Simply Samantha at 20 months

Samantha is getting such a cute little personallity.  I love it so much.  Although it is a reminder each day that she is growing up.... my baby is almost gone, and yet in many ways she is totally gone.  Samantha loves to do what the other girls are doing.  She loves to dance with them or play monsters or horses with them when they do.  Last night the girls were putting a box on their head and walking around like that.  I had the box and ready to put it in the recycle bin and Samantha pointed to her head and kind of grunted suggesting that it was her turn.  The things she does crack me up and often suprise me too. 

I forget how much she watches others and how she knows much more than I think she does.  I brought in like 6 or 7 bags of groceries.... mostly cereal, crackers, lunch meat, dishwasher tablets, mac and cheese, and toilet paper.  (All of which were coupon items that were on sale I might add...)  I noticed that Samantha was in the cupboard under the sink, which she does often.  I told her to get out and shut the door.  She did.  I continued to put away groceries or at least the perishable things.  Later when I took the bags downstairs to the basement to put in my "store" as the girls call it, I was putting things away.  I got to my dishwasher tablets and noticed there were only 4 of them, and I had 5 coupons so I bought 5 of them (after all they were only like 49 cents a box after my coupon).  I looked through all the other sacks and put everything else away.  I was confused on where that last box went of tablets.  I then remembered that Samantha was under the sink which is were I keep my dishwasher soap.  I went upstairs and looked, and sure enough Samantha had been helping me put things away and she must have gotten a box of the electrasol and put it away. 

Samantha doesn't seem to miss much really.  For sometime now she has been taking her dirty diapers and throwing them away.  Last night we also had some little fun size m&m packages working on colors and eating them too.  Samantha grabbed the wrappers and then put them in the garbage.  Once upstairs in the loft  she even took garbage and put it in the garbage in the bathroom up there, which isn't a garbage I would have thought she knew about. 

A draw back to the garbage putting away is what else she use to throw away.  I was noticing about 4 months ago or so that all our little bowls are missing.  We use to have tons of them and now we only have the new Ikea bowls, which are a different design then the older ones we had.  I thought it was weird because I hadn't seen the bowls upstairs or in the kids rooms or bathrooms or basement.  Sometimes I will notice we are missing dishes and then find them in the kids room or in the loft or something like that.  Then I caught Samantha one day throwing away her silverware and her plate.  Later I had noticed a bowl in the garbage and more silverware.  I suppose I know now where all the kids bowls and kids silverware went to.  I haven't seen her do that in a long time.  I showed her they go into the sink so she is better now. 

Samantha is my best cleaner upper, if that is such a word.  She will sing the little "clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere, clean up, clean up...." song.  I am not sure if it was on Barney or some other kids show.  I sing it a little but not much when we clean up, but Samantha always sings it when I ask everyone to clean up.  Unfortunately it seems everyone needs to go to the bathroom, get a drink, change their clothes, or the famous just a second excuse and it is just Samantha and me cleaning up.  If Samantha drops something on the floor she will pick it up and put it in the trash too, like a dropped fish cracker or banana peel.  My other kids look at it and then look around to see if anyone saw and then the move away from it.  Even in the loft they will shove things in the couch cushions or even behind it.  What lazy slobs huh!

Samantha also has discovered problem solving... she will come to me and tell me, blanket and then take me upstairs to her bed where he blanket is hanging out the crib slats but still stuck.  Then she will tell me again, blanket and point to her stuck blanket.  She will also move chairs or furniture around to get what she wants.  She often dumps out a bucket of diapers to use the bucket as a stool to get up on the couch to crawl over the arm and slide down the front and then repeat it several times.  She once also took a little kids chair to the bathtub.  Some of the girls were in the tub and she wanted in there too, she kept trying to take off her clothes and was saying bath to me.  I told her she needed to wait until Lauren got out and then she could get in.  Samantha scooted that little kids chair up to the side of the bath and climbed right in the tub, clothes and all.  I heard Lindsey and Lauren yelling about it.  I was suprised when I saw what Samantha did, but thought she was pretty clever too. 

Samantha has quite a vocabulary too.  She use to call her blanket kitty but now it is just banket without the l. She calls herself Mantha, Mimy for Emily, Lindsey is Liny, Larn is Lauren.  She names and points to many body parts like eye, nose, bum, back, feet, hair...  she also knows lots of articles of clothing too and loves her boots and says that often and brings them to have help putting them on.  She loves shoes in general and loves to wear them, even if they are not hers.  We have to watch her when we have friends over, she will put on their shoes and take off with them and then lose them. 

