Wordless Wednesday

Toddler Bed!

Well, Sunday August 14 was the big day.  Ethan got his toddler bed as a present for his birthday back in May.  We didn't want to put him in it yet (enjoyed the comfort of having him safely stuck in one spot).  A few weeks ago he actually fell out of the crib! he was fine, just scared.  The good news is he hasn't tried to do it again.  We knew that we would have to make the transition to toddle bed sooner rather than later though.  He sleeps on a mattress at daycare, and he has slept on bunks in our trailer and when we went camping in Minneapolis (post to come later on that trip).

I had planned a trip to Minneapolis for us, and there is an Ikea there, so while we were down there we picked up the remaining items we wanted to put in his room so it would be ready for the transition to a "big boy room".  We picked up a dresser and night table to replace the change table and storage shelf we have in his room right now. (Mike took the room apart before I had a chance to take a before picture, and I am not sure if I took one before Ethan was born so don't ask for one).

We still have to put the dresser together, but it is a Malm dresser from Ikea, like the night table.

Ethan wasn't too sure about the bed at first.  He went in once Mike had it all set up, climbed on the bed, laid down, then sat up started crying and said No sleep" and took off.  We couldn't get him to nap in it, I guess it was all too new and strange for him.  We were heading out to Mike's parents for supper anyway, so we asked him if he wanted to nap on the way to Grandma and Grandpa's and he said yes.  So off we went (it takes 1.5 hours to get there so I knew he would have a decent nap).  Our afternoon was SO busy that he fell asleep 2 minutes into the car ride home, and didn't seem to care that he slept in his toddler bed.  He slept through the night.

On Monday the big test came, he was wide awake when we put him to bed that night.  We did the same old routine - brush teeth, get pajamas on, read story, then we assured him he wouldn't fall out and put Tad (his night time music frog) on, said "good night" and left.  He went to sleep, and slept through the night!

One more milestone reached.  Is it just me, or did it just seem like yesterday that Ethan was a tiny little baby who looked tiny in a bassinet, let alone a crib?  And now he is sleeping in a "big boy" bed.  Sigh.  Time really does fly.

Time to blog?

I have been trying to get more into blogging, so that my son has at least some record of his young years, as well as letting my family follow his life since most of them live in different parts of the country.  I am trying to find the time to upload pictures, write some nice prose to go along with the pictures, and make the blog entries beautiful and meaningful.  I am also trying to work full time (with a 2 hr round trip commute in there), be a good mom, spend time with my family and cook and keep the house relatively clean.  Oh and keep up with my interests too, like Twitter, Facebook, reading, visiting family and friends.  I haven't even mentioned how I should try to get in shape/lose weight (or just how to stop getting colds all the time would be fine right now too).

I love my life, as tiring as it is.  I think summer was the wrong time to try focusing on getting more into blogging, because we are hardly ever home in the summer, so it makes it even harder to find the time and energy to sit down and blog.  Plus I haven't even had the time to sit down and read all the blogs I love to read.  I barely have time to call my relatives and chat.

I know, it's the same story for pretty much every Mom out there.  If any of you Moms have any tried and true advice for me, I'd love to hear it.  In the meantime, I will go back to my hectic life and let everyone else go back to theirs.

Busy Summers

Wow! I can't believe it is August 1 already!  Summer is flying by really quickly this year.  It is hot this year, which makes it feel a bit more like summer, and Ethan is older now, so he is experiencing a lot of firsts in regards to activities, even if he did them last year when he was 1.  He went to his first local fair. He went on his first real life steam train.  He went to the beach last year, but this year it was a whole new experience.  We also went Camping for the first time ever with Ethan(the same time he was brave enough to walk on the sand and go in the water at the beach). 

