Spiderman heart cookies for Valentines

When you have kids, Valentines feels a little like Christmas. Or is it just me?

This year Tristan is in the bigger kid room at daycare and there are twice as many kids in there compared to the toddler room last year. There are also more staff members. Just like last year, I decided to bake sugar cookies again. Who doesn't like a sugar cookie, right?

I had a few fun heart designs sketched out but when I went to fill out the names on the Valentines cards, I had a great idea! Tristan is into Spiderman these days so everyone in his class will be getting Spiderman Valentine cards. I kept looking at Spiderman on the cards thinking how he was so red and that he could very well be on a cookie for Valentines. I remembered coming across a strawberry design which used heart cookie cutters on Pinterest and thought it was a cool idea. I could do the same thing with Spiderman! And wouldn't it be totally cool to match the Valentine cookie with the Valentine card?? Oh yeah :) Then I googled and found out that everyone has already done it. Duh.

Ingredient list was included in each of the cookies

I'm happy with the results, even though it took me awhile to get at it. I ran into problems when I ran out of ingredients and I didn't have enough icing. I cheated by diluting the icing and flooding my cookies only to get really bad grainy results when it dried. Don't even think about diluting your icing man!!! It was disastrous and it turned pink instead of red. Then I bought more ingredients and made more icing and mixed more red and finally got it right. I had to mix red three times so all the cookies actually have three different shades of red. Oh well. If you look close, there are imperfections everywhere! I don't think the 3-5 year olds at daycare will judge me too much though, right? Lesson learned.

 

The kids are all getting the chocolate sugar cookies with the Spiderman heart design but the staff will each get a red velvet cupcake. I had to do a batch for Jean-Louis to take to work tomorrow for his potluck anyway so it worked out well. This is the second time I have made these cupcakes. I added more cocoa to them this time and got a deeper red as a result as well. I love cocoa! I substituted about half of the white sugar for yellow cane sugar. I also used my favorite whipped cream cheese frosting instead of the one in the recipe and it worked much better for piping since it uses granulated sugar instead of icing sugar. Icing sugar tends to turn liquid when in contact with cream cheese and a runny icing isn't very pretty. By the way, if anyone is wondering, cupcakes are so much easier to make than sugar cookies! Decorating cookies is what kills you, especially if you run into problems.

Happy Valentines Day!

See those sprinkles? Homemade using dried up royal icing:)

Grateful for Jean-Louis and daycare

Tonight I read an article featured on CNN on Why we get mad at our husbands. It starts off as though it was me writing the article. Jean-Louis and I just celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this past August too! Then I read on and in between the laughter here and there, I came to realize how Jean-Louis could be viewed as a super-dad to the average person. To me, he is just a good dad. We have always shared chores and responsibilities so I did not expect anything less when we had a child. After reading the article I feel even luckier to have him.

There was a followup article titled Mad At Dad Part Two: How to Get Past the Anger and it mentioned that "there is a message that fathers who pitch in are somehow special." The article talks about how to get fathers to pitch in more at home and encourages a fifty-fifty partnership. At home, I do more but Jean-Louis does way more on the day-job front. It all sort of balances out. We are happy about how things are working out. We both work, contribute to chores, and we both get to spend a lot of time with Tristan too. When we can, we both try to pick Tristan up from daycare together. I know it doesn't take both of us to go but we want to. He is only going to be this young once. Jean-Louis and I pretty much do everything together. It has always been like that.

I don't get angry much thanks to Jean-Louis and daycare. I am extremely grateful for these resources. I have a lot of me time and it's great. Many of the women out there who are angry have too much on their plate and they don't have the resources to help them. It's understandable. I would probably be on anxiety pills if I were them. I have Jean-Louis who pitches in at home a lot. Jean-Louis cleans the bathrooms, vacuums, plays with Tristan a lot, gives Tristan a bath five times a week, does the dishes every night, puts Tristan to sleep every night, and let's me sleep in on the weekends. We all go to the mall together to grocery shop and he usually watches Tristan in the store while I walk around and shop. When it's a party day, I do all the cooking but Jean-Louis will tiny up the living room and sweep the floors without being asked. Honestly, I think this is all normal and every husband and father should be contributing where they can. All the fathers I know are hands-on, maybe not as hands-on as Jean-Louis but they do a lot too. The fact that society views this as "special" is sort of sad.

I also have a great daycare nearby. It allows me plenty of time to get work done, run chores and do whatever I want for me time. If anything, I feel like I need to do more. I'm working more these days so that feels great. When Tristan was in daycare and I wasn't working much, I felt a lot of guilt since we were "losing" income and I was available to take care of him. Thank goodness we're no longer in that situation. I love this flexible schedule! I know one day I will return to working full time so right now I'm enjoying being a part time stay-at-home mom and part time work-at-home mom. Yes, I still get angry from time to time but nothing like the examples in those articles above that I read. Reading something like that really makes you appreciate what you have. Thanks to Jean-Louis and daycare, I feel pretty lucky! :)

Tristan's drawing capability

Tristan is no artist. Yet :)

A couple of years ago, I was over at a friend's house around Thanksgiving and she showed me a picture of a stick man that was drawn by her then 3 year old son. It had a face on it and a stick body but the neck was disconnected from the head. She beamed with pride while holding it up for me to see. When I just smiled, she explained that he was only 3 and that a lot of kids can't draw that yet. Oh.

