Where does the pee-pee go? In the Potty!

every day after Aria's bath, we let her have some naked time. We've been talking to her about using the potty, and she's sat on it, but nothing ever came out.*

well, tonight after her bath, she came into our room and watched me vacuum. she grabbed herself, said "ooh! in the potty!" and ran back to the bathroom, and sat down for a bit. Then she proclaimed "all done!" and stood up. there was pee in the potty—a lot of pee! we were so proud of her and I gave her high-fives and 3 stickers. she usually gets one sticker just for sitting down, so 3 is a BIG deal. Aria was so happy, and couldn't wait to flush the toilet.

we know that it'll be a long time before she's completely potty trained, but tonight was an excellent step in the right direction!

*soon after we got the potty, Aria got the urge to poop immediately before her bath. she wouldn't sit down on it, so Dana caught the poop in the potty while Aria stood up. She got scared of it when she saw it after!

...and she ate it

We cook dinner the majority of the time. We like to cook together. With our schedules now during the week, I mostly get dinner started early after picking Aria up from school and then Goofydaddy gets home shortly after. I'm not the best cook, but Goofydaddy and I are not picky eaters. So, if it's the least bit eatable, we eat it. Now with a toddler that judges the way things taste by sight, it gets a little tricky. Sometimes when I know Aria needs to eat a good meal, I will make her an egg separate because I just don't think it's worth the battle. Last night I made an eggplant/spinach bake with pasta on the side which can look a little weird, but is VERY tasty. Usually the color and texture of the eggplant and then the mixed in spinach would totally turn her off. (She does eat and love spinach plain though.) I didn't feel like making anything else so I just mixed it all up and made sure the eggplant was really small. I put the plate down and she immediately turned her nose up at it. She then asked for waffles. I asked her to try it and I got a "NO!" So, I told goofydaddy to not give in with me. She was definitely hungry and I had a feeling she would give in. So we just kind of ignored her a little while we got our plates together. I showed her I was eating the same thing and daddy too. I put some on her fork and asked if she would like to try it. She opened her mouth and in it went! I handed her fork and she ended up eating 2/3 of it. GOOD little girl! It made me happy.

I'm sneaky

today was Aria's first class picture day! When she woke up this morning I told her, and asked if she could show me a big smile, she said "cheese!" I don't know where she learned that one...

We made sure that she would be as cute as can be, Dana even ironed her dress. it wasn't a super fancy dress, but Aria doesn't care - she really loves dresses these days. When she's getting dressed, if she has a choice, it's usually "pretty dress". well this was a pretty pink dress, so when she saw it this morning, she was pulling off her shirt in no time!

When I got her to school, they were bringing in her class two at a time, so I said my goodbyes and hid around the corner so i could see Aria get her picture taken. I was wondering how it would go. part of me thought we would get pictures of her crying or running up to the camera asking to "see! see! see pictures!"

the room was pretty dark and with the umbrella lights and backdrop, she did get a little scared, so her teacher sat down with her and watched a couple other kids get their pictures taken. she sat there quietly, and watched with what turned into excitement when she saw that the photographer and assistants had an elmo doll who held a feather and wanted to tickle, a scooby doo who liked to sit on top of the photographer's head, and various other fun toys.

towards the end of the other kids' photo session, I heard Aria exclaim "I have a pretty dress!" and then "Aria's turn next?" She was led to the chair where she hopped up and allowed complete strangers to position her legs and hands and then proceeded to smile and giggle at the feather holding elmo! Her teacher was in stitches and how giggly she got, and i couldn't help smiling. we can't wait to see the pictures - they took about 15 or so.

fun with Grandma and Grandpa

The other week, my parents came over for the day. Aria was napping, so we played Bananagrams, a fun, fast scrabble-like game. I won't go into who won the most games, or who was the only person not to win a game...
:-)

When Aria woke up, Grandma and Grandpa entertained Aria with some singing and dancing!

Here's Pop-pop singing the "Which Witch" song (complete with broomstick). she loves this song and asks us to sing it every day!Grandma singing the "Clap your hands" song, while Aria sings and dances along!

Aria loves being read to!

All in all, a fun day. yummy dinner (if i do say so myself) and yummy dessert. we're so blessed to have both sets of grandparents so close (relatively) to us. Aria will have many years of fun memories!

braids!

braids are cute! and mommy loves braiding hair. but Aria doesn't like anything in her hair most of the time. she let Dana braid her hair, for this picture. but when it was done, she freaked out and started pulling at the braid like it was a hair clip, so we had to undo it. someday she'll like her hair braided or clipped. or maybe i'll shave it off like mine! j/k

pink eye

Aria has pink eye again. and when i told one of my friends this, he jokingly said "she's got poop* in the eye!" i laughed, but then it occurred to me that some people might think this is how you get pink eye. well that's the bacterial version which may or may not be caused by poop, and is less common than the viral version. the bacterial version causes more puss and goop, while the viral version has a watery discharge. the viral version is related to the common cold.

to sum it all up: my daughter does not have poop in her eye. :-)
and if you have a cold, don't rub your snot in your eye.

