Welcome to my favourite things about this past week.
I have always been a pretty big fan of the festive holiday season that is December, but with my little love at an age where she can understand and get very excited about the whole thing, this year is going to be particularly awesome. This year I put together an advent calendar for us that I’ve dubbed the Advent(ure) Calendar. Rather than toys or treats, each day we’ve been doing something together with some sort of a festive Christmas theme to it. You can check out the post that explains how I whipped up the actual calendar piece in no time with what I had laying around the house (why spend money and time buying new things when you can raid your hoarder stash?), and what kind of activities we’ll be enjoying together this month.
Advent(ure) Calendar Day 1: Make Christmassy playdough together. Z’s trying out the “roll it flat with your chin” method she just made up. Z chose peppermint candy cane instead of Douglas fir Christmas tree. A few drops of peppermint essential oil, some red food coloring, a metric ton of green glitter and away we go. #adventcalendar A photo posted by Hannah Spray (@hanspray) on
Our first activity from the advent(ure) calendar was to make “Christmas Playdough”, so we threw in some things and called it Candy Cane playdough. This has been a hit (as playdough generally is with my monkey), and has kept her busy and happy making cakes and snakes, and smelling our house up like peppermint. Mmm. You can check out how we made it here, complete with the realistic steps that were followed.
This week I was called in to sub for one of the amazing early learning programs I’m on the list for. Usually when this happens, Z goes to hang out with Gramma. However, since she was out of town this time, Ziggity had the chance to spend the morning at a friend’s house instead. This was the first time she had been dropped off by herself for more than a quick bit at anyone else’s home but Gramma’s (except for this very first time, a long time ago), and I was surprised how I felt dropping her off and hoping that she would be alright. Of course she was just fine, and had a blast playing with her buddy without mom’s helicopter-ness following her around the whole time (I’m working on this…). She didn’t even want to snuggle when I came to pick her up. I’m pretty sure these kinds of days are harder on me than they are her.
My little gymnast. #spiderupthewall A photo posted by Hannah Spray (@hanspray) on
Here’s another example of much my little girl is showing how big she’s really becoming. Since Z’s been doing so well with spending her home-time in undies rather than diapers, we let her follow her request to go without a diaper on an outing into town. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about her wetting herself in her car seat or all over the coffee shop we would be browsing pop-up shops in. Our little girl made me very proud, however, and no accidents were had.
I really wish I had been more consistent with allowing her the freedom to show me how in control of herself she really can be, rather than relying on diapers to save from little accidents that could be cleaned up easily enough. She’s been wearing undies at home for so long now, intermittently (check out my no-pressure potty-training method here), and I know if I had just given her more chances all along, we would probably have reached this stage long ago. Oh well. There will always be regrets. At least we’re here now.
I’m cheating and adding a sixth piece today. Who’s going to stop me, though? Muah hahaha.
This week I passed the 1,000 follower milestone on Twitter. Woop woop for reaching goals! If you’re on Twitter but you haven’t clicked the little follow button next to my account, I would love it if you did! Don’t forget to introduce yourself in a tweet or private message so I can make sure to follow you back.