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Since it’s Friday, I thought I’d just catch up with you guys here as I would with a friend over coffee! The past couple of weeks flew by fast and I’ve been busy turning a year older and more importantly keeping Ria entertained as she was home all of last week for her spring break. This turned out to be extremely challenging because we began potty training and it was raining EVERY SINGLE DAY :(! So basically we couldn’t take her out of the house much all week.

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We kept my Birthday low key this time so we could focus on Ria and the 3 of us just went out for a family lunch. Ria was very sweet and sang Happy Birthday a few times that day. And of course we had cake…cheesecake! I think we ended up eating a whole week’s worth of desert that day (oops)!

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So what did we do at home all week? Well, luckily before her break I picked up a few craft supplies from the Dollar Tree and Walgreens – pom poms, googly eyes, floam and such. I also shopped around the house and took out coloring books, stickers, new crayons, balloons, bubble solution + wands and a bunch of other things she hasn’t played with in a while. I dumped all of these in a “special box” for those times when she was completely bored of the toys she usually plays with.

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For the first few days we didn’t need to touch this box but after day 4 whenever she’d get cranky and wouldn’t want to do anything else I suggested she take out an activity from her “special box” and she was actually quite excited about it! We didn’t even use up everything that was in that box but it was a lifesaver for those moments as a parent when your toddler is about to have a meltdown ;P!

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Potty training went smoothly as well (mostly!) and she’s back at daycare this week and it’s still going well (fingers-crossed). We followed the guidelines in the book “Oh Crap Potty Training” by Jamie Glowacki because it resonated with us.

For some reason potty training was a big milestone in my head so I read the physical copy AND listened to the audio version of this book 3 times to make sure I got it! I have to say this approach worked out well for us. The author has trained thousands of kids and she discusses pretty much any problem you may run into – in fact she has a whole chapter dedicated to troubleshooting…it’s super helpful! She also has a pretty interesting take on parenting in general which I enjoyed reading. Let me know if any of you are interested in a breakdown of how we went about it and the products (potty chair, seat insert etc) we’ve been using – I’ll be happy to share it in a separate post with you all!

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So that’s pretty much what we’ve been up to lately. Ria is back at daycare and I can resume writing, baking, taking care of myself (which totally takes a backseat if she's home ;P) and everything else I enjoy doing! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend ahead :).