Now that Tristan is almost 3, I can't help but think back to that incident and laugh. I was clueless in what a 3 year old was capable of and I obviously wasn't impressed by the funny looking stick figure that was drawn. Now that I have Tristan to compare with, I am totally impressed! Tristan can draw a circle and something in it. Maybe a nose or one eye or two crooked eyes but that's about it. He can almost draw a face. ALMOST! I got him to try a few times and he came fairly close one time. It looked more like a panda head than a human head though :) Are you more impressed? The problem is I didn't ask for a panda head. I'm not even sure he knows what a panda is. Sigh. Either my friend's boy was artistically gifted beyond his years or Tristan sucks at drawing. Or maybe both.

Besides coming close to being able to draw a face, Tristan can also write the letter T very well. He recognizes it as the first letter of his name. He actually sees the initial as his name. Whenever he sees the first letter T in any word, he points and says it's his name. Then we say "oh yeah, that word starts with a T just like your name!" I'm trying to show him that there are more letters to "Tristan" than just the "T" but he's not quite ready for it. The only other letter he can copy in his name is the "i." No rush. We'll try again when he is interested.

Tristan's accidental ladybug

Tristan accidentally drew a ladybug one time. I think he was randomly drawing and then when it started to look like something he recognized, he pointed at it and said "look, ladybug!" We were quite impressed, even though we knew it was a complete accident :) So yeah. Tristan can draw circles, short lines, dots, and sometimes he can connect these things together. All the pieces are there really. It's just a matter of time before he draws a simple stick man :)

Tristan is getting better at coloring too. He understands that he should color and stay inside a defined area. He doesn't have the coordination or patience to do it yet but he gets the idea. He used to color in scribbles over a drawing. He is much better at identifying colors now too. I know I'm his mom and I'm biased but overall I do feel like he has potential. Remember the nice canvas art he did for me for Mother's Day? It was nice, no? :) Also, I remembered a daycare staff lady describing how Tristan was working to put together an art piece. There were all these pieces of tin and sparkles on the table and the kids were assembling them on sticky paper. Apparently, Tristan took his time and carefully placed each little piece of tin onto the paper. He didn't miss any. Hearing that made me proud :)

Spider? Fly? Suppose to be something.

I know Tristan is still young but a part of me really wants him to be artistic. I would love to do things like draw, paint, carve pumpkins, and a whole lot of other crafts with him. I'm dreaming of the day he will be able to help me decorate sugar cookies :) Ha. Too much to ask for? I probably have high hopes and expectations but if he is anything like me, he probably will enjoy some of that stuff. It would be so cool to sit by a lake together and paint a canvas or something. Jean-Louis can tweet and take pictures while we do this :) Lol. Jean-Louis isn't into creating art or crafts. If you were to ask him, he would just tell you that he sucks at it. We both tried to draw portraits and carve pumpkins together in the past but he would just get discouraged and quit. That's totally fine. When I carve pumpkins now, he just helps by scooping out the seeds and flesh for me :) I hope Tristan is artistic but if it turns out that he is not, we'll know which side he took his genes from. No offense Jean-Louis :)

First day in the 3-5 room

While many parents are excited and stressed about the first day of school today, I was excited about Tristan's first day in a new room at his daycare. He has graduated from the Toddler room and is now in the 3-5 room. It's the big boy room! Kids ages 3 to 5 attend this room. Apparently, some of the kids in the room even attend kindergarten as well. Maybe this has changed now that kindergarten is a full day.

Tristan will be 3 years old in less than 3 months. Because he is ready now and there are spots available in the 3-5 room, he is starting this program this month. September is a big transition month for daycare because many of the kids in the 3-5 room are starting Kindergarten or Grade 1 and will leave the daycare. That allows all the rooms to shift upwards and free up space for new kids to join the daycare. Tristan and another little girl from his toddler room moved into the 3-5 room today.

When I dropped Tristan off this morning, he was excited. He gave his lunchbox to one of the staff members, grabbed a book and sat on the couch by himself looking at it. He just made himself at home. Just like that :) I noticed the other little girl from his toddler room was not coping so well. I am not sure she was quite ready to come into this room but if she didn't now, there may not be space for her for months. I think she has only begun potty training and typically, you need to be fully potty trained to come into the 3-5 room. She looks much smaller than Tristan. When her dad dropped her off and left, she cried. She has been to the daycare for a long time too but the new room was overwhelming to her I guess. Poor girl:(

One of Tristan's best friends is in the 3-5 room. We have talked about the 3-5 room change for a long time now and he loves that "he is a big boy now!" In this room, Tristan will learn more independence. There are no more individual daily report sheets. He may not be reminded to drink water and will have to learn to ask for water more when he is thirsty. In fact, when I picked him up today, the second thing he said to me was "can I have some water please?" It makes me wonder how long he has been thirsty for. It was so hot today too.