*poop was not the word used...

shout outs

here's some shout outs! The grandma and pop pop one is for all four of you :-)

Grandma and Pop Pop: watch her face as she forgets who else she's supposed to say hi to!

Aunt Jennine: sometimes she says "there's Aunt Jennine's car!"

Tia Maria and Uncle David

Cousin Felipe

counting

our little counter, we just have to work on the perpetual-ness of it! (that and she likes to skip 2 for some reason, but she definitely knows what 2 means)

Labor Day Weekend

We had a really nice Labor Day weekend at my parent's Cottage. Here are some pictures from the trip...

Aria enjoys playing on the beach in the sand.

Aria takes a moment to relax with Daddy. Doesn't she look comfortable?

"Weeeeee, again!"

Pop Pop showed Aria how to fish (so cute).

We got on the boat to test out our fishing skills.

Curly Girls

Yum! Homemade icecream is the best.

camping

Three weekends ago, I went backpacking with a couple friends. it was the big schloss trail in western VA (i think the mountain range is literally on the border of WV and VA). a nice 12 mile hike, to a final altitude of about 3000 feet. I had been camping before, and hiking, but never both. it was fun, but boy was i glad to take the 25-30 lb pack off for good Sunday afternoon!

We got to the bottom of the trail on Saturday at about 11am. Got everything together, and set out. the trail is a big loop, with the first half mostly through the forest, not much to see. after about 7 miles or so, we found a good campsite, rested, setup our tents, made a fire, cooked dinner (freeze-dried chicken stew yay!), and went to bed. I like sleeping in a tent, it's like a fort! i played sudoku by flashlight until i got real tired, and went to sleep despite the cacophonous noise of all the insects and frogs.

loud is an understatement. i woke at about 1am to find that most insects and frogs go to sleep at some point too. the moon had come up by then and i was half expecting to see some scary weird animal silhouette prowling by my tent. i was disappointed.

we woke at about 7 the next morning, packed up, had a quick bite, and set off again. we were walking along the peak of the range at this point, with several lookouts while heading up to the peak.

the view of Big Schloss from a lookout about 2-3 miles away. Schloss is German for castle, and it really does look like the ruins of a castle.

we reached the top of big schloss by 11sh, and relaxed for a bit before heading down. here's John taking a catnap.

On our way back down, the path was only about a foot wide and had thick brush on either side. John was in front, and i was right behind him. we were moving at a nice pace, and then we heard the rattle. John froze, and we backed up. we tried to get a picture, but i had to enhance it a bit because of all the leaves. you can just make out a dark shape in the middle of the picture, diagonally. below that is a picture of the eastern diamondback rattlesnake for reference. the snake was about 3 feet long and 3 inches in diameter at its widest point. luckily, it was already heading away from us, and not coiled up. it was running parallel to the path so we had to make a wide path around it, hoping we didn't run into another one in the thick of the brush.

all in all, a fun weekend!

she's too easy, TGIF babbling from goofydaddy

after about a week of taking Aria to her new classroom, she still wants to go to the old one (it doesn't help that it's right next door). so instead of walking her to the room, I have to carry her. once we're in the new room, Aria's all business and puts her water and lunch in her cubby, then goes to play. today she gave her teachers hugs hello! I got two hugs, a kiss, and a "bye-bye daddy".

There are two children in Aria's class who are working on their separation issues currently. Aria is intrigued by this, and it has a calming effect on her. She kind of stares at them as if to say "what's wrong?" one of the kids gets more upset when i come in to drop Aria off because i remind her that she was dropped off and her daddy left her too. I feel bad everyday when this happens. She sees me and starts crying even more while looking at me and screams "daddy!"

back in April when we started putting her in daycare, Aria went through that to some extent. it's cool to see how grown-up and evermore independent she has become.

we have a set routine now, Aria brings a toy along for the car ride, and knows that it has to stay in the car when we get to school. when i say that it's time to go to school, she loves getting her shoes from the shoe bucket by the front door. then she'll say "Aria bring caterpillar to school?" and get him and then we get in the car. when we pull into the parking lot, she says "we're here!" and tosses the caterpillar into the seat next to her, and tries to take the car seat buckle off. she carries her water and lunchbag in to school. She's so easy! and I am glad for that.

Aria has a purse with a phone, keys, glasses, and some other things which she sometimes likes to bring with her in the morning. yesterday morning, she pulled the glasses out and put them on by herself. i had to snap a picture with my phone!

NY and Hershey Gardens

On our way back from Massachusetts, we visited my Aunt and Uncle in New York. they moved a little north of where they lived for a long time and i was a little sad to not visit their old house. I have a ton of awesome memories of visiting my relatives in that house. we had so much fun with my aunt and uncle, and one of my cousins and his family. after dinner, we went to the park nearby, and Aria loved running around to all the different slides and see-saws! no pics of that because we forgot the camera, and too bad, because when Aria was on a swing, she asked "mommy and daddy swing too?" so we did, and she thought that was hysterical! who knows...

That night we drove to a hotel near Hershey and headed to Hershey Gardens bright and early the next morning. we do have pictures of that!

Aria pointing at a butterfly.

Aria liked all the flowers. the video is her sniffing the flowers.

next post will be my hiking/camping trip. then labor day post finally!