Owning the potty in 2016

Let's go back one month and cover our adventures in potty training.

It started back on December 9th, which I'll always remember since it was my father-in-law's 75th birthday. Valerie woke up with a dry diaper and I asked if she wanted to sit on the potty. She said yes, and she chilled out on the potty while I read her stories for a while, and then she peed on the potty. I cheered and maxed out my excitement and gave her candy, and suddenly, the connection was made. She knew she could pee on the potty for treats and we were off to the races. Well, I should say, I still put her in a diaper for school that day, since putting her in underwear based on peeing on the potty once seemed a bit hasty. But, her teachers said go for it, so we started sending her in underwear the next day.

The first week was definitely hit and miss and 2-3 pairs of pants per day at school, and then that weekend was the big Timm family get-together followed by norovirus, so we totally gave up on the potty for about a week in all that chaos.

Around Christmas, we started getting back on track, and while we were gone, Grandpa took over potty patrol with mostly good results, though he faced a few nasty accidents at the park that week. Upon our return home, though, we seemed to have made it through the woods. In our first full week home, she had just one accident, on Friday night, while we were watching a show together. (Suffice it to say, I look forward to the day we kick our couch to the curb.) Otherwise - the week was a blue ribbon victory, and I feel it is safe to say we officially have ourselves a potty trained child!!! So exciting!!! We even leave her in underwear at night and for naps since she was always waking up dry. Knock on wood - we haven't had any nighttime accidents yet!

I think being back on her usual schedule and going to school was the missing link. December was so crazy, with her only going to school one week of the month, and lots of traveling and visitors and sickness. Now that we are back in our normal routine, she is like an old potty pro. She even told me yesterday she had to pee while she was in the bathtub, and I hoisted her out of the bath to pee on the potty. #soproud #shediditallforafruitsnack

It feels so good to be home and together as a family. We had a nice first weekend of the year with Valerie, who was and still is SO, SO glad to have Mommy and Daddy back home with her. Most days she still excitedly says some variation of: "Mommy/Daddy, you came back!" "Mommy, you always come back." "I miss you." "I love you so much!"

It's the sweetest thing in the world, and really the most affection she's ever shown us, so we are eating it up with a spoon. We got to do lots of cuddling on the couch and playing together and I got all the hugs and kisses I could want. It is a wonderful change of pace from the terrible behavior and whining leading up to the holidays.

Friday night the 8th we watched planet earth (that's when the big couch accident occurred) and ordered sushi from Fuki Sushi, and walked over to pick it up. They have the BEST miso soup. I could drink it all day every day.

Saturday morning we went to Véronique, Elise and Justin's place for brunch - loaded waffles, sausage, melon and mimosas. Soooo delicious and so good to see everyone after a long holiday break! Then we did some shopping at the Stanford Shopping Center. Oh my god Becky, the sales!!! I got leggings and socks from baby Gap for lower prices than at consignment shops and Rich got some new shirts and pants. I may need to go back this week and take better advantage of all these crazy sales. Valerie did great walking all around by herself and then we came home and she took a FOUR HOUR NAP. What!?! We couldn't believe she slept so long. It was amazing. We made popcorn and  watched Wild and had some relaxing downtime.

Sunday morning was Valerie's beloved friend Kalinda's 3rd birthday party and we headed to her house for some preschool age chaos. They just got a new swing set and a weather miracle occurred: the clouds parted and the sun shined down on the party for a reprieve from the rainy and overcast winter. It was a beautiful day, maybe 55 degrees and with the sun shining, it was fantastic. Truckloads of 3-year-olds ran in circles, played in the sandbox, went down the slide, fought over the swings and tricycle, and basically had the best time ever, shrieking at the top of their lungs.

Valerie had the time of her life chasing Kalinda all around the yard, playing with her toys and trying to blow out the candle on her cupcake. She fortunately did not succeed. On our way home, she wanted to facetime with Kali. They truly are sisters at heart.

It was an exciting day, but after a four hour nap the day before, there was no nap to be had. Amazingly, she was in great spirits and a pleasure to be around all day even without one. We put together her new puzzle, played with Cinderella and the prince, read lots of books, played with her baby doll, facetimed with friends, sang Let it Go, made words with bananagram tiles, and snuggled on the couch watching Finding Nemo. Nothing beats those sweet snuggles. A wonderful winter weekend.

Halloween with Valerie, age 2.8

We threw a Halloween party at our house this year on Friday night the 30th, and between Valerie's Halloween parade at her school Friday morning, our party Friday night, trick or treat in downtown Mountain View on Saturday afternoon and trick or treat on our street Saturday night, I'd say we definitely maxed out Halloween this year. We never did make it to a farm to pick out pumpkins, which I wish we had found time for. Valerie kept asking to... but oh well.... next year.

