Springtime

4/29/2012


This spring has been pretty routine. Haven't been on too many adventures. This past week, however, we went to see The Wizard of Oz at the Kimmel Center and went to the Adventure Aquarium in NJ. Mat had a rough day or two but it was a smooth week over all.

Sarah T. and her nanny, Amy, went to see the play with us!



We found frogs at the Aquarium!



Mat was VERY excited to be going to see The Wizard of Oz

Mat opened and closed every bottom locker. Then she started to climb into them.

After the cast bowed

The penguin feeding was at 11:15. I took this picture at 11am. Clearly the Penguins knew that lunchtime was just around the corner.

"Washing the table"

Mat was showing me how she would swim with her new elephant floatie on. If only she was this confident in the water.

At every exhibit that we came up to, Mat would look for approximately 5 seconds and then would say "I want to see something else"

We eventually made it upstairs to the KidZone playspace

She was much more engaged here

The Hippo exhibit. Turns out that Hippos can neither swim nor float, they simply bounce on the bottom of the lake or river, giving the illusion of swimming or dancing.

I can't remember why she was so happy here. Just genuinely excited to be at the aquarium I guess.

Potty Training

Well we've wrapped up our intensive potty training. Mat still has an accident now and then, usually during dinner when she's too distracted to remember to ask to go in time.

Her control is getting stronger every day. She even kept her swim diaper dry during swimming on Friday. Se was in the process of jumping in the pool over and over again when she told me she had to go. In spite of the drastic temperature change between the pool and locker room, she managed to "save her pee" for the potty.

In regards to swimming, it went really well. Matilda was very clingy to me but was eager to participate. Afterward we ate snack at LOVE park and read books at Barnes and Noble. We finished up our adventure with lunch at Cosi. It was a good day.

This week we have music, art, The Wizard of Oz at the Kimmel Center, playgroup, and swimming. In spite of the dreary weather forecast, it should be a good week.

BunnyLand

4/6/2012

Today we drove down to Media, PA to Linvilla Orchards to check out their annual BunnyLand. It was great. First we went on a hayride out into the woods to meet, and take pictures with, the Easter Bunny. Then we came back and saw all the different farm animals: chickens, cow, pig, goats, emu (yes, an emu), donkies, and more chickens. As we were feeding the goat Matilda said. I'm hungry too, let's eat. And so we ate.



I packed a lunch for us and we ate it in the back of their hatch-back Lexus. It's actually a really nice place to sit. I've also used this space as a changing table many times. It's exactly waist-level. Matilda told me that she had to pee, after peeing just a little in her pants, and peed on her travel potty. Before, it used to just be a few drops of pee, like when we would travel, but now it's A LOT of pee. I'm honestly so proud of her.

Sleeping tiger, hidden dragon

After lunch we walked back up to the train ride and rode on it. It was $3 for an 5 minute ride. It was actually pretty fun. I probably would have taken her on it again but it was already 2pm by this point and I could tell that she was really tired. Then we went over and played on the playground. On our way out, Mat decided that she wanted to get her face painted, even though I tried to pawn it off on tomorrow. Her choice: a tiger. Then we headed home. She ate about 1/2 a couplet of mixed vegetables, passed it up to me, and immediately fell asleep.

It was a great day and I'm excited for her to be able to go back tomorrow with her family. They'll have a lot of fun.

Confidence

4/6/2012

Well today was the 4th day of potty training and I'm already feeling pretty confident. We started on Tuesday. It was just Mat and I in the house all daythat day so we were able to intensively focus on the potty without distractions... Other than Max that is. He wasn't sure what to do with us being home all day.

 Thankfully she's fully aware of the sensation associated with the need to poop so we haven't had any poop accidents. I'm hoping the progress continues through the weekend as her grandparents are visiting and she has a pretty busy schedule. Tomorrow she's going back to bunnyland (see next post). Today she even woke up from nap with a dry diaper. I put a diaper on her when she sleeps with the understanding that "she can't tell me that she needs to go when she is sleeping" and there doesn't seem to be any confusion. Even today, when we were in line to go see the Easter Bunny, she was wearing a diaper, but she didn't pee in it. She said she had to go at lunch and then went in her travel potty that I had sitting in the back of the car. She's definitely not too scared to pee in new places, which is a nice hurdle that we don't have to deal with.


I think we've added nearly 30 stickers to this chart in the past 4 days. Once it fills up and potty usage becomes more routine, I have a grid chart that has a spot for different times of the day that she'll need to use the potty.



One of the items in her prize box is playdough. She's been alternating between all the different items. Today she got a Grover sticker book. Yesterday it was playdough, a stamp, and a balloon.

Potty Training and Tomatoes

Well we started potty training today. That being said, we pretty much stayed inside all day. In order to occupy some time, we planted tomato seeds. This is something Mat and I had talked about doing. It'll be a good week or two before we even see a plant sprout up from the dirt, but Matilda is already prepared to wait a VERY LONG TIME before eating tomatoes from these plants.

For the record, there are 10 of them. We're going to give some to friends once they've grown big enough.

New York, New York

We spent April 1st and 2nd in Manhattans upper East and West side. I say both because we spent an even amount of time in both neighborhoods. Mat's friends Henry and Lucy live on the East side but our hotel, the off Broadway, On the Avenue was at 77th and Broadway on the West side. I didn't mind the commute between the two. The weather both days was cooperative for the most part. The 2 mile walk took about 50 minutes. According to my fitbit, I've walked nearly 100 miles in the past 30 days. That's insane!

Ok, enough about me. Let's be real here, you're probably only reading this to see adorable pictures of Matilda. I get that.

This is the first thing we stumbled upon Sunday morning. I think Mat was more excited about this than the Dinosar fossils that we had planned to visit.

One of the playground structures

The platforms on these playgrounds were artificial wood. Matilda wasn't sure how to grip her fingers onto them.

You cant see it here, but the museum was VERY busy. I didn't even want to take Matilda out of her stroller in fear that she would get trampled.

From the American Museum of Natural History, we headed over to the Children's Museum of Manhattan. Still nothing in comparison to the Please Touch Museum, but Matilda enjoyed it.

Mat was able to flush this giant potty:)

This exhibit was all about the nervous system of the brain. To come out of it, you got to slide down the boy's tongue.

We found Dora!

...and Diego!

This museum used sand instead of water in their sensory exhibit. I like this idea.

Then we headed over to meet up with Henry after nap!

He showed Matilda around the park

Lastly, on Monday we headed back over to the Upper East side to hang out with Henry and his nanny. He and Mat spent a solid half hour playing in the sand.

J and B's conference ended earlier than expected so they were able to spend some quality time with Matilda before we all headed to dinner at B's favorite Organic, Vegan restaurant.

Matilda ordered a side of Tomatoes after she tried to eat all of the tomatoes from her Momma's raw lasagna.