The Princess and the Pig by Jonathan Emmet and Poly Bernatene

Wow, what a great story. Five stars from our 3.5 year old!

The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler

FINALLY got The Gruffalo in our bookshelf! I, as an adult, really like this one. A good addition to our Julia Donaldson book collection.

The Princess and the Wizard by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks

 

Got this book for my 3 year old…I’m not sure if she gets the story but when we look for the princess, she knows where she is. I want to like this story more than I do, but some how it felt rushed the closer one gets to the end. It is an ok story. We give it two stars. This book is for older kids, age 5/6 or so I’d say.

Winnie the Witch by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul

We like this story! This is our first Winnie the Witch book, also the first in a series of 12. Did you know that this story was first published in 1987??? The one we got is the 25th anniversary edition,  published this year 2012. It comes with ‘Lots of FUN Stickers inside!’   LOVE the illustration style. It has a lot going on and that keeps little eyes glued to the page while being read to. A definite 5 stars from us!

Family and friends Visiting, Moving, Uni, new Baby…2012

…just have had no time to blog.

Have started a new Uni course and it’s a ‘slow moving’ lump of a thing…

…anywayz….

 

Our little baby boy is almost 6 months old!! Time has just wooooooooooshed by! We have moved to a City called Wiesbaden. Liking it. Found a Kindergarten spot for Cadence and she has been going every day from 9 till 13:00 and she is REALLY enjoying it, so much that she does not want to go home when I go to pick her up! haha

Miles rolles around and is not sitting all by himself yet, but getting there. He can sit, but will fall over to the side or forward with his head touching the floor. He LOVES ‘eating’ his toes. Itchy gums makes him a bit cranky at times. He has slept streatches of 6 to 8 hours only three times so far. As I’m too lazy to go feed him at night, he usually ends up in bed with us.

Cadence has been going to Kindergarten with no diaper on. Last Friday was the first time in the two weeks that we have been doing this that she had an OOPs. So things are finally looking up in the potty department WHOOP WHOOP!! We have also thrown out her sippy cups. We used them for her chocolate milk. Instead we are now giving her her milk in a cup with a straw…soon we will take the straw away too, and the ‘nanna’ milk will come to an end too.

O, and with Cadence at Kindy we are getting alot of ‘NEIN! Nicht!’ from Cadence haha So glad we got her a spot.

 

 

Potty Training

So…”here we go go go, on an adventure!” We have been potty training our little one for about 2 months…could be more. We  have been taking it pretty slow and trying all sorts of things. We started by just letting her run around with out anything on over the weekends when both her Daddy and I are at hand to help out. Then we started putting on some big girl pants. We found that setting a timer and putting her on the potty every 20 min when the timer goes off helped. When she hears the timer she will now say :”Potty Time!” and rush to the potty. She does not always go so we adjusted the timer to every half hour and that seems to work better.  We did that for about a week. Now, we just ask her, often, if she wants to pee pee.

I feel like its important to not just let her sit and sit (we did do this in the beginning)…I feel like she should know that when she sits on the potty she should be doing her business and not just use it as a chair to just chill out on. So I will put her on the potty and keep reminding her that she should pee pee. She will then tell me that she is done (even when she has not gone and that is fine) or she will make a game of it. I then just take her off.

Today, we are going to go out for the first time with no diaper on….I am a bit worried about how this is going to go down. This is as much a learning experience for our little one as it is for us! I am planning on just taking her potty with us. I am going to put it in a shopping bag and take a bottle of water with to give it a rinse if we are lucky and actually get to use it today. Maybe take something like toilet paper with to give it a wipe too. Yes…this is going to be ‘a fun day’ 😀

The thing I have learned from potty training so far is to take it day by day. Stay calm…really, don’t do it if you are in a bad mood. And lots and lots of praise helps!

Please, any little tips is welcome! As I said, this is as much a learning experience for our little one as it is for us!

