Potty success again today. This time with Daddy this morning. Made it for # 1 twice and her only #2 of the day. Still has problems with # 1 if the diaper is on. In case you are interested! This is more for me than for public consumption. Just trying to keep track so I can remember for the next one.
Red, Yellow, Green, Blue can discern all of these colours and I believe white too. Could probably do this a week ago but I didn’t test her. She’s very clear on all of them now just by osmosis. I didn’t spend any time focusing on this. I’m just putting these down as I’ve missed some things from earlier on.
Phrases/sentences have expanded to 5 or 6 words long from 18 mos-20 mos. Also, uses the phrase “oh my Goodness” when she is excited about something.
Added: Yellowknife, Vancouver, Okotoks, and TREATS this week. Treats was a fast one. It took one M & M and she knew the word. She can also count to 10. Understands to about #5 when she counts. Can say the whole alphabet and is learning visual recognition of the words.
Sings many many songs although loses some parts of the song. Rock-a-bye-baby, Wheels on the Bus, Happy & You know it, Humpty Dumpty, Hello Song, Zoom Zoom, Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle and more. She could do these from about 18 mos on and continues to improve.
Phrases: Sit right there Mommy. Etc. Will add more as she says them. She talks so much right now that I can’t recall anything at the moment.
We missed the # 2 window this morning. It happened too fast but she peed two times in the potty today. We also went shopping for a big seat for the toilet which she liked at Georgia’s house last night. More stickers, went numerous times when she had gas but no production…so she seems to be getting the idea. We have a song we do after we do are successful too and we make a BIG deal of it even though the books say not to. Whatever. Whatever works as far as I’m concerned. Intrinsic motivation is hard enough for adults!!!
Also, we are going through visual recognition of the alphabet at the moment. Started with ABC today. Got that down already. So we’ll move on tomorrow. Can already sing the alphabet song although not super clearly yet but knows the entire song.
Bedtime, night night.
Happy New Year to all! We had a great celebration at our house this year. From 4pm onwards, young families arrived until we totalled: 8 toddlers (Edzèa, Dylan, Mackenzie, Haydon, Connor, Georgia, Mo Mo, Henry and baby Desiree) and 16 adults (Gillian & Pierre, Amanda, Paul & Amanda’s mom Judy, Gina & Stuart, Xiao Yi and John, Ivy, Tracey & Markham, Carolyn & Glen, Myself & Tim). This is a reminder for me for years to come!
We had appetizers from 4-6pm and then had lasagne, shepard’s pie, ratatouille, spinach salad and garlic bread for the main course. Everyone brought a little something to help out. I made homemade coffee/chocolate mousse for dessert.
All of the kids were great all night with no meltdowns although I’ve since heard from parents that their kids were so wound up that they didn’t sleep well that evening. We certainly didn’t. We had Mackenzie overnight who woke up at 3am and started Edzèa on an all night/morning fuss. Unfortunately, when Edzèa gets jolted out of her deep sleep in the night, she doesn’t go back to sleep very deeply afterwards.
We had the kids decorate party hats right before we celebrated the New Year at 7:45pm. I thought that most people would head home afterwards but the kids were having so much fun that we went straight up to the bath afterwards and we had two baths going with the kids. Needless to say, it was the only area I hadn’t cleaned and wasn’t expecting the party to move upstairs! I’ll know better for next time!
Everyone loves our house for parties like this. It has a very good design for parties with kids/people so everyone would like to do this again next year. I’ve had a few people ask us to host again because of our house. We agreed but only if it’s potluck. Tracey and Markham offered their house after their extension is finished so we’ll just play it by ear.
We had a pancake breakfast at Tracey & Markham’s house on New Year’s Day and we are now slowly winding down and looking forward to going back to our routine next week. Next Saturday, Daddy is taking Edzèa to gymnastics as a Daddy/Daughter bonding time…plus, I can’t carry her and do a lot of the things she needs help with there anymore…as you can see from my BULK in the New Year’s Pictures.
Hope you all had a great New Year’s and we look forward to February now!
Hi there, Merry Christmas Eve. We spent the evening at Tracey & Markham’s and had Arctic Char for dinner. It was terrific! Here are some pics of the girls on Christmas Eve. Hope you all had a good one!
We are having lovely warm weather in Yellowknife right now. -1 today. We took Edzea out on her sled which she promptly fell asleep on. Last night we had a few friends over for dinner to celebrate Tim’s birthday. How is it that Edzea can be exhausted at 10 pm when she finally goes to sleep and then STILL wake up at 6am? We are not going to put her to bed late anymore. This tactic isn’t working. She may as well go to bed at 7pm so at least we get our evenings back.
