Weekend Wrap: Bus, Coffee, Farmers Market

My Loves.

The morning light was great. K- loves riding on the back of the bus in her own seat. We went downtown to people watch, have a late breakfast and lots of good coffee and then walked around the farmers market where we bought freshly baked bread to supplement our dinner. Mmmmm.

Sunday we cleaned house, napped and created or CL DIY Bowling Pins. It was a quiet day. Daddy had to work, but we had a wonderful Korean dinner when he came home. All in all it was a great weekend!

Weekend Wrap: Potty Training?!

So it's been an interesting week/weekend. We apparently got over the heartbreak of last weekend, although we haven't fully recovered from the "dog separation" and constantly ask daddy to "buy it." <--- An awesome new trend (not)! Wonder how long that will last?

Getting over the "heartbreak" has brought an obsessive shift in needing to use the potty.... Hmmm. I have mixed feelings about this. K- had her 18 month well baby visit on Monday and she passed with flying colors, got her immunizations and we were on our way. Yipee! We of course were given early reading literature by her doctor on toilet training our child, but honestly I was sort of hoping this stage could wait a little longer. Or, at least until we got back from our vacation to Canada in September. In fact I was really hoping it would hold off until she was closer to 2 and it started to rain all the time and we were trapped inside more anyway. K- of course has different plans. She wants to do it now. So now is what we'll try.

In other words, we've spent a lot of time "almost making it to the potty" and "sitting on the potty" and we've got wiping and flushing - at least the actions down pat. But we haven't had very many successful "hits" in the potty yet. Oh, and of course we cannot even think about using the toddler potty chair anymore. K- must sit on the big toilet to attempt to go. I guess I've got my homework cut out for me in the next couple of evenings since I really haven't done a ton of reading about this one yet and I'm really curious to find out just what sort of travel potty options are out there. We don't own a car and use public transportation - the bus or walk a lot. Neither are super friendly for a potty training toddler. This is definitely shaping up to be a messy adventure. At least we have most of the home potty training necessities.... That's a start. However, I spent the weekend realizing my husband and I are definitely in over our heads on this one! Yikes....

Weekend Wrap: Heart Break

Watching K's- Heart Break

My toddler may actually be experiencing her first "broken heart" and "lost love" and we're all sad because of it. We spent a wonderful weekend with my best friend and her little girl. We shopped for wedding guest outfit accessories, we played with the girls, we watched the girls play together, we talked, we laughed, we discovered my daughter now loves to ride in a car seat in the car - oh the novelty, we took their dog for walks and played ball, we talked some more, we had late nights and nap times that didn't want to happen, we went to the park, the mall and just hung out; ultimately, we had a great girls weekend with toddlers and dog in tow. 

Then they left early this morning in hopes of making it home by dinner time and I wish them a quick, safe and quite drive home this afternoon. While the visit didn't go as planned or as we'd hoped, we had a ton of fun! Saying goodbye is always hard and it's sad to watch them drive away.  As adults we're used to it, my best friend and I have long since stopped living in the same state and our visits are infrequent. Our conversations aren't. In fact they happen daily, sometime multiple times a day. For our toddlers, saying goodbye is a different story. The girls are only a year and a half and two. Ultimately, they don't wholly understand what is going on. My toddler, at 18 months was  devastated this morning that they were leaving and we weren't. She was sad that we had to say "goodbye" and stay. I'm not sure she understood why they got to "go home" while she had to "stay home" no matter how hard we tried to explain it to her. 

Turns out K's- devastation was multiplied. Not only were our friends leaving, but so was the car and the worst blow of all the dog left too! It was their dog, of course it was going to go with them, but K- became super attached to it in the 2 full days they were here. She couldn't wait to get up to see the "doggie" and followed her around saying "black, nice, like it, pretty, love it, pet, dog, doggie, cute, soft, fluffy, drinking, running, barking, walking." D- and I have no intention of owning a dog right now, nor is our apartment complex animal friendly, so having a dog around for 2 days was the ultimate treat and than seeing it leave was akin to the ultimate betrayal in K's- eyes. Oops.

