9 Days

Up before 6am.  I didn't look at the time, but my best guess is that it was probably around 5:30am.  He wanted to go to the potty... so he went by himself.  When I checked on him, I found him wiping pee off his potty seat (I guess he wasn't aimed/positioned properly).  There were books scattered all over the floor.

He was happily playing with his car garage, then asked for some cheese.  I cut some up for him and gave him a bamboo two-pronged tooth pick to poke the cheese.

So much for the good morning.  The boy unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper.  I put him in the crib and made him wait while I rolled it back up.  After, he was in a bad mood (I guess because I scolded and punished him).  When I let him out, he proceeded to break my Duplo castle.  When I took the castle pieces away, he threw a tantrum... and threatened to dump out all the lego from another bin.  I took the bin away from him and he had another fit.

I decided it was time to go out.  We walked to the thrift store and value village.  While we were at value village, the boy fell asleep a bit before 10:15am.  Since I didn't take a stroller, I had to lug him home.  Even though he was "asleep" he was aware of his surroundings.  When his hat fell off a couple of times, he immediately grabbed at his head.  Even though it was a short distance, it took me a big of time to get home.

I guess we'll have a normal lunch time (having left-overs) and maybe we can go to a park in the afternoon.  If it's warm enough I might attempt going to a water splash park.

We went to play at the water park today and stayed there for almost 1.5 hours (including clothes changing time).  Isaac played mostly with the water cannons and a couple of water volcanoes.  I ran into another mom from one of Isaac's earlier Creative Movements classes.  She's moving away in January, but I'm planning to arrange a few play dates over the end of summer and fall.

Auntie K. invited us over for dinner tonight at 6pm.  I'm not sure if there's anything I can bring over.

I'm going to give Isaac a bath, then get us ready to go out for dinner.

10 Days

Tiring day.

One good thing, Isaac didn't wake up last night (or if he did, I didn't hear him).  He woke up for the day at 7am and we got up at 7:30am.  We had breakfast and got ready to go to soccer class.  The boy was purposely running into other kids and Moms.  I gave him a couple of time-outs there.  He must've been a bit tired because he was hyper and screamed running around.  He settled down a little part way through class when "connected" some chairs to form a train and sat there for a while.

After class, he played at the playground for a bit.  We went by Value Village, then we were off to the library to get a sticker for his kid's summer reading club booklet.  We stopped by the art gallery, a chinese grocery store, then Isaac fell asleep in his stroller there.  I was feeling exhausted when we got home.  I put him in bed, but unfortunately woke him up so he didn't have much of a nap today.

We had left-over pasta for lunch.  Then I left on the Cars movie and took a nap.  When the movie was over, he came to look for me.  I tried to get him to nap with me to no avail.  He asked to go to the potty, so I took him there and went back to sleep.  I woke up to the sound of something crashing.  (It was his bath toys.)  There were bandaids all over the floor and bottles of saline nose drops everywhere (many with the caps missing).  I put his diaper back on and stuck him in his crib.  He apologized and I took him out.

I set him up with some play doh while I prepared dinner.  We had rice, bok choy, (I had steamed eggs - the boy gagged when I tried to sneak some on a spoon for him), and a mixture of sautéed minced pork, sliced chinese sausage, diced kohlrabi, and diced rehydrated mushrooms.  For dessert, we had some yogurt.

After dinner, I gave the boy a bath, and put him to bed.  He was asleep just after 9pm.

I took a shower, did a load of laundry, did the dishes and topped up the hot water in the water dispenser. I'm going to try to go to bed soon.

11 Days

Why is it that on the nights I stay up late... the boy wants to get up early.  He definitely didn't get enough sleep last night since went to sleep around 10pm, woke up sometime in the middle of the night and wanted to get up at 5:30 am.  I stuck him back in his crib and closed my eyes.  When I woke up, he was still up, and he had pulled a bunch of books into his crib from the bookshelf.  (I guess I should mention that I re-arranged and cleaned part of the bedroom last night while the boy watched Cars and Wall-E.)  I let him out of his crib at 6:30am.

Since I rearranged some of his toys in the bins last night, things were different and he was playing happily by himself while I slept a bit longer.  I fed him breakfast, we took out some garbage and we dropped off a bag of my old sweaters at Value Village.  After we went to the library, art gallery, then met up with K. before her swimming class.  K. gave Isaac a kiss on the cheek before we left.  It was cute. :)  I stopped by Kins, a bakery (to get Isaac egg tarts), bank, PriceSmart (where he decided to take his nap), then just got home.

Lunch time: I think I'll make some macaroni with zucchini, mushrooms and meatballs.  I'll try to make extra so that we can have it for lunch tomorrow too.
Dinner: Shake & Bake chicken drumsticks, chinese veggies, rice.