In the toddler room, there was one staff member for every 4 children. Here in the 3-5 room, there is one staff member for every 8 children. In kindergarten, there may be one teacher for every 22 children. The program in the 3-5 room will prepare Tristan for kindergarten and I am thankful for that. It's a huge transition, especially if a child has not been to daycare before. Tristan is doing great so far and I'm not worried about him at all. They say that some kids have a hard time transitioning from being one of the biggest kids in their room to being one of the smallest kids in the new room. A lot of Tristan's friends are already in the 3-5 room and he also knows the staff there. Even if he hasn't been in that room a lot, he is familiar with the people and has been in that same building since he was 13 months old. This gives him a huge advantage in adjusting to the new room. It's so hard to leave your child at daycare for the first time. Some of the parents are going through that right now in the 3-5 room. I feel for them and thank goodness we won't have to go through that pain again.

We tried holding toddler hostage in his highchair

Almost 10 years ago, we invited Jean-Louis' cousin, her husband, and their toddler over for lunch. We were living in Paris at the time and they were in Vernon in Normandy. Before they came down, I had asked his cousin if her toddler would eat salad rolls. Everyone I know likes salad rolls and it was one of Jean-Louis' favorite. It has shrimp, pork, mint, lettuce, bean sprouts and vermicelli all wrapped inside rice paper. You eat them by dipping them in a chee hou type sauce. It was summer, it was healthy and I thought it would be the perfect thing to make. I asked if our toddler guest would eat this. His cousin said maybe and told me what to leave out so I made a couple of separate ones just for him. When it came time to eating, everyone ate and loved the Vietnamese salad rolls, except the toddler. Now, I haven't been exposed to many toddlers back then. I was still in my 20s after all. Her toddler didn't even try it. He looked at it and said no. His parents tried to convince him to try it and did everything they could to have him eat some. I remember thinking, oh my god. What a picky little eater! Since the meal didn't work for him, we offered to open some crackers if he wanted some. He said yes so Jean-Louis opened a new pack of crackers. Right after it was opened, the toddler said he didn't want any anymore. Goodness! Then came more lecturing from his parents. He basically didn't eat anything at all and I can't remember if he drank anything either. It wasn't until the end of the day closer to dinner time did he feel hungry and wanted to eat something. I was told to make plain pasta and serve it with a bit of olive oil and salt. He ate it all!

Now that I have a toddler of my own, I understand what went on back then. Although, Tristan has never been that picky, he can be picky and when he does, we want to pull out our hair! I mean he ate salad rolls for the first time and liked it. Of course, eating outside of the home may be more challenging. First of all, we're very strict with him about what and how much he eats. If he doesn't eat a balanced meal, it kind of makes us mad. I always try to include foods from every food group when I cook and he has to eat his main meal before anything else. We have very high expectations from him but we always had and he knows it. For the most part, he has benefited well from it and eats all kinds of foods. When I say that Tristan is picky, I mean that he doesn't want to eat what we want him to eat or says no to something we offer him.

Last night, we tried something new. We held him hostage for the first time in his highchair. It lasted around 2 hours. I didn't want to do this so Jean-Louis was put in charge to watch him since it was his idea. How did this come about? I made easy food last night. I made ham and cheese sliders and served it with corn and pepper bake. We presented both of them to Tristan at the same time. After he ate the slider, he picked at his corn. There were yogurt, cheese, and fruit as usual for afterwards but he had to finish his main meal first. It didn't happen. This is maybe the third day in a row he has been picky like this. The same day, he came home from daycare with most of his hummus, half of his pita, and he had only taken a few bites from his corn on a cob. Earlier in the week, he chose to eat only the noodle and fish parts of his stir fry and didn't eat much of the bok choy or mushroom. We know he can eat way better than that so we got mad. He normally loves mushrooms and eats bok choy fine. We tried threatening him with removing his toys and told him we wouldn't read to him at night but he didn't care. He was even helping Jean-Louis remove his toys in the evening!

Every time this happens, I know Jean-Louis likes to blame daycare because they give him snacks and that spoils his appetite for his main meals. It's not really fair to blame them since what happens at daycare is nothing new. Of course, it doesn't help us either :(

We tried holding him hostage but after the trial last night, we're done with it. After tweeting about it, I started to receive many replies from people basically telling me "that's bad" and "don't do it." You know it's a hot topic when everyone on Twitter has something to say about it! It's great though because it probably saved us a few days of stress. Apparently, some of my followers were held hostage when they were children and they now resent their parents and have food issues. The idea of being held hostage never sat well with me anyway. How long would we be able to keep this up? I wasn't convinced it would work at all and it would just suck too much time. I also didn't want to be the one doing it and I felt sorry for Tristan. Were we punishing him for being a toddler again? Another dumb parenting idea.

What now? We're going to try to stay cool and relax a bit. The stress of feeding is what drives us to crazy ideas like holding a toddler hostage in his high chair :) He is only 2.5 years old. He must be going through a phase so we'll just continue doing what we're doing until the phase passes. There is nothing more we can do for now.

