Big kid

Maren is starting to seem like such a big kid. This morning we went out to breakfast for the first time in a very long time. We haven't been out to eat with her partly because we have been so worried for so long about her eating. She would never eat as much when we were at a restaurant or at someone else's house, and because she wasn't gaining weight for so long we just ate at home all the time. But yesterday Jeff suggested that we go out to breakfast today, and we did, and Maren ate fabulously. She has been off the appetite stimulant for a while, and has been eating really well, and seems to be growing and gaining weight just fine. It is a huge relief, and so nice to know that we can go out to eat and enjoy it again.

As predicted, potty training is going well except for the poop part. We have hardly had any pee accidents, but so far have had zero poops in the toilet. Not sure exactly what to do about that, but she is done with diapers, so we will just figure it out over time I'm sure.

Tonight is Maren's first night sleeping in a toddler bed – her crib with one side removed so she can get in and out on her own. We were at a birthday party yesterday for a friend who was turning two, and he was sleeping in a toddler bed, so we decided to ask Maren if she wanted to. She was super excited about it. 

Our little baby seems so grown-up, and I have to remind myself that she's only two and will seem so much more grown-up as time goes on.

Train to the spaceship

Today was a busy day filled with sledding, photos at the library, and putting together a new exercise bike (our old one stopped working). So my blog post will be short. 

Yesterday Maren was playing with some styrofoam from the exercise bike box. She lined up the foam pieces with her rocking horse and chair, and put a stuffed lemur and stuffed gibbon in separate pieces. 

She said they were taking the train to the spaceship. And then a little while later they were taking the spaceship to the science center. Jeff and I were just watching from a short distance away laughing. We can't think about it without laughing again :-)

Toilet time

Maren is toilet training. We were scared off of early potty training by the bad experience of some friends, but Maren was insisting that she wanted to pee in the potty, so we had to comply. I read a book, we got everything ready, and this is a long weekend for us, so we have three days. 

This photo is from a little over a week ago, but I think illustrates Maren's strong desire for potty training:

She was showing interest so we bought her a potty months ago, and she has had a lot of diaper free time at home. In the past couple of weeks she has peed in the potty a few times at home and at daycare. So we had no excuse for waiting, other than that in many ways it would be more convenient for us to wait. Maren has given us evidence that she is ready, has told us that she wants to pee and poop in the toilet, and has been distressed by her diapers for a while. So we decided to just go for it. We are using a three-day method, mostly following the prescribed protocol. This mostly just involves never leaving Maren alone, noticing signs of needing to pee or poop, and reminders to tell us when she needs to use the toilet. 

Based on how things are going in the first two days, I think that Maren will not have too much trouble with peeing in the toilet, but we have yet to have a successful poop. I think that part might take a while. In the meantime I guess we keep her in underwear even if there are poop accidents. It feels kind of strange, but in many ways it's not that different from diapers I suppose. Fingers crossed that this doesn't turn into a disaster!

Something fierce

First, everything is fine. I know I have been pretty good about posting at least every other week, so missing two Sundays in a row has worried some people. Fortunately, the worst that is going on around here is that I am completely losing track of time due to busyness. I keep telling Jeff that I'm going to be less busy "next week," and unfortunately next week never seems to arrive even though it's been a few weeks. But I swear that starting on Wednesday I'm going to be less busy. Unless a bunch of unexpected stuff comes up like has been happening at work the last few weeks :-)

We had an amazing Halloween with tons of decorations, so many trick-or-treaters we couldn't keep count (probably around 200 according to one estimate, based on the amount of candy that we purchased and ran out of). It was Maren's first Halloween as a trick-or-treater. She absolutely loved it. And it turns out she also loves chocolate, which we have been avoiding giving her but the jig is up.

Sadly, I don't have many pictures from Halloween. Jeff tried to take a few but I don't have those. This is kind of the best I have:

I don't know why it is coming up sideways, and I don't know how to fix it, so there it is. Maren is not wearing a shirt in this photo because she peed on it. I feel like only parents who have had toddlers can understand how she managed to pee on her shirt but not her pants (hint: it has to do with spending a lot of time wearing no pants).

Maren is absolutely hilarious lately. She has started using phrases that she hears other people use, and repeating things that other people have said. Jeff sent me a text yesterday after Maren told him that another child at daycare "Was crying something fierce." I am 100% certain that neither Jeff nor I has ever used that phrase. It is hard not to laugh.

So in the last two weeks we went from fall to winter. About a week and a half ago Jeff was raking leaves, and then yesterday and the day before Jeff and Maren went sledding. It was a very abrupt transition, but at least there was no wishy-washy time when we were unable to say whether it was fall or winter. On October 31 it was fall, then it snowed overnight and on November 1 it was winter. Life in Saskatchewan.

Breathing easy

Our house smells normal. It is such a relief to have the sewer fixed, and to know that the problem has been identified and solved. Sometimes these problems involve a lot of trial and error, fixing many smaller issues with plumbing until something finally works. But fortunately for us, we have a pretty knowledgeable plumber who figured it out fairly quickly. And it is nice to appreciate good smelling air, which we would not have thought about if we had not had this problem.

We also had new blinds installed in our bedrooms yesterday. We were using cardboard in the windows to block the light in Maren's room, but no more. It feels like such a luxury (and really, it is in many ways) to just close the blinds instead of doing a complicated cardboard/blanket-stuffing maneuver every night. Slowly but surely, the house is shaping into our home.

Maren has been loving Halloween. Parts of her temperament definitely come from Jeff - she is totally unfazed by things that would have scared me to pieces when I was little. She has been playing a ton with a severed hand, and the other day she spent about 10 minutes straight running back and forth past a motion-activated demon.

She is most definitely her father's daughter :)