All about Samantha

Samantha is a pure joy!  She laughs and smiles all day long.  (Okay so recently she has taken to hitting when I put her diaper on at night, but I think she is trying to be funny.)  She is such a little girl!  She will carry a purse around, backpack, and a baby normally.  She also is very fond of her little doll stroller.  We have had it for years, and I had to recently sew it to fix it since she use to sit in it and it broke so it wouldn't hold a baby without dumping it out when she walked around.  Did I already say she is just a pure joy?  I love her so much! 

She will pretend to go places, she will get her purse and say, "I going to the store.  I be right back."  It is funny because I totally her ME in her little phrases.  I must have said I'm going somewhere and I'll be right back a hundred times.  She is just hilliarous!

Recently she wanted to wear panties.  I was thinking, yeah whatever.  She nearly potty trained herself.  It wasn't long before she was going potty all by herself.  She was just a little under 2-1/2 when she did this.  All my other kids have been more like 3.  I have a friend that potty trains her kids more around 18 months to 2 years, so I knew it could be done.  I just never felt like I had that undivided attention to tend to a toddler potty training.  She still wears a diaper at night, but I have noticed sometimes she is still dry in the morning.  She also still sucks her thumb so when she wakes in the morning, she is super quiet and sucks her thumb.  I think she would go potty in the toilet but because she is still in bed she goes in her diaper. 

The last few days she has also turned into a "big girl" too.  She will climb on the big toilet all by herself, sit on it and hold herself up.  Then Samantha will say, "I BIG huh.  I not fall in (as she shakes her head no).  I use your potty."  She is just hilliarous.  When she is done, she just wiggles back down off the toilet and finishes and flushes the toilet also.  Before she was using the big toilet, she was dumping her potty bucket into the big toilet and flushing it.  Some of the older girls don't even flush the toilet.  Then when she flushes the toilet, she shuts the lid, climbs up on it and washes her hands in the sink.  It is amazing what this little girls will do!

I have failed to video her lately but I really need to.  Her little high pitched voice is a delight.... well mostly!  I could have about 50 of her and be okay I think.  She is great!

About a week ago, it was a crazy night here, Robert was working late or something and I was running around trying to get kids dinner and get myself ready for a meeting.  The kids were having quesadillaa I think for the most part.  Samantha came up to me and told me to turn the TV off.  I was busy and in a rush so I didn't really give her much attention.  She kept following me around and kept telling me something that I wasn't totally understanding.  Then I took a second and gave her the attention she was wanting.  She asked me to turn the TV off so we could pray.  As soon as I turned the TV off, she got back into her chair and folder her arms, bowed her head and started her cute little prayer.  It made me feel bad first for forgetting to have a blessing on the food, and also because I waited so long to really see what she needed.  Lauren was pretty much done already with her food.  Samantha is a great leader!  She does so many things all by herself... somethings she does even the older kids don't do, like flushing the toilet. 

She loves to go to church and be in class.  She loves to be a mommy to her babies.  One morning she was sitting on the couch with her baby and a blanket for her baby and she looked at me and said, "You a mommy.  I a mommy too!"  I think her favorite thing is to laugh and smile... and of course if she has a baby in a stoller that makes it better.  She also loves little animals like some little frogs and snakes we have.  She loves little things.... and I love her!

One of her favorite things is to give me a hug in the morning.  Then I would say, "what is better than a hug in the morning"  then she will give me another hug and I will say, "Two hugs in the morning!"  This then goes on to 3 hugs, 4 hugs, and so on.  She will also do this at night too when I am getting her pajamas on. 

I am sad that soon this sweet little girl will be gone and in its place will be some other phase of Samantha.  I would like to keep this one a bit longer but not sure how I can preserve her at this time.  Perhaps the next phase will be just as delightful.  People talk about the terrible 2's and I haven't seen it really with Samantha.  It also makes me feel a little guilty too because at this age when Amber was 2, I feel like I missed so much because we had a little baby.  Then with Emily I feel SUPER bad because we had 2 babies when she was at this age that I am just in love with.  I can't really go back, I just need to make the best of what I have now, enjoy the stages and phases as they go in and out of them.  It is hard to do that sometimes when life seems so busy.  I sometimes forget to stop and take time to hear the little voices like the one that wanted to turn the TV off so we could pray.