Learning about Sports

This past week the daycare topic of the week was sports. On Monday we were told to talk to our kids about what sports they have played. Dad did not read the sheet when picking Rylie up so I got to be the one to teach her about sports. Right off the bat I told her that the best sport was shopping. To which she said "no mom, Capris (her teacher) said shopping was not a sport". Dad did not think that me telling Rylie that shopping was sport was a very good thing. I tried to defend my answer saying that it involves competition and skill, and if you get a good deal then you win. I then decided we offer her a number of options for sports: swimming, biking, ballet, even basketball. Then it hit me her sure to be favorite sport...horse back riding.

On Tuesday when I picked Rylie up her teacher came to tell me how proud she was of Rylie, when they had asked the kids to name sports that day in school the kids threw out answers like "purple" "hat" and then our little Rylie was the only one to name an actual sport...Horse Back Ridding. She was so excited to tell everyone that it was a sport. I was kind of sad that she didn't share shopping as a sport and when I told her teacher that she said at the level that most kids were naming sports, shopping might have been a pretty good answer. I guess we are lucky she actually named a sport. Smarty Pants:)

Potty Training Continues

We have had a very good potty training week. The big deal was that every morning of 5 days in a row now Rylie has pee-ed in the potty when she has woken up in the morning. Because daycare is not very consistent with the potty training we have not been to serious about it. On Thursday night Rylie opted for not reading a book so she could spend about 30 minutes sorting out her big girl underwear and putting it in piles. I stopped re-folding it after folding all the underwear 3 times. So Friday morning I told Rylie she could wear some big girl underwear when we got home from school and work. We broke out the Ariel underwear pee-ed once then had she wondered into the other room and started to cry that she pee-ed in her underwear, surprise for me it was not pee. Saturday we tried again with the big girl underwear while we were at home. No accidents, and no accidents when we went out and she wore pull-ups. We went to Maple Grove Days in the morning which is a festival of sorts at a near by city. She got to jump in the bouncers and go to the business expo where she got a lot of free stuff (ie. candy, water bottles, whistles, etc.). Surprising to us she made it home still dry and in time to pee in the potty. We would have had a perfect day, except we went to a couple stores after dinner only to get stuck in a tornado warning/straight line winds on the car ride home. Daddy had to do some serious defensive driving to avoid the flying branches and trees in the street on the way home. Rylie and I sat in the backseat and held hands. We got home ran to the basement and after it was finally safe to come out, Rylie had pee-ed in the pull-up. Have to say I don't really blame her for that one. Guess we'll go for a perfect day tomorrow. Won't daycare love it if she goes to school on Monday in big girl underwear, then they will have to deal with the potty training.

The Track

On the 4th of July we decided to take Rylie to experience what every 2 year old should experience the horse track. This was the perfect day and year. Not only did they have free admission for the year, but it was family day with free pony rides, a petting zoo, free hot dogs and wiener dog races. We met our friends there since they live in the area. Sad for them we got there earlier and were able to spend time petting the horses and donkey as well as get a pony ride in before they arrived. We then watched a race, which is pretty exciting except that only last about 1 minute. Rylie was not really sure what was going on during the 1st race since they stated so far away you could hardly see them. By the time they got near us, I think she was just surprised to see horses. It was crazy hot outside. Our friends made it through 1 race and a ice cream cone before leaving us to brave the heat alone. We watched another couple races, went on another pony ride, pet the ducks and looked at all the wiener dogs. We thought that would be good except Rylie really wanted to see the wiener dogs race. So back to the race track we went to see these silly dogs race about 20ft. Rylie loved it...it was her favorite part of the day, and that is saying a lot since she had 2 pony rides. When we finally did go to leave we had to pretty much drag her kicking and screaming out of the place. She did not want to leave. As a special treat we did stop at Toys R Us on the way home, that was just as hard of a place for her to leave. She informed us that she was going to live there. The aisle of Princess toys was like her idea of heaven, she wanted everything. All we could say was maybe for your birthday.

Fireworks

Since Rylie remembered the fireworks from Disney World, she was very excited about going to see them again. Little did she know that we didn't have to go to Disney to experience that fun. We actually went to the fireworks on July 3rd, because I figured it would ensure she had a nap during the day. I found a city that was suppose to start the fireworks at 9:30, thinking that would be nice and early. The problem there was it is not dark here until after 10. We waited for about an hour, until 10:15 for the fireworks to actually start. The nice thing was we were able to sit at our van so Rylie spent most that time playing in the car and watching neighboring cars set off their fireworks. When the fireworks finally started she was extremely excited. They were all "so beautiful" and I think each one amazed her more than the last. That fun lasted about 15 minutes into the 30 minute show. As she lost interest I started to clean up our chairs and get her into her PJs. The best was when I went to change her diaper and she asked if I had wipes. I've never had that question come from her...little did I know that wipes were very much needed. Of course I was not ready for that dirty diaper, no real wipes (only hand wipes), no lights and Eric busy enjoying the fireworks. After getting him to get me what I needed we all missed the end of the fireworks. The sad part is if we had not had a dirty diaper we could most likely have missed the mad rush to leave the parking lot. Unfortunately we got stuck waiting with all the other cars. It was only 20 minutes to get out of the parking lot, but boy did it feel like a long time.

Pretty Dress

Yesterday when Rylie woke up and saw that I was wearing a "pretty dress" she said: "Mommy you are wearing a pretty dress! Are you going to wear a crown to work today?" Wouldn't that get me some weird looks. Sadly Rylie couldn't wear a pretty dress to school because they had to wear red, white and blue and she only has pink and purple pretty dresses.

Rylie also got a scraped up eye at school because as she tells the story "I was running to fast mom and fell down. I won't run fast again." Poor kid:-(