Potty Time

I have to brag for a second.  Today, Eliana used the potty all day and only had one accident!  It is only one day, but I am feeling pretty good about how well she is progressing with potty training.  (knock on wood - hope I don't jinx it!).  We have been potty training on and off since Eliana was about 18 months old when I first bought her a little potty of her own.  I thought between the cloth diapers and a very healthy dose of determination on my part, Eliana would be trained by about, oh, 19 months.  I read the book "Early Start Potty Training" by Linda Sonna, which advocated potty training as early as 6 months old and promises to help you have your tot trained by two.  Despite my lack of experience with potty training a toddler, I was pretty sure everything would be a breeze and I would be an expert at it.  So this whole experience has been very humbling for me as a new mom. 
But now we are back "on" again for potty training and Eliana is doing better than ever!  I would say right now our daily average is about 50% of the time Eliana uses the potty (she does better than that on days that she is home with me and worse on days that she is in daycare with all those distractions).  I am really hoping that she will be out of diapers by the time the second baby is born.  Eliana has definitely shown that she is capable of being potty trained.  Now it is just a matter of how much time and energy I want to invest in it.  For the most part, I have been trying to stay at home with Eliana so that we are always near a potty and have less distractions.  That can be frustrating for the both of us, thus decreasing my motivation to make this a priority.  But as time goes on, she is getting better and better.  Right now our main strategy is lots of time spent in the house without any pants or diapers, asking and taking Eliana often to the potty, and reading books like "My Big Girl Potty" by Joanne Cole.  When Eliana does use the potty, she gets lots of cheers, hugs, and kisses, and I offer her a stamp for her arm (which she only sometimes takes).  So far so good!

#tbt - One of my first attempts at potty training with lots of naked time (Aug 2013)

Come on Spring

 A smattering of pictures from our adventures outdoors this month.

We have been going outside as much as possible, whenever the sun is shining and it is even close to being warm.  Even if it is only for 15 minutes, going to the park for a little bit is better than staying inside.  On this day we went to Harrison Park.

Bundled in the stroller.  Check out her big girl ponytail before she got her hair cut.

Drawing with chalk on the front step.  When I stepped away to take this picture, Eliana decided to take her shoes off.

At Thompson Park playing on the brand new equipment from last fall.

Eliana is getting good at climbing!  Except then she climbed all the way to the top.  Not only did she give me a small heart attack, she got scared herself and cried at the top until I came up to rescue her.

Double Baby Shower

Jackie at 19 wks (I think), me at 24 wks, and Stephanie at 22 wks.

 A couple of weekends ago, two of my dear friends Jackie and Stephanie had a double baby shower.  We are all due within weeks of each other!  What a fun time to be pregnant together, me with my second and them with their firsts.  Maybe our kids will grow up together and be friends too!  It would be like "Degrassi, the Next Generation"!  The shower was hosted by my friend Stephanie M. who has two little ones herself.  So Eliana had a blast chasing around her son Camden who is about 9 months older than her. 

New parents Joey and Stephanie with Baby Girl.

Eliana is resting her hand on her baby brother!

And while we went to a shower, David was celebrating nearing the end of his nightshift rotation.  Usually on Friday mornings after the last night shift of the week, the residents go out for breakfast.  This time however, they stayed up to the wee hours of the afternoon (3pm!) drinking beer and having pizza at our house on the porch.  It was a beautiful day so they made the most of it trying not to sleep.  It's a weird thing working night shift.

Cookie Cutters haircut

For a two year old girl, Eliana has had quite a few haircuts.  Usually her Aunt Rhonda cuts her hair, which is great.  But I felt like her hair was getting very scraggly and I wasn't sure when we would see Aunt Rhonda next.  So I took her to a salon specifically for little kids called Cookie Cutters.  I thought she would look cute with a little bob and it would help even things out as her hair and bangs continue to grow out.  Eliana got to sit in an airplane while watching Mickey Mouse on TV.  She cried just a little at first, but seemed to calm down after a minute.  Overall, I thought it went pretty well.  Although Aunt Rhonda is definitely still our favorite, this place can do in a pinch.

Getting her hair cut in the airplane.

How smart - the waiting area included a play area with a giant tree and lots of toys.  Eliana liked that a lot better than the actual hair cut.

The result.  So short!  I feel like she looks older and younger at the same time.  Older because this is a real haircut - not just a trim of baby hair.  But younger because her hair is so much shorter - like she is too young to have grown long hair.  She probably had about three inches cut off in the back!

A picture from later in the day.  Just to give you a better view of the new do.  We enjoyed the warm weather today!  Not looking forward to the prediction of snow tomorrow!  From 60 degrees to snow?  When is spring coming?

Mismash of Updates

These two pictures are from the beginning of February after the big snow storm.  Eliana and I were playing outside when our neighbor Katherine joined us.  She is ten, but she treated Eliana like a big girl.  She would show Eliana ice formations, how to dig in the snow to make a cave, and how to use the icy cellar cover as a slide.  I was really impressed with how kind and considerate she was especially with Eliana being so much younger than her.  When it was time to go inside, Katherine said Eliana could come over any time to play.

This was Eliana's favorite thing to do in the snow.

One morning Eliana was holding her cereal bowl and cup above her head.  I couldn't figure out what she was doing until I finally understood her saying "I'm Jesus!"  That's when I realized that she was holding up her cup and bowl like the priest does during the consecration.  (Eliana often gets the priest and Jesus mixed up.)  How cute is that?  I guess she is paying more attention in mass than I realized.  All was going well until the next picture . . .

