Sam has been taking care of her dolly with great zest lately. She gets the changing pad and lays it on the floor. Then she gets the wipes from the diaper bag and a clean diaper and talks to her dolly about the “clean diaper” and “get wipes” and that the “wipes cold.” She takes one wipe and smushes it into a small ball, then she wipes dolly clean. Then she lays the dolly on top of the diaper. She doesn’t know how to manage the Velcro yet, but that will be soon, I’m sure. She tells Dolly “leg, Please” when she lifts the leg. This is so sweet and very funny at the same time. I’m going to try to get it on videotape sometime.

Well, a couple of friends and family commented that they hadn’t seen much on the blog lately so I thought I would add a bit here.

Sam loved her trip to San Diego. She had a blast on the plane, telling it to go faster, faster, as we took off. She wanted to hug the clouds and hug the plane. I brought twenty little trinkets, all wrapped, for her to open as she got bored, but I didn’t have to use them all. She did well until the last half hour of the last leg getting home, and I thought that was great. I was ready to strangle her at the time because sitting next to a toddler for 8 hours straight is not great fun, not even for a parent who loves her. We both survived intact.

She loves the water. The pool was great fun for her, and I am only sorry we couldn’t spend more time in it with her. She splashes and kicks and waves her arms. She loves it. Now if only we could let a drop of water get on her face and we’d be all set. J

Samantha said, “I need to go out on the porch!” this morning. Pronouns, articles, verbs, the whole shebang on that sentence. Her language has taken an extra leap lately. I am constantly amazed by her vocabulary.

We went to a friends party this weekend. Cole is two weeks older than Sam. Becky, Cole’s mom, had the party at Kids Playground, an indoor play space with lots of tunnels, netting, slides. Sam found the tunnel that was 18 feet high and I saw her gleefully running through it, a rather scary moment for Mommy. She found her way back down and went down the long slide to plop on the mat. She hopped up laughing and said, “again, Again!” Unfortunately, the playground was closing and we had to leave. Sam screamed a bit but we managed to get her in the car. She is such a monkey!

Last night I went into her room to put some clothes away after she had gone to sleep. She was laying spread eagled on the bed, face up, with the book Eloise over her face. She was sleeping quite happily with a book over her face! This afternoon I went in again to check on her, and she had 12 books in bed, with the Humpty Dumpty Nursery Rhyme book over her face this time. She is not reading yet, but the will is certainly there.

I put Sam down for a nap with 3 books. She did not nap, and when I went in, she had nine books in bed with her. There was barely room for her after all this. She loves her books. The little Engine That Could has been very popular, as well as Carl Stays Home, THe Cat in the Hat, and Meet Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends. Olivia also came backinto favor, but the best one seems to be the 70 page long with lots of sentences on each page - Eloise! Takes at least a half hour to get through it.