Happy (not so) New Year!

Oh, dear, sweet blog. Dear, sweet, lonely blog.

I'm still alive and kicking!

I'm sort of still in holiday mode from Christmas and the like. We had a busy but very nice holiday. We hosted Christmas dinner at our house again this year with S's brother and sister in law coming down from Kelowna (with sis in law's mother from Hamilton) and a couple of local friends joined us as well. It's only the 3rd time in my life I've cooked a turkey and it turned out quite good. Some went back for seconds so I'm assuming it was ok. Last year it wasn't as cooked as I would have liked but as an ex-vegetarian I only like certain meat and only if it's well, well cooked. And of course, S and Baby are vegetarian so we don't normally cook meat at home at all!

We did lots of visiting leading up to and after Christmas. We don't see our extended families as much as we'd both like (even though they live locally) so it's always nice to have time to relax and catch up.

We also had a winter solstice celebration at our house, we spent some time up at Grouse Mountain enjoying the snow and Baby went ice skating for the first time! Lots of exciting stuff.

Baby handled the busyness all in stride. She's pretty much abandoned her afternoon nap while at home unless she drifts off in the car in the late afternoon....which then equals a late night and grumpiness abounds. One bonus of no more napping is that she is back to sleeping 12-13 hours a night! Crazy but true. I think she still naps the 2 days she's at daycare but she's up so early on those days she still wants to sleep around the same time.

S and Baby both got a cold over the holidays which made for a few "fort" days at home. I wasn't sick but sometimes I find it hard to stay in and nest so it was a good reminder that we all need that connection together at home sometimes.

New Year's Eve we ended up going to VanDusen Gardens to check out the lights. It was magical and lovely though a little packed. Baby fell asleep by 7:30, S and I watched the ball drop online in Times Square and I was in bed by 10:30. Happy New Year!

And my favourite day of the holidays was Baby's 3rd birthday. 3! Three?! It's hard to believe. We rented a yoga studio and had a big crowd of friends and family and all had a blast.

All in all it was a great ending to a very challenging year. Challenging and life changing and wondrous all at the same time.

I'm looking forward to 2013 and everything it will bring into my and my family's lives!!

Another milestone

I've said this before but Baby is such a quick learner. She makes up her mind to learn or do something...and bang, she does it. And does it well and complete.

Creative use of the potty @ 18 months

I predicted she would be toilet trained by the end of summer. And she was. I'd love to take credit and share my "training" tips but really, both S and I were so lazy about it that I actually felt guilty a few times. Baby would wake in the night and say she had to go to the bathroom and we would sleepily tell her that she had a diaper on and that it would be fine. Yikes. We had no technique and didn't really think about it all that much beforehand. However, I thought I'd share what happened and what we did (or, perhaps more importantly, didn't) do.

• We were given a potty when Baby was born and we bought another one - we had one on each floor of our home and out in the open from very early on. We didn't really talk about what they were - they were often used as toy boxes.
• We offered the potty from about 18 months but Baby didn't really show that much interested so we stopped offering. She went in the small potty a handful of times between 18 months and 2 years old.
• Someone gave us a potty training book and we read it once in a while.
• Baby discovered some Dora underwear that someone had given her in her smalls drawer not long after her 2nd birthday and desperately wanted to wear them. We explained that they were for when she wasn't wearing diapers anymore. She wore them over her diaper a few times.
• The kids at her daycare were all potty trained at the time and the care giver said Baby often went in and sat on the toilet with her diaper on.
• Baby saw the underwear again this spring and decided she was done with diapers. We started putting her consistently in underwear at home - she only had 2 "accidents."
• After a couple of weeks I mentioned to our care giver that Baby was wearing underwear at home and she said to start sending her there with underwear too! We were skeptical but did it...she's only had 1 "accident" and it was when there was an assistant and we think Baby is a bit quieter around her and likely waited too long to tell her she had to go.

So there you go. Nothing too earth shattering. It has been uneventful. We do put a pull up on her at night still but she has already asked to not wear it and she's dry 99% of the time in the morning so we'll likely get a good quality waterproof cover for her mattress and be done with it.

Wow, no more diapers! Crazy!

I think part of the ease with which it happened is Baby's personality and part of it was wanting to be like the "big kids." It's amazing the influence the day care kids have on her...even with her only going 2 days a week. That influence is a whole 'nother post!

Country Girl

This past weekend, S, Baby and I decided to check out a  country fair. This particular country fair promised to have hay rides, horse shows, saddle sales, bake sales, and pony rides! This country fair was also only 20 minutes from downtown Vancouver!

This is the first year we've been to the fair as I had never actually heard of it before. Baby has been on a field trip to the Southlands Farm with the daycare group she goes to on Thursdays and Fridays but other than that we haven't really spent a lot of time in that area of the city.

The Southlands Country Fair is held in, you guessed it, Southlands. Southlands is a unique pocket in Vancouver that is chock a block full of million dollar home, sprawling estates and horses. There is a riding club and a farm to round things out. If you aren't lucky enough to pass by a trotting horse while driving through the neighbourhood the evidence of horses isn't hard to find on the roads.

We've been having amazing September weather and it was a very warm, sunny day so it was a perfect day for a fair. Baby loves animals and while she has met many real horses, she's never actually ridden one. She talked about "my pony" for 24 hours leading up to the event and was thrilled when the farm hand put her riding helmut on. She was a bit shy when first getting on the pony and wanted me to walk beside her but overall she seems to really enjoy it. Her pony was special apparently as it was the only one that had curly hair...just like Baby. It was a perfect match.

Talking About Death With a Toddler

This morning's conversation:

Baby: "My mom has really big earrings"
Me: "Yeah?"
Baby: "Yes. They have lots and lots of diamonds on them"
Me: *trying to figure out who 'mom' is*
Baby: "But they are at my mom's house"
Me: "Where does your mom live??"
Baby: *ignores my questions* "One day she gave them to me. Mommy's mom"

Ahhhhhh suddenly I get it. We had been looking at my watch while she was cuddled up on my lap before I left for work this morning. I told her that my mama had bought me the watch 11 years ago. She asked where my mama is and I tell her she's not alive anymore. She has also recently been extremely interested in looking at a photo of S and her mom that sits on the bookshelf. She seems convinced that she has met S's mom and that she knows her. (S's mom passed away in 2007.) As a result I've had to start having conversations about growing old and death. When I tell her someone is dead she usually asks why in a sad tone of voice. It's been a strange topic of conversation.

She obviously "gets" death in the most basic way - that it means someone isn't here anymore. But I'm not sure she gets that they aren't anywhere on earth. She asked me the other day in the car why people have to die. I explained that the cycle of life is that we're born, we live a happy, full life (hopefully) and then everyone dies. I think I compared it to the plant we have at home that grows flowers and then they die and then new flowers grow (this part may have been confusing...I was grasping for a simple example). I took care to emphasize that most people live a really long life and that death happens "a long time from now." That seemed to be good enough and she changed the subject.

I like and appreciate that she is asking these kinds of questions. I hope to never answer a question like this with "just because."  But it's hard. It forces me to really evaluate my own feelings on things. Big idea things. Or everyday things that I take for granted and don't give much thought to. Conversations like these are great opportunities. To learn, connect and dig deep into things. I feel like I would be missing out if I dismissed them. So, lesson #356, receive your toddlers millionth question as a gift. A gift of trust, confidence and respect.