The walk home from daycare

Worrying about childcare in 2 years

Daycare is awesome but it's only available until your child starts elementary school at the age of 5. After that, kindergarten kicks in and it's full time until around 3PM, Monday to Friday. Unfortunately, a work day for most people is 9-5PM. On top of this, there is about one Professional Development Day at school every month for which there is no school for kids. Here is where "out-of-school care" comes to the rescue. This paid service takes care of all this.

The other day, my sister told me to get on the waitlist for out-of-school care. There is a lot of demand for it and it may take a year or so to get in. I haven't even thought of this yet. In fact, I don't even want to worry about this now. I have no full time job to return to and I have no idea what I will be doing in two years when Tristan starts school. We may not even be living in this neighborhood. Which school would we even waitlist for? I suppose it wouldn't hurt to waitlist at a few different places since there is no fee required but having to do so right now sort of makes me mad. It really is a crazy world out there if you need childcare help.

So there's out-of-school care, great. What about summer care? There is no school for the entire July and August and even some parts of June. What do young kids do? Summer camp could be an option but I don't think those would go for that long. I also hear they are super expensive. We of course could go on vacation in the summer but France is super hot in the summer and I told Jean-Louis I would never go back there during the summer again. Also, if I were to start a new job, I would only be entitled to two weeks vacation a year. This could be a big problem for us. How do other families do it? We have no family or friends here to help us and there doesn't seem to be a lot of options there for us that won't cost us an arm and a leg. We may have to hire a nanny for the summers. Ugh. A friend of mine suggested babysitting from nearby friends. Unfortunately, I don't have those kinds of friends I can make deals with:(

Since I'm thinking about it now, I did a quick search and came across this article talking about summer care: Cost-Effective Summer Childcare Options. There's definitely lots to think about. When looking for a link for more information on after-school care, I read that "Most offer a full-day summer program." That might be a good option for us too! I can't believe I'm worrying about it now and it's still two years away. It's a crazy world, I tell you!

Tristan's ready for underwear!

No, he's not fully potty trained yet but I would say he is 75% there. The past few days he has been making remarkable progress. We tried underwear on him a few weeks ago but he was wetting his pants several times a day. Now, he maybe wets it once. We use diapers when we are out or when he naps and he still stays dry. He'll still be wearing diapers when he sleeps at night for some time but I can see us giving up the daytime diaper pretty soon.

We're obviously really excited! He is not only staying dry most of the day and peeing in the potty 5-6 times a day, he is now also starting to tell us when he has to go. He poos in the potty too but he has been doing that for at least 6 months already. I guess that was also another reason why we didn't push the potty training so hard since he was already pooing in the potty and changing pee diapers weren't so bad.

When we started Tristan on underwear and he was peeing through his pants, Jean-Louis would get really mad. I was less mad because I knew he had to pee and get soaking wet a few times before he would learn. The good thing is that he really hates it when he is soaking wet. Jean-Louis kept telling me he wasn't ready but after a couple weeks of soaking pants, we are finally seeing progress. When I say a couple of weeks, I really mean a couple of days for over a couple of weeks since he only wears underwear at home with me Thursday, Friday, and a few times on the weekend.

I use stickers to reward Tristan on every successful pee. Jean-Louis didn't like that idea initially but I kept telling him that it's okay and it works. Now not only is he sold on the idea of giving stickers to Tristan but he is giving Tristan more than what he deserves, at least more than what I would give him. For instance, Tristan only gets one sticker for a pee. When Tristan came home with a dry diaper after a trip outside and then peed in the potty, Jean-Louis was so impressed that he gave Tristan two stickers! To think he was against the whole idea of potty rewards in the first place! :)

Tristan only wears underwear at home starting Thursday. On Monday, he goes back to daycare and is in his diaper. We can put up with pee on the carpet here but we can't assume daycare can. Today, when I dropped Tristan off at daycare, I spoke to one of the staff members about his potty progress. They told me that they can try underwear on him at daycare too if I wanted to. Yes, please! If we can transition him into underwear during his daycare days too, he will make even more progress. Being in underwear there will also force the staff to be more attentive to his potty needs. Right now, their focus is still on the older kids who are closer to turning 3 years. In just over a month, Tristan will be 2 1/2 (30 months). It's funny to think we have been putting him on the potty on and off since he was around 15 months old. I should have thought of using underwear sooner:( Although, underwear for very small bums are hard to find.

How a cookie reward turned into a tantrum

Yup, it was one of those days! Tristan was simply not happy around us today. Little things would trigger tantrums and they were being set off every so many minutes. It was utterly the pits! Ironically, he went to daycare during the day too. He woke up before 6AM and gave me a hard time all morning before we got to daycare :( He threw one of his longest tantrums ever. I think it lasted something like 20 minutes. When we picked him up from daycare he was the usual him. We didn't hear anything out of the ordinary that happened at daycare. He was difficult here and there throughout the evening and now, he is tantruming his way to sleep. Yes, go to sleep because I want a do-over tomorrow!

