Our last several weekends have been jam packed. Katherine has hosted and attended several parties for her friends. As well, we prepared for the annual carnival for her toddler school. Unlike last year, this year’s carnival presented an opportunity for me to learn how to make cupcakes. After asking around for favorite recipes and making practice cupcakes (see picture), we enlisted friends to come over and help make fish cupcakes – yummy chocolate scratch cupcakes with candy/frosting resembling a fish. Katherine and Audrey had a great time observing, and while the cupcakes didn’t win any prizes, they tasted great!
Carnival fun didn’t end with the fish cupcakes though. The next day, Steve, Katherine and I headed to a local school to participate in the fun – cake walk, fishing, basketball, bean bag toss, etc. We whipped thru the carnival in 45 minutes. The highlight was clearly the cake walk where we won a homemade cake on the first try! The local firemen also stopped by with their firetruck and Katherine and Audrey went inside to check it out.
Learning about Consequences
Now that Katherine is 2.5 years old, we believe that it’s time to learn about consequences. One hard lesson occurred the weekend of the carnival. Katherine was determined to scoot underneath every restaurant table at which we sat. Despite constant reminders, she seemed to think that it was acceptable to go under the table to go from one side of the table to the other. Finally at Red Robin, I warned her “if you go under the table, no racetrack cake tonight!” She looked straight at me and dived under the table. On the way home she tried to convince me that “no more under table, me get cake tonight!” We held firm and no cake. The following evening we took her to a local pizza parlor. As she said “me no go under the table. me get cake. dogs go under table.” I think we’ve effectively nipped this behavior in the bud.
Katherine’s empathy is becoming more and more pronounced. It started with Madeleine and questioning why she had to go to the hospital. It then extended to Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. The premise of this book is that Sylvester turns into a big rock thanks to a magic pebble that grants his wish. I had purchased this book for Katherine’s little library months ago, and she started to flip thru the book recently. Patty also checked out the Spanish version of this book from the library and began to read the book to Katherine before naptime. Well, during a recent reading right as Sylvester turned into a pebble and his parents started to look for him, Katherine began to ask “where’s Sylvester” “why his parents sad?” She almost began to cry, which prompted Patty to finish the book quickly and more cheerfully than the author intended.
We’ve also noticed that Katherine doesn’t understand and has difficulty watching conflict. For instance, we took Katherine and my mom down to NW Trek a couple weekends ago. Along the way we popped Shrek 2 in the minivan DVD player. All was well and good until the main characters started to argue – at that point we had to change DVDs…
Potty & Rocks
Katherine is now about 95% potty trained when she isn’t sleeping. We started this process intermittently several months ago and focused hard on it starting 2-3 weeks ago. The incentive process goes like this: #1 gets 2 rocks, #2 gets 1 rock. When the Starbucks shot glass is full with colored rocks, she goes to the toy store and gets to pick out one small toy. The first week she earned a wood birthday cake with candles and toppings. The second week she earned a plastic place setting for her kitchen. She’s now filled up her little glass for the third time – earning her a much deserved third trip. She’s been talking about getting an oven mitt for her kitchen, but we’ll see what she picks!
Until about 2 weeks ago, we would put Katherine in a diaper to leave the house. Then we started carrying around a little plastic toilet foldable seat (that she loves!) for her to use. Now she only wears diapers when she naps and sleeps at night – 2 diapers a day. We’ve stopped buying diapers at Costco and are looking forward to being down to 1 diaper at night within the next month or so if we can swing it.
We’re hoping that the potty training sticks thru baby #2 and that we’ll be home free for preschool in September! One other benefit of underwear is that Katherine fits much more nicely in her clothes – except for her jeans which fall down on her. You can see how she looks different without diapers in the last picture at the lake.
Just our Luck
We seem to have nasty luck when it comes to things that Katherine loves and wants more of – case in point, Lambey. Katherine now expresses very strong preferences as to what she wants to wear. Her latest attachments include a pair of green 2T, too small Nemo PJs that the Grandparents purchased at Disneyland and a red 2T Zutano vest that she received a while ago from Audrey. Both are no longer being manufactured and are not available anymore!
On a lucky note, her older cousin Kevin outgrew his size 6 matching Nemo PJs and handed them down to Katherine (whew!). Her attachment to these PJs and this vest is so strong that she tracks the laundry carefully and will run to her dresser to see if they are available to wear.