We are headed to Maple Grove, MN to stay at the KOA there (in little one room air conditioned "Kabins").  Mike and I went to Minneapolis last year, but left Ethan at home with his grandparents.  This year we are taking him and hoping he will enjoy it. So far we are planning to go to the Mall of America and Ikea.  I found a place called Como Zoo that looks like fun, but it is in St. Paul and I am a little nervous about driving on regular streets (off the interstates) where I can get lost more easily.

We are even going to be crazy enough to try Chuck E Cheese.  I know it will be crazy in there, but I kind of want one meal where Ethan can run around and be himself at a restaurant, usually we are trying to make him sit down and wait for dinner, and that is almost like punishment for a busy 2 year old (and really stressful for us too).  Are we crazy for willingly going there?

If anyone has anything else fun to do in Minneapolis and surrounding areas, please let me know. We aren't going to Valley Fair because it is for kids over 3 and Ethan is only 2.  Plus, we really don't have the money.  The amusement park at the Mall of America will be enough for Ethan.

It is a long weekend here in Canada (for anyone not in Canada reading this), so in theory we should be getting lots done and be all packed for our trip later this week, but of course we're not.  I am an avid bookworm, and two books that I ordered online came in on Friday, so I had to read one.  I chose the smaller, 477 page book to start off with.  I finished in two days, which is amazing because it was a typical weekend with grocery shopping, spending time with my hubby and son, going into Winnipeg for some errands, having my dad and step-mom over for dinner and of course, cleaning.

Camping with a toddler

We went camping this past weekend.  It was fun.  It was tiring.  There were rough patches.  There were cranky patches.  There were happy patches.

We just bought our little trailer a couple of weeks ago, so we weren't sure how well it would work for us as a family.  Mike and I had been more than a little nervous about camping with Ethan.  We had planned on tent camping (it's all the equipment we had when I booked the campsite), but the trailer sort of fell into our laps and it turned out to be really worth it.

We have to use Mike's car to pull it, which isn't too much of a problem except that it doesn't have air conditioning.  It is a Pontiac Vibe (so not much bigger than the trailer).  Here is what we looked like on our way to the campsite:

We set up as soon as we got there.  It probably would have taken about 20 minutes, but as all the parents of toddlers out there know, in reality it took about 1.5 hours.  Ethan was busy cranking the trailer down, running in and out of the kitchen tent, and trying desperately to figure out where he was and why he was there.

He was into EVERYTHING that first day.  With camping being a new experience for him, he was checking everything out and getting into lots of trouble :)  We were a little rusty at the whole camping thing too, so the first night was pretty much a Gong Show.  Ethan didn't get to sleep until 10:30.  He was not sure about sleeping in the trailer at all, and we forgot to bring Tad (his lullaby music playing frog).  He eventually fell asleep, and Mike and I enjoyed the fire until about 12:30 or 1, then we went to bed.  It started raining at about 2 am, and we had stupidly forgotten to close the roof vent on the trailer, so it dripped rain onto the bed.  Mike wasn't too concerned, because it was on my side :)

Ethan fell out of bed 2 or 3 times.  The bed isn't too far off the ground, so I wasn't too worried (but of course I still worried).  The first time he fell he was still sleeping, so I just put him back in bed and tucked him as far away from the edge as I could.  The last time he fell out of bed (at 5:33 am) he was up for the day.

The second day went WAY better.  It rained in the morning, but we went for a drive, then took a family nap. After we woke up we went to the beach:

The beach was another "new" thing for him.  We went last year, but he doesn't remember.  He was a little nervous about walking on the sand, and then a little nervous about being in the water, but he obviously got over it.

In the evening after we ate, we had Smores.

So all in all we had a great camping trip!  I'll post more pics and stories in a different entry.

 

Canada Day!

We had a great Canada Day.  It was long, but very enjoyable.  It started at 6:15 am (yes, Ethan let us "sleep in"), and we left our house at about 8:30 am to go pick up my dad and my step-mom, as we were all heading out to the Prairie Dog Central Railway to ride on the steam train.