She signs some, but not as much as Amber did.  She will sign and say more, banana, cracker, water, milk, book, ball, down, up, fish, stinky (which is poop), thank you, shoes, eat,  and she will sign helicopter but doesn't say it.  Anytimes she sees a helicopter on tv or in a book or outside she immediately signs it.   She will also say "some" like saying I want some.  After I give her some food at her high chair (which she now will climb up into by herself which is kind of scary and dangerous) she will say "thanks (mumble mumble) mama" which is Thanks for dinner Mom, which the girls almost always say at dinner time.  Samantha says it all the time even if I just give her a cracker.  It is very cute.

I have found her many times at the computer.... guess she has seen someone spend some time there, and she will just peck away at the keys.  I now shut the laptop (that is what we use now since our other computer broke last year) so she can't get to the keys. 

Another funny thing she does is clean up the left over food of others.  After a meal or snack of anyones, that is left on the table she will get up on the chair and then eat what ever is left or try to if it is gone.  She will eat the crust from the sandwhich or the last yogurt or pudding in the container.  Once I put Lindsey's sandwhich on the table, told Lindsey it was there.  I was doing dishes, Lindsey came in and was mad asking where it was, I was angry back and told her it was the plate with the sandwhich on the table.  She still couldn't seem to find it, then I went over angrier, and then noticed it wasn't there, Samantha has stolen it off the plate and was eating it on the chair.  Samanth is almost as good as a dog for the table scraps.

Samantha's favorite things right now are the dora doll that was in Amber's 3rd birthday cake, her blanket (that use to be Amber's) with the tag, and a small white cat statue.  She will try to sleep with the cat.  We had I think 3 of them, and we are down to one.  Two have broken when dropped on the tile.  Samantha will accept other blankets with tags if they are kind of fuzzy like fleece but she won't take them if she sees her favorite one around. 

I am sure I am missing something about Samantha... oh yes 2 more things.  She recenlty has decided it is better to be naked, so she will try to take off her clothes if possible.  Her footed pajamas with the zipper are good ones for her to escape from.  Often I will put them on her at bedtime, go do something else, next thing I notice she is naked.  I have started putting a safety pin under the zipper so she can't unzip it. 

She is also a total momma's girl.  At night when she is crying, I normally go in there.  I just figure I can stand the lack of sleep better than Robert can, after all I might be able to sneak a nap in or at least try to, but Robert can't really do that at work very well.  Once in a while when I am really tired or have been up with other girls or with Samantha already then I ask Robert to go.  Recently that is never a good idea, she will keep crying even though he is in there with her holding her and comforting her.  She just keeps crying for me.  I go in there and take her from Robert and she settles right down.  Last night she was awake, I was trying to put Amber back to bed so Robert had gone in with Samantha a few times.  I then went in with her next she settled down long enough for me to brush my teeth and change clothes.  Robert went back in there with her, and he said when she saw him coming, she just stopped crying and laid back down.  I guess she has me wrapped around her finger...  I will have to send him in more often I suppose. 

I thought of something else too, Samantha will give things to people that they belong to.  She will give Amber her special security shirt or milk and say, dare go.  I noticed I say that alot.  Just this morning I turned the light in the bathroom for Amber and said, "there you go."  I guess that is where she gets it.  Samantha says that all the time now when she is giving things to people.  She also says, lets go  which I say all the time too.  We get out of the car, "Let's go" or we are getting ready to go pick up Emily, "Let's go." 

Robert was out of town last week from Tues evening to Sunday afternoon.  We were out running around and I stopped and got some corndogs for the girls at Artic Circle for dinner.  Before I could even pass them out Samantha was yelling, "hot dog."

I know I am forgeting some good stuff.  If I think of something else I guess I will just have to add it.  Not that this isn't already so long.  I don't want to forget this stage... since I don't think we will ever visit it again with our own kids.  I wish I could just freeze all the kids at this age and keep them there.  They love you, they don't talk back to you, they want to please you...  it's great.  It is even worth the lack of sleep sometimes.  I can't even get mad at Samantha really, she is too cute and too young to really do anything to make you mad.