Arabella's World

At night our general routine has been to brush teeth, read books and then put the kids to bed. Since I do it by myself most nights, Arabella has to be preoccupied while I nurse Evan. Before she absolutely refused to stay in her room by herself. She would throw crying fits which pretty much cancelled out my efforts to put Evan to sleep.

These past two weeks, and especially since we started potty training, she has been phenomenal at keeping herself occupied. One of the drawers of her organizer contains a bucket of crayons and coloring books, as well as odds & ends toys.

Tonight after I came out of Evan's room I peeked in her room to find this:

My sweet baby had pulled out her crayons (and bubble wrap) and was peacefully, quietly coloring. And she apparently made time to put on her "squeak, squeaks," on the wrong feet.

Speaking of potty training, things are going well. No regression as of yet (knock on wood). We had a first today; she went potty in a public bathroom. That reminds me I need to run to the store and get a portable fold up potty ring because holy crap was that difficult to manage. I sat her on the seat sideways to make it easier, but she's accustomed to putting her hands down to support herself and quite frankly, ew gross. So I had to keep her from falling in, keep her from touching the toilet, hand rails and everything else, grab toilet paper, and wipe her. Not an easy task. So, potty ring here we come.

We also had a not-so-fun first. She demanded underwear this evening and after dinner while playing with Bubba (read: running around and pushing him down on purpose for a laugh) she accidentally pooped in her underwear. I know it's not the last time it's going to happen but it too was disgusting, just like the public bathroom. But, she is getting better at making us aware that she needs to go before it happens. It's just the kid thing mixed with playing that makes her have the tendency to ignore her potty signs.

So, aside from the current potty training there isn't a whole lot new going on with B. I did want to share these pictures below, because they are a few of Arabella's favorite things. First we have her piggy banks. The big one is from her cousins, the middle one is one I got her, and the little one is from Grandmama.

When she was first learning her opposites, she named her piggy's. I'm sure you can guess who is who. We have Mommy piggy, Arabella piggy, and Baby piggy. She still sits on her changing table and recites their names.

The other picture is of a wind chime my mother gave me. Is has a green glass ball in its belly and we just get some terrible storms here and I don't want it broken. So in lieu of a mobile, when she was little, we hung the wind chime in her room. She loves to make it chime and I suppose it's a relaxer. Whenever her box fan is on you can hear it faintly chime. She really enjoys it.

And lastly we have the many, many, many faces of Arabella. Starting clockwise we have: Silly face, Clapping, You got it dude, Sad face, Putting on the bracelets, Curling of the tongue, Rockin dude, and trying to avoid looking at Mommy's camera.

I'm sure you know the caption for this one. ;)

She really is a great kid, when she wants to be. I love how she's developed this love of music and "finds her voice" frequently & out of the blue I might add. The kid would probably sing the newspaper if she could read. It's a joy to watch her grow and develop. I must be the luckiest Mommy on Earth.