I need to make one more garbage drop-off while he's sleeping.

I woke Isaac up from his afternoon nap and we had a late lunch.  I wanted to take Isaac to a sing a-long at the library, but he didn't want to go.  We had dinner and he's watching Cars.

12 Days

It's been a busy day.

Last night Isaac was up at around 3:30am.  I took him to the potty and tried to get him to go back to sleep.  He asked to go to the potty again 2 additional times.  Back to sleep a bit after 4am.  He got up at 7:30am!

I woke up this morning with what felt like a swollen throat.  It was uncomfortable swallowing water.  I think it must be allergies.  I had the fan on last night since it was warm, and that probably stirred up all the dust.  The first thing I did this morning was dust part of the blinds in our room.  Isaac tried to help.

A bit after 8am, we had breakfast.  I took Isaac to the potty, got him changed and drove to his soccer class. There is another Isaac in his class (who we met before in gymnastics last year).  There were also a couple of boys we met before from our art class.  Isaac enjoyed playing "What time is it Mr. Wolf?"  though by the third time they repeated the game, he lost interest in it and was running off.  During the class, he seemed to prefer playing with hoola hoops, bean bags, and jumping off the stage onto a big mat.  The soccer part didn't really get his attention.

After class was over, he bolted out of class and went straight for the playground.  He played there for a bit while I chatted with a couple of other parents from our class.  After we headed to Ikea.  I let him play in the kids area, then we picked up a floor lamp and a couple of storage bins.  We each had a hot dog, then we went home.  On our way back, we were stopped at a set of railroad tracks.  A LONG train was passing through, took awhile just sitting there waiting for it to pass.  Isaac didn't mind.  It would've been nicer if we were closer to the front of the line of cars so that he could get a better view of the train.

I got Isaac to help clear the toys off the floor.  I put our bed sheets into the wash, then vacuumed, then steam vacuumed.  Isaac snacked on some cheese and ham.  After, Isaac had some Mommy milk and he looked tired, but when I tried to put him down for his nap, he wouldn't sleep.   He was talking up a storm, and playing with the blankets in his crib.  Then he pretended the blankets was water spewing from his aquarium.  When the dryer finished, I made up the bed and he still didn't want to sleep.

Finally at 4pm, I decided to take him out to Value Village.  He fell asleep in the elevator as I was leaving the building.  I walked around for 1.5 hours, then went home.  I made dumplings for dinner.  I tried waking him up at 6pm, but he didn't want to get up.  So I ate my portion of dumplings.  I tried to wake him up again and threatened to eat his "mum mum", then he started whine/crying and came out to eat at 6:25pm.

I guess he's going to be up late.  I'll try putting him to bed at 9pm tonight.

13 Days

We dropped Daddy off at the airport then stopped by a park on our way home.  Isaac wants to go with Daddy on the plane.  When we got home, he snacked on some seaweed.  We took out the garbage and I tried to go to a garage sale.

Unsuccessful - I drove by the site, but was unable to park the car in the vicinity of the garage sale so we proceeded back home.  On our way back, Isaac fell asleep (10:20am).  It's a bit too early for a nap, but he seems to be needing an earlier nap lately.  I think I need to put him in bed earlier.  I hope he isn't too tired for his soccer class tomorrow morning.

I am watching an ebay auction and there's still over an hour left before it's over.  I have a price in mind.  There's already 9 bids on the pirate ship, and the chances of winning this auction for the price I want is quite slim.  I guess I should think about lunch while the boy's napping.

The boy's nose is stuffed up.  I try to clear it but end up waking him up.  After a tussle I get some nose drops in and was able to suction some mucous out.  A win for Mommy.  But it's a short nap and I don't think I can get him to go back to sleep.

Just under 5 minutes left for the auction.  Isaac didn't go back to sleep so I'm trying to feed him some dinner leftovers while I watch the auction.  I'm hoping I'll be able to put in a bid at the end... Someone just beat my bid by a little.  I bid 211.53 and it went for 214.03.  That one was close.  I put in my bid in the last 20 seconds and just got out-bid in the end.

Time to finish lunch and watch Cars.

Shortly after starting the Cars movie, I remembered about the Kids Safety Fair at a community centre.  I turned off the tv - and Isaac got mad.  I managed to get him into his stroller and he settled down when I opened our front door.  Just after leaving the parking lot, the boy cries "Potty".  He said it a few times, so I know he wants to go.  I ask him to try to wait until we get to the community centre.