Here are some photos of Tim’s birthday:
Also, I’m torn. We have people around the neighbourhood who continually dump snow from their driveways on to our corner. We have the only curb on the cul-de-sac. I didn’t get a chance to call the city about it this week but I wanted to see what they could do about it. We have a HUGE mountain around our corner fence which turns into a lake in our yard in the spring. We had loads of snow due to the warm weather last night and the main culprit across the street is now using his bobcat to clear our driveway. I’m sure this is a way to appease us. A. It’s worked so far B. I wish he would ask and then we could actually tell him how we feel. What to do?????!!!
Here are some pics from the SSI Kids Christmas party this morning. Edzea got to see Santa again…but of course wouldn’t sit on his knee but he gave her a present which was a new baby doll which she was thrilled with. Mackenzie wouldn’t go near Santa at all until Edzea and I sat near him. Poor Tracey was trying to get a good pic but it wasn’t working at all.
Following is a selection of photos from our Halloween weekend: Pumpkin carving with Tracey, Markham, Mackenzie, Amanda & Haydon on Friday night. Halloween Haunted House & Gina’s Kid’s Halloween Party & Trick or Treaters at our house on Saturday night. Edzèa handed out the goodies with Daddy and loved it!
We spent a nice quiet weekend this weekend as a family. We had a babysitter (under supervision) come in and look after Edzea while we worked around the house on Saturday/Sunday mornings. His name is Cole. Edzea loves him. He is the owners of SSI’s son and Edzea has known him for a while but this is the first time she’s had his undivided attention. He just finished his babysitting course and only lives a few blocks away and he was a great babysitter. She didn’t bug us at all while he was here playing with her. He brought a knapsack full of new fun toys for her to play with as well.
As you can see from the photos, she quite likes him. Notice the stamps on her face….well, Cole is still only 11 and he was painting with her and I brought out some scrapbooking stamps/ink and I wasn’t really thinking. The next thing I know she is stamped all over her face and arms the next time I see her. Luckily they all washed off easily even though they weren’t washable! They had fun anyways and he makes her laugh a lot.
On Saturday night, we went to Javaroma for a music night with Edzea and Tracey and Markham and Mackenzie. The girls danced all over the floor and were quite the favourites with the crowd. We kept them up past their bedtime as we are trying to get out and do something on the weekend and had heard this coffee music night was baby-friendly. They liked the music more than we did and were happy to be out.
We are gearing up for Betsy Jones visit tomorrow and our H1N1 shots. Edzea has her second gymnastics class tomorrow morning and we have Kindermusic in the afternoon.
We’ve decided that Edzea is not a Princess at all. She is a Queen. The boss. Each day it becomes more clear.
She is now reciting her ABC’s by repeating after us. I have an art history ABC book for her and we go through it daily. She loves her ABC puzzle and her numbers puzzle. She is no longer interested in simple puzzles. They are too easy. So, we keep trying to get things a little more complicated for her. It’s hard to know what is too difficult and what is appropriate. It’s a hit and miss game. I didn’t think she was ready for ABC’s and 123’s last week and this week…I was proven wrong. I need more simple reader books too. She loves the simple reader of the three little pigs and follows along with words.
The words/phrases are too many to count. Basically she will try to say any word you say and will usually use it again if it is interesting to her. Example: Money…she says this one a lot now.
The list goes on….she recites every word in her alphabet book so at least 26 new words right there.
That’s all for now.
Last night, during dinner, Tim called Edzèa a “wacko” as she was goofing around. She looked at him and said “wacko” right back. We all laughed so hard that she did it a few more times for effect.
So here’s a brief update of new things I can remember that she says now. I’m way behind on the list and every day she says more.
She has dolls that she dresses up and yesterday came to me and said “naked”. She repeats this a lot as she gets laughs from this one too. We tell her that when it is bath time she is “naked” so “naked” is also a new favourite word.
The big jump in the past two weeks has been her ability and attempts to sing the songs she knows with us: Frere Jacques, Twinkle, Twinkle, Bumblebee, Happy and You know it, Itsy Bitsy Spider and a variety of other ones.
Every day she says something new and connects words into phrases, unfortunately I can’t remember many off the top of my head right now.
We are probably at about 200+ words now not including phrases/songs etc.