Now Eliana has tipped her cup a little too far and is dripping milk down her back.  That's when playing priest game had to end.  By the way, this is not the only time Eliana has pretended to be Jesus.  Yesterday after her bath, she grabbed her white changing pad and wrapped it around her.  Then she announced, "I'm Jesus!"  I guess because Jesus is often dressed in white?

I found Eliana in her room like this today - she had her pink baby glowworm in the stroller on top of her bed.  Why?  Who knows.  She just loves playing in her bed right now.

My cutie

 Eliana's sleep strike lasted two weeks, but hopefully we are finally getting past it.  I think our main issue was separation anxiety from our trip to Mexico and leaving Eliana for five days.  This past weekend we went to Indianapolis to celebrate my mom and my brother's birthday, plus go to a wedding of one of David's good friends.  On the drive to Grandma and Grandpa's house, Eliana kept crying and saying she wanted to go home.  I think she was afraid that we were going to leave her again.  Since we didn't and stayed WITH her at Grandma and Grandpa's, I think she was reassured that we are here to stay.  Since we have been back, she has slept through the night the last two nights!  Last night she slept from 7:30pm to 6:50am.  Can you believe it?  Gosh, a full night's sleep feels so good.  Eliana now also has a nightlight and a toddler alarm clock in her room (per the suggestion of a good friend :)).  The alarm clock turns green when it is time to get up (whatever time you set it for).  Now when I put Eliana to bed at night, I tell her that mommy is just across the hall in her bedroom and that I'm not leaving.  I tell her I will see her in the morning after her light turns green, and that Mickey will be with her all night long until then.  So far it has worked.  Raising a toddler is such a fluid thing.  You never know what phase they will go through next or how long it will last.  During the sleep strike when I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep, I felt like this phase would never end, and my life was doomed from here on out.  But now I look back and say, wow that was only two weeks.  Really, that wasn't too bad.  Of course, everything looks better after a full night of sleep. 

In other news, David is finishing up his night shift rotation in the ICU.  Only 7 more nights and we will have Daddy back in our lives again.  A few weekends ago, he went to a curling class with some guy friends.  Curling as in the Olympic sport, not as in doing hair.  He had a great time and would love to do it again.  I hope he signs up for the on going class.  I think it would be a pretty cool thing to do. 

And finally, Eliana's new favorite word is "Why?"  She says this approximately 200 times a day.  A typical conversation goes like this:
Mommy:  "Eliana, don't rip that page in the book."
Eliana: "Why?"
Mommy: "Because it ruins that book."
Eliana: "Why?"
Mommy: "Because then you can't read it."
Eliana: "Why?"
Mommy: "Because you tore that page out and then it gets lost."
Eliana: "Why?"
Mommy:  "I don't know why you tore the page out.  Just don't do it."
Eliana: "Why?"
Mommy: "Because I said so!"

Mexico Vacation

 Continuing our tradition from last year, we took a little vacation in February to someplace warmer while leaving Eliana with her grandparents.  Last year it was Arizona, and this year we flew all the way to Mexico!  We stayed at the Dreams Resort and Spa in Tulum, Mexico, just a little south of Cancun and the Rivera Maya.  We had a great time!  The weather was perfect (sunny and 80s every day), the resort was beautiful, and we had a very relaxing time.  We went off of the resort a couple of times.  Once to go snorkeling on Akumal Beach with sea turtles, then eating lunch on the beach, and then to the ancient city of Tulum with Mayan ruins.  And then again to downtown modern day Tulum to go to mass at the Catholic Church there.  Mass was really neat, as it was filled with locals, especially children.  The mass was in Spanish, so I didn't understand as much as David, but I could see the joy in the children and families there.  The atmosphere at mass was so different than it is in America at times.  Everyone seemed so involved in the mass.  The priest would ask questions and the kids would shout out the answers.  I'm glad we got a little taste of Mexico there, as opposed to the resort which was very Americanized.  I was slightly worried about traveling while pregnant, but neither David nor I suffered any distress from traveling to Mexico.  I loved this vacation!!

Eating lunch at the Seaside Grill, with the beach right behind me.

Most evenings David would play a game or two of soccer on the beach.  I loved listening to them play because I would hear several different languages all united in their love for soccer.

David is wearing the white shirt.

The pool with swim up bar.  The "bar" that I frequented the most was CoCo's Smoothies :)

The chapel on the resort.  Isn't it beautiful?

The view of our hotel's main balcony and lobby at night.  Our room was actually just to the left of the balcony on the third floor.  One evening there was a wedding that had a little reception on the balcony.  They had a Mariachi Band that I enjoyed listening to from our room balcony.

The beach where we ate lunch on our snorkeling and Mayan ruins adventure.

The Mayan ruins in Tulum.

One of the carvings on the side of the Artist's House.  It is the Descending god.

David standing in front of the Governor's house I think.

We saw lots of iguanas on our vacation.

The ruins were surrounded by a stone wall on three sides and the gulf on the fourth.  This is the Wind Temple.  It had a window in it that was shaped in such a way that when the wind was blowing hard, it would whistle very loudly.  This was like a siren for the Mayans to warn them of a possible hurricane approaching.

A face on the corner of a building.

The main castle along with a temple on the left.  That temple would align perfectly with the sun on the summer equinox, and the sun would shine through a window making a special star shaped light.

This was the view from our room of the main garden courtyard.  If you look closely, you can see the ocean just above the trees on the left.  In the morning, before the fountains were turned on, I could hear the ocean too.  Tulum is an hour behind Columbus, so I was up every morning for the sunrise (can't get off a toddler's schedule even on vacation).  So beautiful!

The sunrise!