When we got to the fair, there was blaring music and kids laughing, yelling, and having fun.  I asked if he needed to go potty and he insisted "No Potty".  Off we went to play.  First we went to the bouncy castle slide.  Then he jumped for a little on another bouncy castle.  It was empty except for Isaac.  We saw a rescue helicopter circling overhead... and it was landing!  I asked him to leave the bouncy castle and we watched the helicopter make its descent.  I thought that they would let us get up close to it again this year, but unfortunately they got called off to an emergency.  We walked around the booths collecting stickers, a pencil, magnet, whistle, safety bracelet and a frisbee.   After our walk around, he asked to go to the potty again.

I took him into the community centre and he went to the potty.  After, he played at the playground, went on the bouncy castle again and we headed back to the car.  I found a garage sale listing close by and stopped by before we went home.  I picked up a toy car ramp/garage/car wash for free.  The sounds don't work, but Isaac seems to like it.  I can give it away when we're done playing with it. :)

After a popsicle, I gave Isaac a bath and he just fell asleep for his second nap at 3:50pm.  Time to take out his diaper garbage.

Hunting around the house for the bag of Gourmet Baby...  Finally find stowed away in another bag beside Isaac's toy kitchen.  It's 5:50pm and the boy is still napping.  I will definitely need to wake him up within 10 minutes.  It'd work better if dinner was ready too.  Still waiting for the soup to boil (for chinese soup noodles).

Potty Training with Training Pants

I picked up a pair of Kushies Training Pants from Sears and we've been using it for at least a couple of weeks now.  I didn't want to go with the disposable pull-ups since it's costlier in the long run and it's too similar to a diaper - and he knows he can pee in his diaper whenever he wants without going to the potty.

He just had his first accident in the training pants yesterday.  He noticed immediately when he got wet, told me: "uh oh".  It was nice not having to clean up the mess (on our carpets) because the trainers kept the pee contained.  Since we only have one pair of trainers, I had to switch him to a pair of regular cotton underwear afterwards.  He was fine for the rest of the evening.

Since I don't have any other training pants to compare with... I can only give my impression of the Kushies one.  The trainers look very puffy when worn.  The boy seems comfortable wearing them (and will request to wear it).  It kind of makes some crinkle noises when he moves around.  There were no small sizes available at the store, so I went with the medium.  It's a little big on him, but it seems to work ok.  I might look for another brand to try.

I'm not sure when I'll feel ready to take him out in underwear.  Our outings are usually too long.  Maybe we can try a short walk out (just to see what happens).  The training pants give me a little more confidence.

Miscellaneous updates

Here are just some random updates about our ongoings.

Last week Isaac had his first nose bleed.  He was acting up, then throwing a tantrum so we put him in his crib.  Then if it's possible, he got even more upset and at some point his nose started bleeding.  He smeared it on his hands and got some blood stains on his crib sheets, but it wasn't anything serious (the nose bleed, that is).

We've been enjoying some nice sunny weather.  We went to the Steveston Salmon Festival to celebrate Canada Day.  Isaac had fun watching the parade (and we had a nice surprise seeing one of his friends in the parade).  Over the weekend, we went to Kits beach.  Enjoyed a walk there.  Isaac explored the beach with Daddy while I attempted to build a sandcastle.  They later came back and Isaac helped me decorate my mound of sand with sea shells and seaweed.  We've also been going to parks the last few days.

The weather forecast seems to be nice, so I might take Isaac to play at a splash park "tomorrow" (which is really later today).  We have a playdate with N. on Wednesday.

Potty training: I recently bought a pair of training pants (underwear lined with water-resistant covering).  When we're home, I try to offer him the choice between diapers or the trainers and he's picked the trainers a few times (and has stayed dry in them).  One time we forgot he had his trainers on and went out to pick up some dinner.  I only remembered that he had that on while we were out and we didn't stay too long, but all was well and he had stayed dry.  He's still mostly in diapers and he doesn't ask to go potty unless he needs to poop.  Potty training is still a work-in-progress.

He's started eating raisins and craisins.  There was a long period when he didn't like them, but after a grocery store clerk gave him a box... he's enjoyed them since.  I pack that as a snack when we go out.  He still gets the Dole Squish'ems apple/berry/strawberry sauce blends, PC organics cookies, and sometimes a pack of seaweed.

I curtailed my ebay/online shopping during the postal strike and I think we're done buying duplo.  Isaac is getting more interested in my little lego and occasionally I let him have some play time with them when he's strapped into his booster seat at the table.  I'm also building up a nice knex collection.  Now I just look for regular lego and knex when I go to Value Village or garage sales.  I picked up some clothes for me and some for Isaac at the last 50% sale at VV.  The only problem is trying to get the yucky smell out of some of the clothes.