The Devil Lives in Our Toilet

I'm convinced that the Devil lives in our toilet. Every time I try and get Amanda to use it she is temporarily posessed and likes to roll around on the pee covered floor as if she is an artistically frustrated break dancer. I've never had so much pee in our house. We don't even have a dog! I often think about the experiment that our biology 11 students do and try and grow different bacteria from samples around the school.

A few months ago Amanda was really interested in the potty and wanted to sit on it and even was able to pee. The problem we're having now is that we try and get her on the potty before she uses her "pull-ups" (which are incidentally more expensive than gold and must be traded on the commodity market). She always says that her diaper is OK even though they are often pee soaked. We will put her on the potty after she fills her diaper and she pees again.

Yesterday I had the bright idea of just putting her in underwear. I explained to her that she needed to tell me if she wanted to pee so we could go and use the potty. So now we have pee on our kitchen floor, pee in her booster seat, pee on our bathroom floor, pee in her hamper, pee on the dining room carpet, and pee all over my hands and clothes. She doesn't even find it uncomfortable or even concerend that I run around like a crazy person when she starts to do it.

Safe to say. Today is a laundry day.

Playground Fun (Part 1 of 1,312,452)

Today we spent about an hour at a local playground. I can't believe that I would reach a point in my life where I would be rating the level of quality of a particular kiddie park. This one would rate about a 6/10 for size, 7/10 for level of fun, and 8/10 for parent seating. I'm not sure if Amanda really cares about my scientific analysis of kiddie parks but we're having fun testing my theories.

She's really into ladders even though she still gives me a mild heart attack when she climbs. I'm always trying to play the "tough guy Dad" and try to look like I trust my super baby's abilities. Like I'm trying to say... " hey soccer Moms! Check out my genetically superior 2 year old climber!". Yes, it's pretty much me, Amanda, other kids, and soccer Moms at the playgrounds during the week. It's time to get more Dads out there!

Until our next adventure ...

Summer with Dad!

Being a teacher gives me the chance to hang out more with Amanda. We're able to go on bike rides, go to splash parks (which is her current favourite activity), go to the aquarium, and just generally goof off.

The only downside of being off this summer is that I've been professor of potty training. It seems like a constant daily hourly battle.

More "Adventures of Dad & Amanda" to come soon!

Rocky Point Fun

We met up with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Mike, and Auntie Cristina at Rocky Point on Saturday for a picnic dinner. Rocky Point has finished their new spray park, and it was a big hit! Amanda had a great time. The weather was perfect - not too hot, but warm enough that she didn't get cold in the freezing water. I anticipate we'll be spending quite a bit of time at this park over the next few summers!

I just love the expressions on her face in these photos...and her skin is turning a beautiful caramel colour. She's just like her Dad - it doesn't matter how much SPF 50 we put on her, she still gets darker every time she goes out.

After the spray park, we had a great dinner (thanks Mom!). Amanda ate 3 huge pieces of watermelon, and would have eaten more if we hadn't cut her off in fear of the diaper deluge that would await us today.

In other news, we are finally tacking potty training a bit more diligently. Amanda is in pull-ups and seems to be doing pretty well. We're thinking that we will use the pull-ups only for a few days, then move straight into underwear and see how that goes. She's definitely ready (in fact, she was probably ready a couple of months ago) but we're not sure if we are!!!

Circles

What a great Canada Day weekend! On Saturday we headed out to Langley for the Canada Day event out there. Amanda had a fabulous time, despite the somewhat overwhelming heat. We watched some shows, played on the big red frog, and ate way too much junk food (Amanda especially liked her first ice cream sandwich, although most of it ended up dripping down her arms). Afterwards, Mandy fell asleep almost instantly in the car, and we took a quick detour to my friend Cynthia's place to see her beautiful new baby girl, Kimberly.

Sunday we had a very lazy day, complete with a long family nap in the afternoon. Ah, the beauty of long weekends - you can spend a whole day relaxing and not have to feel guilty about it! It was way too hot to do much of anything else, anyway. In the late afternoon, once the weather had cooled off a bit, we pulled out Amanda's inflatable pool, which turned out to be more work than we expected...there were a few small holes that had mysteriously developed since last year. We managed to patch them together enough for the pool to last through a good hour or so of splashing. Our little fishie loves the water these days.

Monday we managed to get organized enough to head out to the Vancouver Aquarium for a few hours. Amanda loves the aquarium, especially the "Baby Buggas". As soon as we told her where we were going, she would shout "Baby Buggas!!" excitedly every time we stopped the car. We actually watched the beluga show from the downstairs viewing area, which I'd never done before... a different way to see it, plus the air conditioning was very nice!

Now we're on "summer schedule"...Jeff is home with Amanda every day, although she'll continue to go to daycare once a week or so to give Jeff a break and Amanda a chance to catch up with her friends! Although the weather cooled off quite a bit today, the two of them had a great time wandering around and Amanda was exhausted by the end of the day, so much so that she almost fell asleep in her dinner. At least it's a bit cooler, so she's having an easier time sleeping these days.

A few more pictures have been posted, including some from Canada Day and the aquarium. Enjoy!