He was sick last week and is pretty much recovered so it's not sickness. He actually had a great appetite today as well. In fact, he ate pretty much everything we fed him during dinner. There was brown rice, egg, mushroom, salmon, duck, bell pepper, and green edamame soy beans. He ate well during the whole day too so it wasn't like he was starving either. It has been awhile since he has eaten this much. Afterwards, he finished his yogurt, papaya and orange. I told him I was happy that he ate well and that he deserved a treat. Jean-Louis and I negotiated and agreed to give him one elephant sugar cookie. Dinner was more or less going well so what could possibly go wrong, right?

It was an elephant sugar cookie. He played with it and then the trunk fell off! When he tried to piece it back together, more of the cookie broke off. It was like a puzzle he wanted to glue back together but he couldn't and he was super frustrated. While this little horror scene was unfolding, I tried to calmly explain to him that it's okay, you can still eat the cookie and it will still taste the same. I told him that when he puts it in his mouth it will break and crush to pieces anyway. No, he didn't go for that. He was mad about the broken cookie so he demanded another one. Yeah, right! So the tantrum begins. Jean-Louis and I looked at each other and I told him "boy, I sure did not see that one coming." Not even a treat could cheer this little guy up today.

Toddler underwear! Nah, he's not ready.

That's right. We bought Tristan his first underwear. Actually, we bought him like ten underwear. It's all very exciting even though Tristan is not ready for them yet :) That's okay because he will be soon!

Tristan is actually doing quite well. He's trained for #2 (a.k.a poo), if you don't count the unusual accident he had a few days ago. His diaper stays dry more and more each week. He pees in the morning many times when we put him on the potty and some times after he wakes up from his nap. He some times tells us he has to pee and when we put him on the potty, he does pee. However, he still pees a lot in his diaper.

Last week when Tristan was home with me, I let him wear underwear. I knew he would pee in them so I put on tight pajama pants on him. This way when he did get wet, it would mostly be contained, even if I had to change everything from the waist down. Not even 20 minutes into the underwear test, he peed his pants. Yup! The second underwear test that day stayed dry for almost 2 hours.

You may be wondering why bother with underwear since he is clearly not ready yet. The way I see it is that he needs to feel uncomfortable to want to pee in the potty. If he gets soaking wet, he will clearly not ignore it and continue playing. Some pull-ups allow him to feel a bit wet but we found that it hasn't been helping. He would pee and pee into it and then it would leak. Also, the pull-ups just seem like fancy diapers. To us and probably to him too. Underwears are totally different. In other words, Tristan feels like he can still pee in the pull-ups because they can absorb pee like diapers. He is learning now that he cannot pee in underwears at all!

This week I'm doing the same thing. Thursday more or less ended the same way as last week but today went exceptionally well. We only went through one pull-up this morning and he has remained dry since. The trick is to put him on the potty every one to two hours. When we went out, I put a diaper on him. We came home two hours later to a dry diaper. When he had his nap, I changed him out of his underwear and put the same dry diaper on him. He woke up with a dry diaper. As a result of putting him on the toilet every one to two hours, he peed in the toilet four times today and pooped once. I can certainly see how this method can work really well!

Sounds easy, right? Not so much. Even when he didn't want to go potty, we had to insist. To avoid tantrums, we bribed him with a reward sticker if he pees first. We don't have to bribe him all the time but today, we handed out two stickers to him. It's okay, we have a thousand stickers and he will likely be potty trained before we use them all :) We really don't like to bribe but we hate tantrums more. Also, in the past we learned that tantruming over the potty can give pottying a very bad experience for him :(

If we can keep this method up, I think he could be trained fairly quickly. My friend did this exact same thing and her boy was fully trained after two months. Her boy was 25 months old when she trained him. Tristan is now 28 months old. Tristan is far along enough in pottying training that I think he could be trained in less than a month if we could be consistent. Sadly, I can only do this with him a few days a week since daycare has their own pottying routine. Hopefully our method will register with him enough that his diaper will remain dry most of the day at daycare. That would have to mean that he holds his bladder for longer periods at daycare or he speaks up about having to pee.

Valentines is all about eating here

Over the weekend, I baked Valentine cookies for daycare. We received a list of 14 kids, including Tristan, and 5 staff members. I know this list is much larger when the kids go to school so for now I didn't mind personalizing cookies for each child and staff in Tristan's toddler room. The designs and decorating were easy. The hardest part was writing each person's name since my icing was a bit too runny. Instead of fixing the icing, I just wrote as carefully as I could with the runny icing. It turned out alright anyway.

Today is Valentine's day and pajama day at daycare. Everyone in the toddler room were in PJs, including the staff. This is Tristan's first pajama day. I dressed him normally and then changed him into his PJs when we arrived. All the kids were still wearing their shoes though. I was wondering about that. I think they cranked up the heat too because I was sweating bullets when I arrived.


I suggested to Jean-Louis to take the day off work today but it really wasn't a big deal so he decided he would just go to work. He says that "every day is Valentines here." Okay, whatever you say! I don't think we have exchanged any Valentines gifts since we got married. We acknowledge the day with a nice meal and that is about it. We're totally fine about it too :) We've done this many times before, even before Tristan existed.

