when she turned 4, because she hasn’t taken one in a while.  These days, she’s usually not a basket case by bedtime, so I reluctantly caved.  However, I still make her go upstairs so I can have some “mommy time.”  She has to play in her room, quietly, so she doesn’t wake up Ellie.

 

We had dinner on the porch, one of Samantha’s favorite things to do.  And she got to eat on her new picnic table.  Then she opened up her present from us.  Rollerskates!  I have no idea where the idea came from, but she was adamant that she wanted rollerskates for her birthday.

 

Samantha is doing well in school.  I’m amazed at how quickly she’s learning.  She can write her whole name, say the “Hail Mary,” knows about weekdays (5 days) and weekends (2 days) and much more.  She’s creative, thoughtful, funny, outgoing, and becoming such a big girl!

Good

We had a good week last week.

We spent last weekend at MamaLinda and Pop’s house. I think Sam really enjoyed the weekend. She also enjoyed Jolie’s baptism after party. She took a great nap every day and had fun playing in the garden, watering plants, feeding the cat, and looking at birds’ nests.

Sam took a good nap several days last week and had tons of laughs.

Brian’s grandfather got out of the hospital on Friday! He had a rough 3+ weeks, but is doing much better.

My dad’s finger is slowly healing, and it doesn’t look like he’ll have to have surgery. He has yet to show anyone (except my mom) because it ALWAYS has a bandage and I know it’s still very sore. I hope it continues to improve.

Brian and I spent this past weekend in Nashville while Sam stayed at MamaLinda and Pop’s house. From the pictures, it looks like they had a great time at the Botanical Gardens.

I had a work thing (mostly social) but we did get the chance to go to The Big Bang, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. It was lots of fun. I felt a little like Amy Poehler (except for the getting hit on part). 🙂  (I can’t find the video, but the link shows some pictures which might spark your memory.)

I bought some Crocs for Sam for this summer, and she liked them immediately. However, she always wanted to kick them off. It didn’t matter whether we were inside or outside, she wanted them off. I know she liked them, she just likes to go barefoot. Needless to say, one got lost. Now I’m trying to find a summer pair of tennis shoes that maybe she’ll keep on her feet and will still allow those toes to breathe. So far, I’ve bought 6 pairs of shoes and either they don’t fit, or she doesn’t like them (same as before – refuses to walk when wearing).

Since she doesn’t nap in the afternoons anymore, I’m considering just giving up and running my errands then. I wouldn’t have to wait until 8pm to do it, and then she can pick out her own shoes. I would finally get to those stores that close at 5 or 6 – the ones that I normally have to wait for the weekends. So when we’re out of town on the weekends, my errands just don’t get done.

We got an offer on our house last week. After we turned around our counteroffer, the buyer said we weren’t willing enough to work with her and withdrew her offer. Fine then. Be that way. I don’t want her in my house or near my neighbors if she’s going to be like that. The contract on the house we’d like to buy expires on May 1. Frankly, I can’t wait. I’m so eager to be finished with all this house stuff. Just let me get back to my junky counters and dirty floors. I’ll get 20 minutes of my morning back because I’m not picking up, in the off chance that someone will stop by. Maybe we’ll move in 2011.

And as if I didn’t have enough going on already, I’ve decided to get Sam potty trained for real.  I know she’s ready, but I needed a commitment from our babysitter to help out before I could totally go along with it.  Now that we’re all ready, we’re just going to hang around the house for a few weeks.  Hopefully, by the time baby arrives, we won’t have any more diapers.  Well, I guess we’ll still have diapers, but they’ll be the itty-bitty size, not the big size!  Today is Day 1.  We’ve been home for 2 hours and I’ve already changed her clothes 3 times.  (And yes, she’s supposed to be taking a nap.)

Testing Me

Samantha has not taken an afternoon nap for me since Wednesday, March 24.

…Yep…

If you’re counting, that’s 2 weeks. It might have been longer than that, but I know at least since that day. (In reality, consistent naps haven’t occurred since we got rid of the crib, which was Sunday, March 14.)

Since then, we’ve had much kicking, screaming, hitting, gnashing of teeth, timeouts, spankings, you name it. Life at our house is not pretty. It all begins at pick-up time at the babysitter’s house and goes way downhill from there. FAST. The thing is, she’ll take a nap with the babysitter, Brian, Nana, or as it seems, anyone but me. Actually, it seems she’ll do anything for anyone except me. Either she knows that life is about to change and she’s taking it out on me, or she knows that I’m already stressed to the max so she’s going to take it out on me.

The pediatrician once told me that “strong-willed children make great leaders as adults.” I hope I can make it that far.

EDIT (4/7/10): She took a nap yesterday!! Hallelujah! After 1.5 hours of waging war, I decided to leave her door open. Wide open. I don’t know if that did the trick, but it seemed to help.