on potty training

I LOVE how quickly Sophie has taken to using the potty. Sure, a number of accidents here and there but she's getting better, and I am so proud of her. Already noticeable is the lack of diaper reek in the bathroom, and a smaller garbage load for the week. Her latest pack of boy short style panties are SO. CUTE.
We're still using pullups at night time obviously. Also having another potty trained kiddo around the house every day is a huge help, as they tend to make bathroom trips together. Good thing I had two potties already. Outings are getting better as well, as Sophie tells me when she feels the need to go, whether she does anything or not. Sometimes I think she's playing games with me.
I have the book "How to potty train in one day!" and I think I only ever got a few pages in. Sophie finally clued in to it all around her 3rd birthday. For a while I was rewarding her with M&M's, and I've slowly been moving away from that.
Mark mentioned he hopes to have them using the toilet in a week, and just keep a little stool in there for them, and get the potties out of the house. (He has a habit of stubbing is toes on the mini land mind of potties, cleaning caddy, and stool that I leave in the bathroom. HAH!) Baby steps I think. Baby steps. Also? THANK GOD that I still have the diaper sprayer attached to the toilet. YouknowwhatImean?
So what am I not digging? Or rather, what is totally grossing Mark out? (HAHA!) It is the "Come and see!" side of it. No one wants to see it kiddo. Not even Grandma. Thanks.

Hello Again.

While life isnt always as boring and uneventful as I usually make it out to be, its hard to remember the good fun moments, or even to put much meaning or significance behind them.

This morning Sprout and I went to our Gym Tots class and had a lot of fun. She's one of the older kids there, and this week had more kids in the class, so there was more fun and learning to be had. Sprout actually had more fun with swinging on the rings, the bars, balance beams and trampolines! I was quite impressed, as I was feeling iffy on the class this go around for some reason.
My friend Sev and her daughter K came over in the afternoon and we ended up going for a wonderfully lovely walk to the air park, around it, and back. So good to get out of the house and away from screens, especially when the weather is still nice!
This evening I was pleased to receive a phone call letting us know we got into the Mother Goose program at the rec center! Good thing I put our name on the 12 person wait list, yowza! I was looking at my planner, and we've got something to do every single day during the week! Fabulous! We've also started going to a new tot group, tomorrow will be our second visit, and we both really enjoyed it last week.

Last night I tried my hand at some kool-aid play dough. It was a success! Nice and pink! I managed to find some used play dough accessories the other day, so we hauled those out, and the play dough out of the fridge, and Sprout had a great time. She pretended the play dough was a baby, feeding it, carrying it, and I even heard her talking to it. She even put every thing away after I asked her too! Hurrah!
This evening, in another attempt to keep her away from her tv, we painted some rocks together, and it was pretty fun. I'm on a mission to try toddler friendly fun new things!

Sprout had a good day.

A Rainbow Birthday Party

We had Sophie's 2nd birthday party this past weekend rather than her actual birthday, the 30th. My folks came up, and usually its easier to get people out on a weekend. Unless there is another birthday party the same day. I was a little bummed out with all the "No" replies to the invite, but it ended up just about perfect anyways.



Being a rainbow theme, it was pretty easy to decorate, and I had lots of fun doing so. I painted rainbows and hung them from the dining room chandelier, bought colored streamers and hung them across and down from a couple of tables. A few other party favors in rainbow colors, paper garlands, fabric buntings, my dad came home with a bunch of balloons. It was great, so wonderfully colorful and happy! Even the toddler dishes that I bought from Ikea were already colors of the rainbow, so I put them out as well, and I also bought a little wooden rainbow toy that Sophie played with after.



There were six toddlers including Sophie and they all got along pretty well, thankfully, not bad for a bunch of two year olds! They played, adults chatted, and as usual I ran around getting things done and taking pictures. My dad made a great carrot cake and the kids loved the cream cheese icing most of all, lol. Sophie actually blew out her candles too.



Sometimes its good I find such great things for cheap, the kids had lots to play with, even if they did have to share and take turns!



Sophie got a nice new bike from my folks, she can even reach the pedals already even if she doesnt know how to move her legs on them yet. Now she just needs a helmet.



Her actual birthday is tomorrow. I cant believe she's TWO. <3