The Game

"Let's play the game, Po-ppy!" Rosemary chants in her high-pitch staccato, "Let's play the game!"



After the children smell of soap and toothpaste, after hair is brushed and pajamas are donned, Rosemary implores this of her sister every night without fail. We're not sure what "the game" is exactly, but Senpai and I watch them intently, trying to figure it out.



Tumbling happens.


Daddy once joked that the game wasn't over until someone hurt her head hard enough to be upset by it.

Peek-a-boo happens.


Poppy invariably plays with the potty.




Senpai and I are not only observers, but participants, too.

We tickle.


Daddy might try to read a book...



but the story sinks in better when Poppy's not around.


And we toss kids around like pillows.

They LOVE it. 

The Cupcake's 2nd Birthday

The Cupcake turned 2 on Thursday.

We celebrated by going to Storytime. She got a free cookie from the cafe, and all the kids at Storytime sang the birthday song for her. The rest of the day (the whole week pretty much) was spent trying to prepare for her party today, Saturday.

It was a Winnie the Pooh party, of course. :-)


I designed the invitations myself (the blue (purple?) square is hiding my RSVP info).

I would be lying if I said I was truly happy with the party. It was absolutely a great time, and R had fun with all of her friends, but we did not give ourselves enough time to set up. The party started at 10, and I rolled into the parking lot at 10:03. Senpai was there already, setting up an elaborate tree decoration in the middle of the park pavilion (that we did not get pictures of!!! SOB), but there was still so much else to do. I rushed to get food arranged on tables, accepted all help that was offered by guests, and then we settled into the party without having taken pictures of anything (sob!). But it was a blast. I must emphasize that. As disappointed as my perfectionist self is that everything was not arranged and photographed "just so," I have to let it go and admit that it was still a fun party.

This is the only picture where you can get a hint of Senpai's tree inside the pavilion. Beautiful birthday girl, though.

UPDATE: Senpai pulled this still shot of the tree from some video we had taken. You can see my beehive piñata hanging from it, as well as a couple of goody bags. You can't see it here, but a Pooh garden statue is also hanging out in the tree. The strong wind that day gave life to the streamers and flowers as they fluttered and snapped in the breeze. It was truly enchanting to watch.
  


She had 7 friends show up!


Senpai and I spent a couple of nights last week making papier mache beehive pinatas. We each made one.


Here's the one I made. Senpai decided mine was too pretty, so his was the one that the kids demolished for candy. I wasn't sure how well two-year olds would do with a piñata, but it was actually really cute to see them all take a whack at it with the stick.


I ordered the cake from a local bakery. I had waaaaaay too much else to do to worry about how to make a Pooh cake.


We had served lunch of pulled pork that I cooked through the night, fruit and veggie trays that I cut myself (a friend helped to assemble them at the party; thank you!), beans, potato chips, and we also had huge tubs of potato salad and hummus that never made it out of the cooler (!!!). Sigh. Lots to do.


Here are the food labels I had worked on last night as my last project for the party. They got set aside somewhere at the park, forgotten about, and then not found until we were cleaning up. I wonder if more people would have tried the iced tea if they had known that it was honey green tea. Oh well.


This is what the goody bags looked like. I am happy to report that every child left with a goody bag; I didn't forget anyone! This one was leftover because we had a no show party guest.


We had balloons! There were these three mylar balloons and then we also had ten red ones. A friend tied some balloons to trees around the pavilion (thank you!) and the rest were just clipped onto the grill. So much for table decorations, lol.


R didn't spend too much time on the park equipment, but she did have a fun moment with the swings here.


Here is R on her "birthday throne," aka the travel potty set up next to the trash cans, haha. I'm happy to report that she made it through the party with no accidents! The whole day, even! And she's getting better at waking in the night to go potty. All of this means that we have a diaper-free two year old! Big girl!!!


After such a fun, enjoyable party, this is what we get to look forward to tomorrow: clean up. :-P



Happy Birthday, Cupcake!!

Toddler Playdates

I downloaded the pics off my cell phone today, so I can finally post, yay! (Side note: as it turns out, my cell phone takes nicer pictures than my old point 'n shoot. Senpai has a DSLR, which I'm sure would take infinitely better photos than both aforementioned devices, but I always have my cell phone in my pocket, DSLR.. not so much. Sprint Galaxy S for the win!)