After a bit of work this morning, I spent a large part of my day cooking. I took a break when Jean-Louis and I walked to daycare to pick up Tristan. We brought his Valentine's bag home and was impressed he also received lots of gifts, on top of the cards. There were candy, pencils, markers, play doh, stickers etc. I can see why kids love Valentines! It might just be the third best holiday after Christmas and Halloween :)

We love lobster! Typically, we have lobster because it's special and usually on special at the stores during Valentines :) I made it Chinese-Hawaiian style with ginger and green onions this time. Here was our Valentines menu and it was delicious :)

Appetizer:

• Cream of broccoli soup (leftovers we had to finish *blush*)

Entree:

• Ginger lobster
• Stir fry shitake mushrooms, zuchinni, and pressed tofu
• Corn
• Served with coconut rice, ginger tea

Dessert:

• Reine de Saba (French chocolate/almond cake)
• Valentine cookies
• Strawberries

After Tristan went to bed, I wrote this blog and then Jean-Louis and I did something we normally don't ever do. He suggested it too so I was shocked. We looked at old photographs of us together. I know! When he suggested it, I told him "that's very feminine of you." It was great but I was also super sleepy.

So there you have it! Our third Valentine's day with Tristan was good. Not just good, it was yummy :) Happy Valentines everyone!

Multicolor daycare filth

Potty training is slow but working

In our household, there isn't much pressure for potty training. We're taking it easy and it's slow but it seems to be progressing. I hear that most babies are potty trained by the time they turn 3 years old. Girls, in general, will be trained earlier since they tend to not like to feel uncomfortable.

We started training Tristan early. We introduced the potty to him when he was 1 year old, maybe even before. We really began to train him after we got back from France when he was 18 months old. He showed signs of readiness early. Before he was even 1 years old, he would point at his diaper when he pooed. Later on, he would sign to us and then when he could speak, he would tell us after he pooed. Then as time went on about the time when he turned two, he would tell us before he had to poo. Then he would tell us before he had to pee. Overall, it was a hit and miss for us. He did it some times but not all the time.

When Tristan turned two, we sort of put more pressure on him to potty but then we noticed it was backfiring so we had to relax. I mean he stopped making progress for awhile and was scared of the potty. I know! Another problem was that daycare was not training him the same way. We find that they are more focused on getting the older kids on the potty since they are the next ones to graduate from the toddler room. The younger kids sit on the potty when it is convenient to do so.

Tristan is now 25 months old. At home, he poos in the potty 85% of the time and pees once or twice a day. During his three days in daycare, he may get lucky and poo in the potty once and he may pee once there as well. One day last week while he was home with me, he pooed in the potty once and peed there three times. I consider that a good potty day :)

He is definitely making progress but he's still far from being potty trained. We were way too optimistic starting out but now we're just going to go with the flow. I think he will be ready when he is ready. Maybe we'll upgrade him to pull-ups or some kind of training pants in a month. I think it would help for him to feel more uncomfortable so that he will tell us more often before a pee occurs. We're not quite prepared to have him go bottomless though because we're fully carpeted here :(

Our potty strategy is pretty simple. We put him on the potty before every diaper change, some times more. We go sit on the potty for a good length of time after meals. While we are on the potty, we read, sing, and talk. If there is a successful pee or poo, we give him a high-five and cheer. Praise is his only reward and some times bragging rights to me or Jean-Louis :) Next, we diaper him. If there was a successful potty, we then let him flush. Then, we have him wash his hands.

Tristan may very well be all trained by now if I were doing things differently. I know of a friend who trained her 27 month old toddler boy in just two months. She placed him on the potty every hour for two months. Wow! That is a lot of commitment. I could do that for awhile but not that long and the daycare routine would just mess it all up. Unfortunately her strategy does not work with our routine :( But honestly, I'm not too sad about it all. Tristan poos in the potty most of the time and diapering seems so easy now compared to when he was on solids and pooing in his diaper 3-4 times a day :)

Daycare gets chocolates & homemade cookies for Christmas

Santa visits daycare

Today, we visited daycare for about an hour to go see Santa. Santa was coming and he had gifts for all the children. Even though we are not big on the whole Santa thing, I wanted Tristan to be a part of this because all the other kids were. I also wanted to bring him there to play a bit. Daycare sure beats the StrongStart at the school.

We arrived a bit late and ended up being the second to last kid to receive a gift from Santa. Oops. He received a Christmas story book. All the kids got some sort of Christmas story book. It was nice. It didn't last long. Each child was called out and came to collect their present from Santa. Then a picture was taken and it was the next child's turn.

I was the only parent at daycare today. I kind of thought I would be. It's bad that I don't carry out a full time job but it's good that I'm able to take part in these things while I am still free from work. I got to observe Tristan play with the other kids at daycare. He didn't really stick by any one kid in particular. There is this really loud boy who tends to bang toys and makes a lot of racket. Tristan followed and copied him every now and then. That's bad but he didn't bang toys. He was just copying what the other boy was saying. I discovered that this other boy is the "5 more minutes" boy. Lately, Tristan has been telling us "5 more minutes" or "2 more minutes" and we would just laugh. Now, I know who he is copying that from!