We got to the train station at about 10:20, and it started off a little rocky.  The train was coming in, and Ethan was very excited about it...until it blew the whistle to let of steam and rang the bell.  He started screaming and crying and wanted to go home.  Mike took him inside and they looked out the window while the train did a roll by and I took a video.  The SD card in my camera is running out of room, so I only got a partial video of the roll by:

We got on the train, and Ethan didn't seem to mind that part (he didn't connect the rail cars to the steam engine).  We almost had to fight for our seats, a large family claimed they were in the right seats, but wouldn't let anyone else look at the tickets, and a porter had to come and settle the dispute (they were in the wrong seats...).  Once that drama was over, we sat in our seats and waited for the train to to start rolling.

  (These pictures were actually taken on the way back, after the stopover, but really, they're pictures of all us and that's all that matters)

About 10 minutes into the train ride, Ethan asked where the train went.  I told him we were on the train, but he only looked more puzzled.  He had a good time looking out the window and waving to the cars that were on the roads.  He heard the train whistle a few times and I told him were being pulled the train.  I am still not sure if he really understood, he kept giving me puzzled looks.

We got off at Grosse Isle for a 1.5 hour stopover.  We had lunch (we brought ours) , and then we checked out the little flea market.  Apparently the vendors come and set up specifically for the train, then pack up when the train leaves.  There was a little pen with ducks, chickens, geese and turkeys - Ethan climbed up on the step stool and looked over the fence at them.  There were bunnies as well.  There was also a little tractor pulling barrel cars.  it was free (donations accepted).  Ethan looked like he might want to go on it, so Mike went with him.  He really had fun.

 In fact, he had so much fun we put him in the barrel alone ( we were a little nervous about that, worried he would freak out)

 He had a blast.  He was proud of himself for riding alone too.  We went and checked out the train after they switched the engine from the front to the back so we could go back (making the back the front, and the front the back...)

Ethan wasn't scared of the train anymore, and on the way back, he was so tuckered out from the day so far he had a nap.  The train ride back was only about 30 minutes, so that's how long Ethan napped for.  Back at the station we had a Canada Day cupcake. I shared mine with him (he only had one or two bites), we are still trying to keep him away from store bought cakes because of his getting sick after having any cake from a store.

We went back to Dad and step-mom's for supper.  By the time we got there it was 3 pm.  We had supper at about 6, and Ethan was pretty loopy by then.  He ate massive amounts of blueberries and strawberries.  I was getting a little worried about whether he would get sick from that many berries so I took the platter inside so he couldn't get them.  We left for home at about 7 and got home around 8.  Ethan passed out in the car at around 7:20.

He did end up getting sick the morning  - probably from the berries, and maybe a little from the heat - we were outside all day and the high temp was 29 (84 for any non Celsius people).  He was fine after an hour or so though.

When we got home I tried to stay up to watch the fireworks, but gave up about 5 minutes before they started.  I heard them and wanted to get up and look at them from my window, but I was too tired.  There's always next year for the fireworks.  All in all we had a good Canada Day.

Allergy update

Ethan had a reaction to peanut butter when he was under 1(he took a bit of my pb on toast when I wasn't paying attention), maybe 11 months old.  He got a rash on his cheeks and a little bit on his tummy.  I made sure he avoided nuts (of all kinds, except his parents haha), and he had another reaction a  few months ago when Mike gave him a "coconut" chocolate, which turned out to be a Ferrero Rocher, (hazelnut chocolate).

I got him referred to an allergist, just so I could know one way another if he was allergic to nuts or if I was being paranoid.  Turns out he IS allergic to peanuts.  The allergy specialist said he might outgrow it.  Kids with a mild rash like allergy have a 20% chance of outgrowing it.  the good news is that he's not allergic to tree nuts (peanuts are in their category because technically they're not tree nuts).  And he's not allergic to anything else.  His banana problem is a food intolerance, not a true allergy.  I'll keep him away from bananas for another few months and try again in the fall (if we ever get a quiet weekend to test it out).