The Holland Beach

We traveled last weekend to Holland to visit Jut's folks. While we were there, we couldn't resist taking E to the beach. She thought the walk up the dunes was fun, but it took both of us holding her hands to get her to the top. It was tough walking!


We went to the Riley beach and let E experience some waves...They were really rolling in Thursday afternoon! She thought that they were pretty neat, but kept a tight grip on her dad's hand for the first minute or so.


The waves were very chilly on her feet, but she loved it!



Sitting down and letting the waves wash over you was a lot of fun, also. However, once a wave splashed her in the face, there was no more sitting!

She was freezing after 5 minutes, but that didn't stop her fun. She kept playing and playing and shivering and shivering....

There was a little inlet that had been filled with the waves. It was significantly warmer than the lake. She'd go 'warm up' in that and then go play in the waves again. She loved playing in the water!!

Jut couldn't resist the big waves, either. He played out in them for awhile.

I finally convinced E that she needed to warm up. She snuggled right in to the towel and didn't move for a few minutes.

Walking up the dunes to head for the car.


E needed a helping hand up the dune...

A very unhappy girl once she realized that we were going back to the car...or maybe it was because we pulled her away from a berry bush that she was harvesting for the birds. But, she was not happy to be leaving!!

However, I did remember why I don't like going to the beach. We got E back to the car, stripped of her swimsuit and found oodles of sand...then we took off her swim diaper and found even more sand. We took her back to Jut's folks' house naked...and still ended up with a ton of sand in the car. However, I am glad that we didn't get pulled over or in an accident on the way home. I wouldn't have wanted to explain our naked child to a cop!

Where does brilliance end and stupidity begin???

The past few weeks were frustrating. E wasn't napping...well, she might take a nap every 4th day or so, but I'm needing one every day and it just wasn't working out well. She was waiting until I put her in her room to nap to poop. So, every day I was cleaning up poopy undies because she wouldn't use the little potty when left alone in her room. I tried keeping her up later from nap to get her to poop before putting her down...but nothing was successful.

On Tuesday, I had a brainstorm...(or some might say a case of insanity). I started potty training her commando...so maybe she needed to be commando to be poop trained too. Our only pooping successes happened when she was commando running around the house.

When I left her room at naptime, I stripped off her shorts and undies. She didn't care. She strips them off when she's playing around our house all the time anyway. I went across the hall and waited. She giggled, closed her door and I could hear her talking and playing with her animals. I could just see her and every so often she'd run to the potty. I'd ask if she'd need wiped and she'd reply "no". However within 20 minutes, she called out "I pooped. Need wiped!".

I entered her room and she said, "Mommy, big worm in the potty!" Sure enough, there was a huge log sitting in the little potty. Yipee. I cleaned her and the potty up. Put her back in her room and she eventually fell asleep.

We have repeated this scene for the past 2 days. She plays then poops and then very peacefully lays down for her nap. Fortunately, she is also staying dry while she is sleeping. Brilliance or stupidity??? I'm not really sure, but it has worked wonderfully!

************************************************************************************

Just a side note: We put up the crib and changing table today in the baby's room. E thinks it is great fun to scale up the crib and play in it. All of her bedding ended up in the crib this morning. She's such a goof. She's taking her nap right now in her true 'big girl' bed for the first time. We let her sleep on a mattress for several weeks. Then, we added the box springs and today she has the real headboard and bedframe underneath her. She thinks she's big stuff! ;-)

First Prayer

We were putting E to bed tonight and Jut said, "Can we pray?" E bowed her little head, laid down and said,

"Dear Jesus,
Thank you for today.
Thank you for the stars (or maybe it was "storms"...Jut and I don't quite know).
Amen."

She was pretty adorable!