There are a couple of boys Tristan enjoys playing with. One of them is his best buddy, at least that is what the staff claims. I watched them. They did play together a bit and I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of them. It was so cute! Imagine having a best friend at the age of 2.

While I was observing and watching after Tristan, other kids would approach me and talk to me. I couldn't understand most of them. They sort of talk like Tristan and is only learning how to speak properly. If anyone, only their parents would fully understand them. One little boy got me to put on his shoes. A little girl wouldn't stop talking to me. She was a chatterbox and she got me to watch and hold her Christmas book while she played in the ball room. Sure, why not? Tristan was fine alone so I spent some time talking with one of the staff members. I could see that Tristan was well behaved. When all the other kids were painting the table instead of their snowflake or grabbing the table cloth, Tristan was just looking at them or quietly painting his own snowflake. In fact, he was so tidy, he painted mainly the center of the snowflake and didn't get any paint on the table around him. The staff member I spoke to says that he is so mellow and easy going. He did fight over a toy a couple of times so I had to intervene. Then the staff member said that he is great at sharing toys. She must be referring to most of the time because it's not all the time!

Tristan had fun on our daycare visit. He didn't even know I was there some times. When we left, he didn't get upset either so it was all good. Daycare has been good to him and to us. When we picked him up on Wednesday, we found a nice gift bag for us in his cubby. It was addressed from Tristan to Mom and Dad. There were bakes, jam, bathroom treats, an ornament for the tree, and a card. I had a feeling they were giving us something but I didn't know it was going to be that much! There was also a Christmas card to Tristan from his French teacher. I love sweet surprises :)

Toddler has strep :(

First time for everything, right? I imagine he contracted strep somewhere between Monday and Thursday of last week. Apparently, he got it 1-4 days before his symptoms showed up. He was feeling very tired around 3PM on Friday. We thought it was just the flu. Since we only went to the store for a short trip on Thursday and he stayed home with me the rest of the time, there is a good chance his strep is from being at daycare :(

Yesterday, we went out for a bit but mostly for the drive. Tristan got to nap in the car most of the time. We hadn't been out really for 2 days so I thought the fresh air would be good for him. He was quiet most of the time and didn't have much of an appetite. I also noticed tiny bloody dots under his chin. It was unusual but I figured it was related to his dry skin from the cold weather. This morning it looked worst and he complained that his teeth hurt a bit so as a precaution, Jean-Louis took him into the walk-in-clinic. We almost didn't either because I know the doctors here and unless it is really, REALLY bad, they won't treat it and would just send you home. It's cold season after all and he was acting sick. It turns out, we did the right thing. Jean-Louis arrived 30 minutes after the clinic opened and had to wait 2 hours to see the doctor for 5 minutes. It's the usual story with the walk-in-clinics here but luckily (and unluckily for us), the doctor didn't just tell him to relax and go home. Tristan was diagnosed with strep right away, even without doing a strep test. He had all the symptoms already and the doctors prescribed him antibiotics. His lymph nodes were swollen, he was still feverish, he had a rash on his chin, as well as inside his mouth, on his tongue and throat, and he just wasn't interested in eating or drinking because they hurt him.

On top of strep, his bacterial infection, he may also have a viral infection. He's sick. He vomited three times today and barely ate anything. He hasn't vomited in a long time. The viral infection could be from Jean-Louis since Jean-Louis was sick last week. It could also be from daycare since I noticed one of the staff there was coughing and sneezing. It's funny how we're always trying to figure out how all this happened. It's not like he can avoid home or daycare. Well, sickness is bound to happen sooner or later and it is better now than during Christmas, I suppose.

Poor Tristan. Strep must be very cruel because he has been crying from pain on and off all day and he normally doesn't cry much. It has also been a long time since I blogged about Tristan being sick. Hopefully this winter won't be as bad as last winter. I hear that daycare kids don't get sick as much in their second year. Last year we got the H1N1 and seasonal flu shots. We still got sick a lot. This year we're going to skip the shots.

Daycare pumpkin patch FAIL

When we were on our daycare trip to the Vancouver Aquarium, the staff spoke about going to the pumpkin patch on the next field trip. They said it would be on October 14th and they told me about all the fun details on the trip. The kids were going to take a hayride down the field and come home with a pumpkin and an apple. I was excited because I have never been to a pumpkin patch before. Today, I learned we are not going :( The trip is still on but Tristan and I are not going.

October 14th is on a Thursday and that is not a day Tristan is at daycare. One of the staff there told me that I could ask to go anyway because there could be space on the bus but I am not going to ask. The original plan was to go to the pumpkin patch twice anyway; once with daycare and once with the family. Besides, the Laity pumpkin patch in Maple Ridge looks much more interesting and would probably not be as busy as the one at the Richmond farm (which by the way, has a really annoying flash website!).

Yes, I'm sad about the whole thing but then again, we got to go to the Vancouver Aquarium when the other part-timers at daycare missed out on that trip. Between the Vancouver Aquarium and the pumpkin patch in Richmond, I would totally choose the Aquarium anyway. I mean we will still get to do the pumpkin patch but just not with the kids at daycare. I don't think Tristan will mind very much.

