Halloween and Toilet Treating - guess which one is scarier!

I can't believe it is actually November already!  Where on earth is the time going?  Kids are back in school and things are going well for all 3 of them.  I can not believe my little Zoe is in Kindergarden now.  She LOVES it.  She is so happy to go to school each morning, I have to admit though I really miss my sweet little Zoe during the day and Leah really misses her!  She has ajusted to the full school days very well and she loves her teachers.  I am relieved that she is so happy to be at school.  Mika is doing great in Grade 3.  She is one of the best readers in her class and loves to help out around the classroom whenever she gets a chance.  She also checks in on Zoe regularly and keeps a close eye on her at school.  It makes me feel good knowing that their classrooms are right across the hall from one another!  Avri is in Grade 6 and she is having a great year!  She is in a new program called cyber school where they work on line from home 2 days a week.  Sometimes she gets together and works with a friend here or at their house.  She is loving it and she has really come out of her shell alot.  We are amazed at home much she is learning in the program. She has also joined the volleyball team at school and she loves it.

All three girls are back to dance and that is going well.  They had a competition in Kamloops in September and both Avri and Mika placed 1st in all 4 of their dances and won the aggregate for their categories!!  They are now in the next level and have done one competition in Victoria in that level.  Both did great and Avri also won the aggregate for that competition too.  Zoe is still in primary but she is also doing great!!  They have several competitions coming up and are practicing a minimum of 3 days a week.  We have come to really love Highland dance as a family.  I love watching the girls dance.

Avri had her adenoids out a few weeks ago.  It was a scary procedure for both of us.  Josh and I have been blessed so far to never have one of our children need a surgery, so this was a first for me.  I was pretty nervous for Avri and she was pretty nervous too.  It did not help that poor Avri was also fighting a cold that she came down with 2 or 3 days earlier.  She did great during the surgery, I was so proud of her.  They let me go into the recovery room when she was coming out of the anesthetic.  When I walked into recovery and saw her laying there with a little blood stain beside her mouth and sort of laboured breathing with her nose all stuffed up I felt so sad and helpless.  I knew she was still a little out of it, and feeling great and she was very restless.  I stood there holding her little hand and had a few tears.  When she looked over she said "it's ok mom, I'm ok."  What a sweetheart.  Then she said can you text dad and tell him I am ok?  She was very concerned about how worried we were.  Once she go tthe ok to leave recovery we headed back to her room where we had to wait about 2 hours before they would release her.  When we got back she had a couple of popsicles and they we put on the movie ELF to watch.  I climbed into the bad with her and next thing I knew the nurse the was waking me up to say we could go home!! OOPS!  Her recovery after that went fine :)  Now the poor kid is getting her braces on in 2 weeks!

This is Avri right before the surgery.

This is us on our way into the OR 

This is her in recovery - still a tad groggy!

So a few weeks ago I decided that it was time to toilet train Leah.  Fourth time around for me and was totally not excited at all.  But I figured, I have successfully done this 3 times, how hard can it be right?  Surely I know exactly what I am doing and with a little bribery, alot of praise and some patience I can pull this off in a few days......... ya well it's been 5 weeks now and Leah has taught me a big fat lesson in patience and another one in stubbornness.  The one on stubbornness is for both of us.  She is determined not to poop on the toilet - in fact she is pretty much determined not to poop at all now and has the ability to hold it for days on end if she so chooses.  I have cleaned more poop out of underwear in the past month then any human being should ever have to.  I have begged, and pleaded and bribed and you name it I have tried it.  NOPE she will not.  I have spent so many hours sitting ont he bathroom floor with her on the toilet, me reading, singing, entertaining and trying hopelessly to get her to go.


Something I have come to know with toilet training, especially this time around is that you simply can not make them go.  You can try all sorts of tricks and rewards and whatever other things you think might work but if they don't want to, forget it.  SHe did go once - just once on the toilet after I told her that her dad would take her swimming (her absolute favorite thing in the world to do) if she pooped on the toilet and it worked, she did it.  Just like that, climbed on said she had to go went.  I warned Josh that he may be spending alot of time at the pool in the next month but we have had no success.  She has the pee thing down, she can stay dry for the whole day, but as for the poop we have gotten no where.  I haven't given up yet, I wish I started when she was a litle younger and a little less opinionated.  I am praying she will toilet trained by the time she turns 3 in January but at this rate.....I am not too hopeful!  I will however keep you posted.  In fact I actually considered starting a blog that was strictly on the public washrooms in the city of maple ridge.  Since moving here 8 1/2 years ago I am pretty sure that I have been to almost every single public washroom there is.  I am not kidding.  I have 4 girls all of whom I have toilet trained while living in maple ridge.  I thought it would be fun to rate them on cleanliness, accesability, how nice the hand soap is, whether they use paper towel or blow dryers - you get the picture.  Sadly I don't really have the time to do it, but I am sure I could keep you quite entertained.

Anyway onto happier things.  We are less than two months away from my favorite time of year - Christmas.  I love it.  The shopping, the music, the baking, the decorating all of it!  We took down our halloween stuff and have moved on to christmas.  I don't have any pictures of the halloween costumes downloaded yet - I will try and get a few on her.  The girls all looked very cute in their costumes.  It was quite a fun night!