We had a busy December trying to get ready for the holidays. We managed to get our decorations up pretty early in the month and Alex enjoyed decorating cookies with me and putting ornaments on the tree. Soon after we were ready for the holiday season, Chris flew out for a week in Holland on business. He really enjoyed the trip but it was hard having him away for a big part of the pre-Christmas time.
Once he was home, we had about a week to relax and enjoy ourselves before things got really busy. We hosted Chris’ family for a holiday dinner at our home (festive pasta lol) and then left the next morning to make our way to Montebello in Quebec. We spent Christmas there last year and were lucky enough to go back again this year to spend a few days with my family. Chris also surprised Alex and I with a train trip from Toronto to Kingston as Alex is incredibly enamoured with trains of all shapes and sizes, but he’s never been on a real train that goes fast on a longer trip, so Chris dropped us off in Toronto and Alex and I enjoyed a nice comfortable trip to Kingston and then met Chris at my parents’ home there. We stayed over that night and then left early the next morning to drive to Montebello.
The weather was wonderful and Alex loved the ferry ride across the Ottawa River. We spent a wonderful Christmas in Montebello and really enjoyed ourselves. The hotel had tons of activities for kids, including a visit from Santa on Christmas Day, ice sculptures, a pyjama breakfast party and contest that Alex and his dog, Copper, won (they had matching PJs). Alex loved the Jacuzzi bathtub in our hotel room, especially because you could get A LOT of bubbles during a bath.
Before Christmas, we’d taken Alex to see Santa Claus and the thing he asked for the most was a ‘Polar Express’ train. Santa did bring him another train he’d asked for, but he also told Alex’s Aunt Jenny and Grandma about the Polar Express, so they gave it to him on Christmas Eve as his special gift. He was beyond thrilled with it and it was the hit of the holidays for him. Even when he woke up Christmas morning and I showed him the stocking that Santa had left for him, he looked at it for a moment and then said, “I don’t need that… I have the Polar Express!”
We came home on the 27th and spent a few days relaxing at home and just hanging out. We’d brought home some of the presents in a big box, and Alex quickly absconded with the box and said it was his fort and for two days, he actually slept in it for naps.
Alex went to a friend’s daughter’s second birthday party and he really had a great time. It was simply amazing to me that there could be six kids age 2 and 3 there and they were all busy quietly painting their piggy banks as a special treat. The party was wonderful and it was great to see Alex playing with some of the other kids, even though he still tends to be a bit shy in some situations.
Perhaps our biggest news so far this year is that Alex is now 100% potty trained. We started eons ago with the potty training and he learned to pee without any real difficulty at all, but the other ‘task’ we use potties for was something he just wasn’t keen on. We were told by many people not to fret about it and that he would learn it when he was ready, but it just seemed to take forever. He never had any messes… he’d announce to us when he needed to go #2 and he’d then go put on a pull up, would go and then asked to be cleaned… but try as we might, he just totally was not into sitting on the potty or the toilet. We tried bribery, we tried coaxing, we tried begging but it just didn’t seem to work with him.
Then lo and behold, one day at daycare he finally managed to use the toilet and the teacher was thrilled (nor surprising, eh?). We had no idea if it was a one-time thing, but the very next day he was playing downstairs with Chris while I was out doing some shopping and he went upstairs on his own to go pee and then Chris heard him calling out, “Yahoo! Come look what I did!” *chuckles*
I have no idea what switch inside him got flicked, but since then, he’s been wearing underwear 100% of the time when he’s not sleeping and we haven’t had any trouble. While it’s exciting to us that he’s reached another milestone, it’s one of the last few ‘baby’ things he’s grown out of so it’s also a bit sad.
Despite the bittersweet aspect of this hurdle, we celebrated this in style with a “Poo-Day” cake and lots of positive reinforcement.
During January, Chris was away at a couple of meetings in Toronto and he came home to a huge amount of snow to shovel before he could even get his van into the driveway. I had Alex all dressed for going outside and the two of them spent an hour shovelling the walkway and driveway and playing outside before coming in for cookies and hot chocolate.
As Chris had been away most of that week, we decided to do something fun that weekend and we went to a local butterfly conservatory to check out the butterflies, birds and other bugs. Alex simply loved it and said he wants to go back again very soon.
Well, that’s it for now. We have Chris’ birthday coming up this weekend, so we’ll be celebrating as a family and then Chris is off to Montreal for another business trip.
We hope that the New Year is going well for all of you and I hope you enjoy the pictures in the new album.
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