When we were full time in the infant room, there were no perks for the kids. The baby room was the only room that was not included in the field trips. They were also too young for classes such as music or learning French. Now that we're in the toddler room and transitioned into part time, we're missing out on stuff :( Tristan takes part in French classes but misses out on music because he is not there on that day. We miss out on some field trips. I can't really complain though because so far in my opinion, we have been on all the fun field trips. We also get the baking day but miss out on the movie watching day. That's awesome because Tristan is not allowed to watch anything on TV anyway. All in all, the daycare arrangement has been great.

This is the first time that I am bummed he is missing out on a field trip. We'll make it up to him when we go. After thinking about it, we will have so much more fun on our own. We will be able to pick a nice day to go and we will be able to take our time. Daycare will go in the rain or sunshine and will always be back before 1PM in time for the naps. We will hopefully go when it's not too busy so that we can take some cool pictures. It's going to be awesome!

Daycare society barbecue

Our daycare society barbecue was suppose to take place last Friday but they had to reschedule it because of unpredictable weather. It turned out sunny that afternoon. This week, they decided to hold it regardless of the weather. Smart move! September weather is unpredictable in Vancouver. You have summer-like days and fall-like days and it will definitely include rain here and there. Delay barbecues any further and you will definitely be doing it in the rain.

It was overcast today with a few drizzles here and there. Besides this morning's rain, today was a good weather day. 18C is nice for this time of year.

There were hot dogs, various chips, pop, and juice. For activities, there were games and prizes. Most of the games were too advanced for Tristan but he played what he could. He collected two prizes: a bath toy boat and a little stuffed monkey. That's cool. We got home and accidentally found out that the little monkey was magnetic. The cute little monkey is now one super cool monkey! :)

There were a ton of people at the daycare barbecue. The place was packed with kids of all ages. There were pregnant moms, infants, older siblings, dads and at one point it felt a bit like a fair. There was too much stimulation for Tristan I think. This could partly explain why he was a bit rough with the other kids. He almost stepped on a kids hand on the slide, he tried to push away new kids that went on the slide and he closed the window of the play house outside on a girl's hand. It wasn't hard and no one got hurt but the gesture was just mean. One girl that got pushed, went to her mom and told on Tristan. The girl that got her finger crushed at the window cried a bit. What is up with Tristan tonight? The misbehaving and lousy mood did not end there. When it was milk time after his bath, he threw a fit for no reason at all. He wanted to climb in the chair in a particular way and when he couldn't do it himself, he had a fit. This is probably only about the second time he has ever acted like this.

All bad moods aside, we think that Tristan enjoyed being at the daycare barbecue. He enjoyed playing the games and the toys in the new room. I asked Jean-Louis and he thought it was lame but then again, it's him and he likes to give comments like that :) It was too bad we didn't really see any other kids and parents we knew. The society has over 80 kids but not all of them attend socials. Even most of the staff there was unfamiliar. This was definitely not what I had in mind. I actually thought we could talk to some of the parents in Tristan's toddler room. It was our first daycare social so now we will know what to expect for next time!

Daycare field trip to Vancouver Aquarium

This was our first. It was Tristan's first visit to the Vancouver Aquarium and my first trip with daycare. Man, it was a bit stressful for me to get us to daycare by 8:30AM. Tristan woke up at 7:15AM and I was up just before 7AM. Since I was going on the field trip too, I had to leave the stroller at home. He walked with me most of the time and I carried him parts of the way. We got to daycare at 8:20AM - phew!

There were four parent volunteers from our group. Two dads, me, and a grandma. We were responsible for our own child. Makes sense. Tristan sat with me on the bus and I fed him during the trip. Daycare took care of the diaper changes. That was nice. Tristan didn't go nuts on me. He resisted and whined here and there when I moved him from one place to the next but he didn't cause a scene or anything. In fact, I didn't see any kid really misbehave. Success!

I think he enjoyed the aquarium. He enjoyed running around and climbing the rocks to view the fish. I could have sworn there was more to see. I keep thinking I missed an entire area. Aren't there seals, beluga whales, whales or polar bears? I think his favorite were the dolphins when we were outside. That was the only time he signed and asked for "more." He wanted to see more jumping from them. The dolphins were being trained at the time. It's too bad we missed the shows, which were at 1PM and 3PM :(

The field trip was good for me to experience what it was like for Tristan to be at daycare. Well, sort of. I got to see who he played with and what he would do at daycare. I did witness him trying to pretend hit an older girl when the girl yelled at him. He was a feet away and he swung his arm in her direction. That is as violent as I have seen him behave. I snapped at him and then he cried. The episode didn't last long though. Most of the time, he was just running around chasing the other kids or copying what they were doing. He held hands with some of the other kids when they came back from diaper changing. Little kids holding each others hands are so cute. Little hands are a perfect fit :) Another cute thing I observed was when one of Tristan's friends called his name. He is a bit older than Tristan and was able to pronounce "Tristan." Tristan can't even say his own name yet. It was cute to hear his friend calling him :)

Now that the field trip is over, I get to go back to my old schedule :) That is, I get to take my time in the morning and go to daycare. Hooray!