I finally get to touch on a topic I had wanted to mention before: friends. R has friends. It's actually stressful for little toddler friends to play together at this age; they don't know how to do it yet. One kid takes the toy the other kid was playing with, then that kid retaliates by hitting and screaming. That same scenario plays out over and over again with the roles constantly shifting and changing, so no one kid can by any means be called innocent. But these are lessons that have to be learned. One day, both kids will know how to take turns, ask if they may play with a certain toy, and cooperatively play together. That's when the Mommies will be able to sit back with our coffees, chat, and relax. For now, we wear referee hats, call time outs, and negotiate terms for peaceful play. I so look forward to the future in this department. ^_^


R has had several playdates recently. The first-- I had mentioned before-- was when R wouldn't nap one day, and my wonderful friend Natalie brought her son over to play. (Though I usually don't mention names here, I will use Natalie's because I want to direct your attention to her lovely blog, NatoBottoArt: Creations from the Heart. She does a lot of stream of consciousness writing as she works through her creative process. Definitely check it out!) She mentions her son's name on her blog (and I've mentioned R's name here, too, but I still don't think I'm entirely ready to just dish it out every post), but here, I will call him I* (The asterisk is so you know I'm not referring to myself). Now that we've gotten that straightened out, back to the playdate...


R, Natalie, and I*. R had not been interested in her Wheelie Tiger for a long time until I* came along and started to ride it. All of a sudden, she likes her Wheelie Tiger again.

I love this picture! I* is a multifaceted boy, dishing out free hugs one second, and then finding new uses for xylophone mallets the next. ^_^ Here is one such hug. R has this look like, "What is he doing?" Haha, I could get really creative with the captions for this! How about, "Not cool, man. Not cool." Anyone else have a caption for this picture they want to share?


Next, she went to a Potty Party. One lady from the Mom's Group I'm a member of posted a Potty Party on the calendar. I just had to check it out! It was a small group of three mother/daughter pairs including the hosts. I'm pulling a lot of what I said in the opening paragraph from this get together, because we three moms kept trying to share potty and parenting tips amongst ourselves, but not one of us could finish a thought without breaking up a toddler fight. Though the potty aspect of the party was downplayed, it was still a fun playdate for everyone involved.

This is the only pic I took, and it was at the end of the party. All three girls were given favor bags and tiaras for being potty princesses. R had decided she didn't want to sit with the other girls right as I was snapping the shot. Oh well. At least she wore her crown. :-)


The last playdate was with R's friend, A. I've been taking R to Barnes & Noble Storytime ever since she turned one year old. I can't remember if A had been there right from the start, but pretty early on in our Storytime career, A's mom started talking to me and the little girls hit it off. I'll go more in depth into their relationship in another post (with adorable pics of them holding hands, aww!), but for now I'll focus on the playdate. Unfortunately, I only took one pic of this event, too, and it was when both girls' faces were hidden, sigh.



A's mom and I had been planning this playdate for awhile. We finally got our acts together last week. This playdate was the most low-key of them all because R was too busy climbing on me to mind what toys A was finding to play with. Except for when we went upstairs to show R's room to A and her mom. A wanted to push the buttons on R's musical nightlight, but R would not allow it. As the nightlight is actually a base to a baby mobile, I need to somehow wean R off of it before her baby sister comes! This playdate ended with lunch at a yummy Mexican restaurant. Heehee, I could use more playdates like this one. ;-)

Potty Club

I know I need to reign myself in, but I'm so excited that R is taking closer and closer steps to being potty trained. Life around here is slowly morphing into something better as old patterns are being disrupted and new rituals creep in. She wears Gerber training pants at home during the day. No more daytime diapers unless we leave the house, and even that paradigm is starting to shift.

We drove to Storytime this morning-- Senpai (off from work), R, and I-- and I took R to the bathroom as soon as we arrived. Her diaper was still dry. She sat on the toilet but nothing happened, so I put her back in her diaper. At the end of Storytime, I saw her fidget with her pants. I should've taken her to the bathroom right away, but she was in the middle of coloring, and I decided to wait. I had told myself before leaving the house this morning that we would do potty trips before and after car rides, but before I knew it, we were in the car heading home and I had completely forgotten about my rule. Not surprisingly, her diaper was wet when we got home.

She peed on the big potty before lunch (that's another rule: potty before meals), and kept her panties dry throughout the meal. When it was time to go upstairs for her nap, she didn't want to sit on the potty (the last rule of Potty Club: potty before and after sleep), and she didn't want to put a diaper on either. I fastened a Flip cover with a stay-dry insert over her training pants. She took an hour to fall asleep. In that period, I tried putting her on the Bjorn potty that now resides in her bedroom. She sat on the potty for all of 5 seconds without doing anything, but I was thrilled that her diaper covered training pants were still dry.