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Let’s see…have been doing this potty thing now for about a week and have gone out with our little one…armed with the blue potty….about twice. She pooped in her potty on the first day, but peed in the splash pool. And on the second outing she peepeed in the back of the car, on the potty. Found this nifty little trick on some other blog…can’t remember the name of it though. Was googleing about how one goes about with a toddler and potty training.

Yes, its still not perfect. She still gives us the ‘pee pee’ after it has happened, but have a couple of bright moments too! Have this blue potty and one that goes on a normal toilet. We use a washing basket for her to get onto the toilet. Yesterday we found pee pee on the washing basket, so she ‘kinda’ made it to the toilet by herself ! Very proud of her!!

This is hard work, and I don’t have the patience for it most of the time, but its one of those things that she has to learn.

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09/10/2011

Aggggg, what can I say…it went really well, and then really bad. I have given up until my exams are over and I have more patience for our little girl and her blue potty….

Had days when she would tell us that she needs to use the potty and then peepees in the potty no problems and then we had days that she just did not care…well, that is what it felt like to me. I had to ask her if she wanted to go, and she would say no, and then she would just pee in her trousers a minute later. Agggggggggggg, went through all her clothing one day! It just seemed to get worse, so decided to leave it for a bit. I hope that when we start trying again she will be more keen.

Then we go visit a little friend of hers and this little girl does not need any help. She can pull down her trousers and use her potty with no help from her Mommy, pull her trousers back on and off she goes!

What am I doing wrong ???!!!???!! Agggggggggggggggggggggg !!!!!!!!!!

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07/07/2012

She now gets it…after what seems like for EVER, she gets it. She is now almost 3.5 years old. Still needs a bit of help pulling up her knickers and trousers properly, but hey, she is pooping and peeing IN A POTTY!! And with out me having to constantly remind her too! Its great!

Cadence

2 and a half years old

Play Mat

“H” is for….hate I tell ya!! I really do not like this style of mats…you know those rubber/plastic jigsaw mats that have the numbers or alphabet letters you can take out…yea, THAT mat. It’s THE mat that gets used my our cats to sharpen/clean their claws and the one place where I hate my toddler to pee pee…This thing is a pain to clean!!! “Just wipe it with a damp cloth” my ass !
This was a great mat before my cats got their claws in it, and before our toddler started potty training…and even before she realized that you can take the thing apart…coz you know what mummy, YOU are the one who is going to have to put it all back again, coz little one is too small to do it yet…joy, no HATE. I am in the process of giving this damn thing its last wash and getting rid of it.

2.5 Year Old

The talking has taken off and just keeps on getting better and better! Got a full on “I love you Mummy” today! “No Touching!”… LOVES swimming! Can count to 10. We are working on colours too, works well when asking her “Where is the…black hat?” after having asked her to point to the colour black. Now have to mention that we got our hands on some awesome Dora The Explorer Numbers and Colors Flap cards (Learning Horizons) and she watches Winnie The Pooh’s 123 often and these two things have really helped with her counting! She will point at stuff and just start counting them, or she will count while climbing the stairs!
Loves to paint. Started to eat more cheese. Still holding on to a rail when climbing stairs up and down. She is a BIG Pingu fan! We are still teaching her Afrikaans, English and German and it looks like she is talking way more English. Witch is fine, she seems to understand me when I talk to her in Afrikaans…and the German is there…she does need to hear a bit more of it I think. When we go out she will great people with ‘Morgen’ any time of the day! haha
We did not get a Kindergarden place for her for this year Aug. so by the looks of it she will be starting Kindergarden next year hopefully when she is 3.5. Thats fine for us, but thinks she would have liked to go to Kindergarden and hang out with kids her age or around her age instead of Mummy and Daddy the whole time!
I’m about 6 months pregnant and it can be hard work some days taking care of a active toddler! Looking forward to holding a tiny little baby again.
And looking forward to seeing what our first born makes of the new arrival haha

“Come”

The last few days our little two year old Cadence has been telling us to “come”…
and last night was the first that she got sick all over me…and all I could do was hold her, facing me…covered in her sick…and tell her that everything is going to be ok. Poor thing! She is still a wee bit sick today, but think she will be all good tomorrow.