Halloween Weekend

We had a lovely weekend here with lots of fun things going on. Saturday we headed up north to Nottinghamshire to see my Granny. It was a long old drive but we had fun on the way driving through some lovely English countryside and stopping off for a coffee in a gorgeous market town called Uppingham.

Granny was on great form and as usual Lucy enjoyed her company very much. Lucy especially likes Granny's cat Sootica who is normally anti-social, but Lucy's persistence made her come out of herself and take interest in her visitors. Having a small person crawling around the house after and constantly giving her attention must have paid a part!

Lucy and Sootica

We saw my Aunt and Uncle too, who live over the road. We took a walk over to their lovely garden which was originally an orchard for the large house next door, so they are currently laden with apples. We were only too happy to help them by taking some home and tonight we enjoyed a yummy apple crumble :) My cousin came for tea too, so it was a real family get-together and a very nice day.

Sunday was Halloween of course, and just as scary, we begun the Great Toilet Training Project with Lucy. Day One yesterday went ok. As soon as we got her up in the morning we explained that today was the day to wear big girl knickers and use the toilet. She wasn't too impressed but we pushed on and she soon got excited when we showed her some knickers with In the Night Garden characters on them! They are fabulous training knickers - cotton on the outside, plastic lined and terry toweling on the inside to help soak up any accidents. They don't hold everything, but help prevent puddles on the floor or completely saturated jeans!

Little Red Riding Hood

Belle

I am writing this at the end of day two of Toilet Training and since we started, she still hasn't actually wee-ed on the toilet. She has either wee-ed in her knickers or waited until bedtime so that she can wee in her nappy! We keep sitting her on the toilet every hour or sometimes more often but she isn't keen on the idea. Yesterday she said to Joe "I just want to wee in my nappy Daddy". Sweet. But we think it's high time and we think she is ready in so many ways, she is just not relishing the learning process and knowing her, the idea of making a mistake and having an accident. She is upstairs in bed now with her nappy on, and we are taking bets on how big a wee and poo she will have done when we go and check on her in an hour or so's time!! She is making progress though - she is definitely able to consciously control her bladder and she is great at sitting on the toilet for long periods while we read to her. It'll come, but it might take longer than 'Potty Training In One Week' by Gina Ford suggests.

Anyway, Halloween was fun. We had lunch out at a lovely pub in Woburn, a quaint village nearby. Lucy wore a different costume at different times through the day and during this outing she was Little Red Riding Hood :) In the evening she loved the trick or treaters coming to the door. We had spooky jelly candies for them all and by the end she was handing a packet out to each of them as they came to the door in groups. The kids were a pleasure - all really polite and all looking very well made up. We had about 20 kids (5 knocks in total) which was a nice and didn't take over the evening like it has done in recent years.

I'll keep you updated on the Toilet Training over the coming days....school tomorrow so that will be interesting!