To recap, but mostly to remind myself, the three rules of Potty Club are:
1. Do not talk about Potty Club.
2. Do not talk about Potty Club.
3. New babies go first.

No wait, it's more like this:
1. Potty before and after car rides.
2. Potty before meals.
3. Potty before and after sleep.


If I can remember to keep to these rules, R can be a dry-pantsed toddler. From there, it's only a matter of time before she'll start to initiate potty trips herself. I'm so excited! I'm really curious to know if her diaper will be dry when she wakes up from her nap. I highly doubt it, but, man, that would be awesome if it is! Yeah, reign your excitement in, Mommy.

Live-Blogging Potty Training, Day 2

I didn't think I would blog again today, but Senpai mentioned how he liked visiting the page and being kept abreast of our day while he was work. Here we are again, keeping Daddy and the blogosphere informed of our progress.

8 am - Today has not started so well as yesterday. R woke up at 6. I refuse to get out of bed until 7. She sat on the big potty when we finally came downstairs to start the day, but nothing happened because she had already gone in her diaper, understandably. I put her in a new diaper while she ate breakfast, and now I can't get it off of her. She didn't want her post-meal potty time, and she won't hold still to let me put panties on her. She's started playing with blocks... I think now is my opportunity to do the switch.

9 am - She just peed a little bit in the travel potty. I had given her some juice, so I'm still waiting for the rest of the pee.

10:15 am - More pee (and a goldfish!) in the travel potty while she watches "Peep's Big Wide World." No accidents yet today. I'm turning off the tv.

10:20 am - She just wet herself next to the slide. There's nothing like the slide to get this girl peeing. I'm tempted to put a puppy mat in front of it. :-p Based on yesterday and today's happenings, tomorrow I will start to implement a mandatory 10 am big potty break. While the travel potty is nice, she doesn't fully relieve herself on it.

11:06 am - I had sat her on the big potty from 10:40 to 11:05 in the hopes of getting her to poop, but no such luck.

1 PM - She's down for her nap now. I had put her on the potty for 5 minutes just before lunch to see if she would get everything out of her system before wetting herself in the high chair, but she didn't go, so guess what happened on the high chair. Sitting on the potty after lunch she didn't do anything either. We're still waiting for poop today. Two accidents in this first round.

I'm well aware that right now this whole potty training adventure seems to be more about training me than her. I'm holding on to the moment yesterday when she stopped watching Winnie the Pooh (!!!) to let me know to take her to the big potty. And then she peed. It was beautiful. I need more moments like that. Tell me you have to go, Sweetie, hold it until you get on a potty. That's all I'm asking. These are the things that will come with time. For now I have to keep an eagle eye on her, and I will admit, it's getting boring. I'm really curious to see where we'll be by the end of the week.

3 pm - I need lots of calm and strength right now. She woke up early from her nap. I took her to the potty, nothing happened, and she was in a sour mood. I took her back upstairs to finish her nap. She isn't looking like she's going to fall back to sleep and that has both of us feeling crabby. I'm not sure how to continue from here.

9 pm - Are you wondering, "What happened to the rest of the day?" Haha, it was rough. I needed to get out of the house before I had a Mommy Meltdown (in capital letters, because it was baaaad), so I threw a diaper on R and we went to Target. I strapped her into her stroller, got myself a Frappuccino, and met up with Senpai who stopped by on his way home from work. Sigh, much better. We went home, abandoned potty training for the rest of the day, cooked our usual Tuesday dinner of frozen pizza, then I went off to bellydance class. When I came home, R was in bed as she should've been, catching up on some much needed sleep.


It was the short nap that killed the afternoon. Usually she sleeps for 2-3, sometimes even 4 hours during her afternoon nap. For her to wake up after only 1 hour today, after going to bed late last night and waking up early this morning... it was just bad. Her mood was horrible, and in my trying to "fix" her mood by forcing her to go back to sleep, but she wasn't having it, which pissed me off... oh, it was bad. When I find myself taking away her beloved Pooh doll and saying, "You don't deserve Pooh!" I know something has gone horribly wrong. Potty training had to be abandoned because neither of us could handle it as frazzled as we were.

Do I try again tomorrow? Senpai says no. I think I need to relax the standards a bit... use more diapers throughout the day, and just toss on training pants at certain times, as opposed to trying to keep her in training pants for all of her waking hours. The reason I started this potty training adventure was because R had been fighting both the potty and diapers. I wanted to switch things up for her to try something new. Come to think of it, this afternoon she was fighting both the potty and diapers again, but that could be from the tiredness.

She just woke up screaming... I wonder if she's teething? Ahh, babies. We'll never figure them out.