I went all out decorating the house for Halloween; we had cotton spiderwebs inside and outside, red "bloody" handprints on the front door, pumpkin/spider/skeleton lanterns, a black streamer spiderweb on the kitchen ceiling, candy corn lights and a costume gallery from years past on the fireplace, purple string lights along the kitchen counter, and some caution tape-style signs outside.

I loved Halloween decorations as a kid and then stopped caring about them as an adult, but now that Valerie is old enough to start enjoying them, I'm summoning the return of my enthusiasm. I even bought balloons after I realized they are pretty much the best toy ever at her Halloween parade/party at school Friday morning. She had a ball throwing a balloon in the air and catching it for like 20 minutes.

Since Valerie wore two princess costumes this year, Rapunzel on Friday and Sleeping Beauty on Saturday, Rich and I decided to coordinate with her and be the king and queen. We ordered costumes from Amazon at the last minute (standard operations in this family) and they turned out pretty well. The party was a good time; a lot of our friends from biodesign came, and Valerie's BFF Kalinda (dressed as the fairy godmother from Cinderella) and newborn baby Cole (in scrubs to match his dad the doctor) held down the baby-and-child front.  I mixed pitchers of sangria and lighthouse lemonade but most everyone just drank beer.

I got the lighthouse lemonade recipe from my friend Sarah - it is:

Ice
Deep Eddy lemon infused vodka  (1 oz)
St Germaine (1/2 oz)
Sour mix (splash)
Fill the rest with soda water (60%)

 It was as tasty as I expected and I ended up drinking probably most of the pitcher by the end of the night and was not feeling amazing Saturday morning. Whoops.

I chopped up shallots and garlic and cilantro in the guacamole; we had chips, salsa, and caramel apple nachos which looked fancy and were easy to assemble; monster munch popcorn with peanuts, Reeses pieces and candy corn coated with candy coating; Porcini and pumpkin ale mac and cheese for the entree, and banana "ghosts" (peeled bananas with three chocolate chips stuck on them as eyes and mouth) as well as s'moreo bars for dessert. I was also going to have clementine "pumpkins" but could not find clementines at the store so I got three navel oranges instead, which did not peel easily enough for me to make them look like pumpkins. Everything came out great, although I tried to melt white chocolate chips in the microwave for the white "drizzle" on the apple nachos and that was a total fail. It melted kind of clear and you couldn't see it on the apples. I'll have to get white candy coating for that next time. And also not make monster munch again because I ate far too much of that after there was a ton left over.

Halloween Saturday night was a HUGE success. We weren't sure what to expect because I couldn't find any official trick or treat times online, but our street was packed with trick or treaters between 6:30 and 7:30, and a lot of the houses on our street decorated and got really into it. I unfortunately wasn't prepared with enough candy - I had bought popcorn packs and ring pops to hand out, and we had a bunch of lollipops so I thought we'd be okay, but it was crazy.

 Our next door neighbor is an older woman, and her daughter Pam, who is probably in her 40s, came down for Halloween and decked out their yard with all sorts of crazy stuff (flying bat, talking skeletons, moving ghosts, etc) and dressed up as a witch in full green face paint. We went over there first, and Valerie talked to her for a while (and was terrified of all the moving/talking decorations) and the witch gave her a huge handful of candy. Then Valerie was officially obsessed with her. She wanted to stay at her house all night. We made her walk down the rest of the street trick or treating, and after each house she asked, "can I go back to the witch's house now? " So funny. I think she enjoyed trick or treating, but she mostly wanted to hang out at the witch's house all night.

getting candy from the witch

She still asks if the witch is there every time we walk by the house next door. This lady made quite an impression on her.

She was soooo cute trick or treating. She was a little shy, and couldn't remember in what order to say "trick or treat" and "thank you." At one house I said, "what do you say?" and she said "trick-or-treat-thank-you." Several times she said "thank you" when they opened the door, and then "trick or treat" at the end. Then around 7-7:15 she wanted to go home because her candy bag was getting too heavy for her to carry. She wasn't as intent to get as much candy as possible like I expected. So sweet.

We ended up giving out almost all of Valerie's candy to the later trick or treaters after she tapped out early. Luckily she didn't notice, so that actually worked out pretty well. She has a reasonable amount of candy left rather than a whole bag full. We let her have skittles, nerds and M&M's, and she was definitely on a sugar high. I've been trying to limit her to about 1-2 pieces of candy per day since then. She wakes up every morning and asks for a lollipop so I have to hold her off until after dinner. Lollipops are still her favorite candy, although she is yet to meet a candy she doesn't like.

I was surprised when I asked her what her favorite part of Halloween is, and she did not say candy - she said pumpkins. Then I asked what her second favorite part is? and she said spiderwebs. Then third favorite was spiders. So here I thought she would say candy or costumes, but she apparently likes pumpkins and spiderwebs. Haha.

Out of all the great memories, my favorite part about Halloween this year was the amazing warm California weather! We didn't even need jackets to trick or treat! 80 degrees on Halloween! I'll always remember it fondly.