Watching the car drive away was a close second. K- (and I to a lesser extent) got spoiled while they were here for 2 days, because we didn't have to walk or take the bus. We could just drive wherever it was we were going, making getting from point a to point b a lot faster. 

D- and I don't own a car. We will, I'm sure in the future have to move to a large city where it's not an absolute essential because public transportation is just that good, or we'll have to finally suck it up and join the vehicle owning masses. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I owned a car when we got married. About a week after we tied the knot, my car was totaled in an unfortunate, but possibly fortuitous freak accident (shortly after that we moved abroad) so that was the end our our car ownership. With D- being a student and me being at home with K-, living on a tight budget, and not knowing whether we'll stay in the States after D- graduates a vehicle isn't an absolute necessity and not currently owning one for expense alone makes sense. We live close enough to everything we need to walk, ride bikes or take the bus and our city just isn't that big. It's a life style choice that we've committed ourselves to while D- is in school. We'll reassess our decision when he graduates and starts working full time if we remain in the US. But that's not something that can easily be explained to a toddler who has decided her car seat is "comfy" and she loves riding in the car.  This bodes really well for our upcoming trip to Canada at the end of the summer! I hope that her love affair with her car seat maintains itself at least throughout the duration of our trip as it will make everyone's life easier and the trip itself that much more enjoyable for everyone. But it's hard to say. 

In the meantime we spent all morning mourning the loss of the dog alternating crying inconsolably because the dog is "missing" and talking seriously about how we'll "See it. Tomorrow" - her words not mine. Poor girl, she's optimistic that they've only temporarily left while somehow also recognizing that they're not here now. We spent the rest of the morning wanting to be buckled into our car seat on the living room floor and pretending to ride in the car and wanting to go places in it. Well see what happens when we wake up from nap and find out they're gone all over again. 

...It may be a very long day....

Joy: Hearing "Thank You" From Your Toddler

Early this morning, K- and I were on our own because D- was already at work. So, we headed to the kitchen to rustle up some breakfast. K- loves the kitchen as much as any room in the house. She's been exposed to it since birth whether just being there while we cook or actually getting to stand on a chair and help. She knows the names of multiple food items, utensils and dishes. She knows where they go and happily helps set the table and unload the dishwasher.

Lately, for about the last two weeks or so, we've been working on saying "thank you" and "you're welcome." Typically this means I tell her "thank you, K-" and "you're welcome" countless times a day for even the smallest acts with the hope that it will eventually rub off. One of our favorite places to work on this skill is in the kitchen while unloading dishwasher. For example, K- takes the flatware out piece by piece and happily hands each one to me with some sort of description and I tell her "thank you" for the "big" fork or whatever item she's handing me. She can't quiet reach or see into our utensil drawer and for now, she's quite content to take items out of the dishwasher and give them to me because she knows she's "helping" and she's all about being helpful right now. Her snack bowls, sippy cups and our leftover food storage containers are all in places she can reach and she'll actually put those away and then I'll thank her for that as well, every time. For me,  it's a slow tedious process, in her eyes this is a great game and she comes running when I open the dishwasher often saying "ine elping," "K's- elping" or just simply "elping, elping, elping!"

Usually I let K- pick out her own breakfast dishes every morning and that includes getting them out of the cupboard or drawer and taking them to the table. At 17.5 months old she's perfectly capable and content to do so. This morning, because all her cereal/snack bowls were in the dishwasher as were her spoons, I asked her which bowl she wanted. She told me and I handed it to her in what became a reverse role of how we normally put away our dishes every day. As I handed K- her bowl, much to my surprise and utter excitement she looked me straight in the eye and said "t'ank you" without missing a beat I (absolutely beaming) happily told her "you're welcome" then handed her her spoon only to be met with another serious "t'ank you." I was honestly elated and sailed through the rest of the day on the high of hearing the most honest and sincere form of "t'ank you" possible. She really wanted her breakfast. It's wonderful to know that something you're doing is actually paying off! And because she's either learning or because she saw how happy those first couple of "thank you's" made me, she tried it out a few more times throughout the day as well. I even got a "tanks" or two used correctly!

Yay, step in the right direction for K- and I!