A Tiny Whirlwind

Wowza, I had a busy and fun weekend full of social events.  We attended a barbecue on Saturday, had friends over on Sunday and then went to the water park, and Sam and I spent all day today swimming with old friends from Michigan who were in town.

A few highlights:

• Our friends' 20 month old child - that's just over a year and a half old - has hands and feet larger than Sammy's.  Sammy will be 4 in just over a month!  She's tiny.


• A few hours after we arrived, the water park closed in anticipation of a thunderstorm, which we knew might happen.  What we didn't know was that this was a tree-crasher, power-knocker-outer kind of storm.  As the hundreds of swimmers were filtering out of the water park, the wind started up and caused a dust storm in the unpaved parking lot.  We had four little girls who all just froze in their tracks in the middle of the parking lot and screamed, and I couldn't blame them.  Somehow, we herded them all into the cars without anyone getting blinded.  But by the time we got home and made hot chocolate, the girls all seemed to think it was kind of fun, and I couldn't blame them for that, either.  I do love thunderstorms.


• Sam had a breakthrough swimming day today.  She's had quite a bit of swimming this year but no lessons yet, and we're still trying to get her to put her face in the water or go under.  Today we hung out with two boys, 3 and 6 years old, and I think it helped her to spend so much time with them.  She draped her arms over the Styrofoam "noodle" and let me pull her around on it while she kicked her feet, and she sat on the edge of the pool and slid in where I would catch her before she went under.  Knowing Sam, she'll be ready for swim lessons just as the season ends.  I'll have to find out if the local indoor pool has lessons.

Sam skipped all of her naps, unless you call passing out in the car for 20 minutes a nap.  She was so exhausted tonight that she threw a tantrum the likes of which I haven't seen in months.  It made me realize that we have been over the horrible hump which was the "terrible threes" for quite a while now.  From last September through February or March, Sam was a very difficult child.  Well, since I have no frame of reference except her, I really can only say that she was difficult based on the Samantha Standard, but it was tough, let me tell you.

I'm glad that particular storm is over.  I don't enjoy being hit, even with Sammy's tiny little hands.