The Princess Diaries: 2 1/2 years old!

Two weeks ago, Dan’s family came for a visit and we had a great time with them! We spent the first few days together at Disney and Ashlan was over the moon. It did rain a bit, but we managed to stay relatively dry, and we had fun anyway. We spent the first day at Hollywood Studios and then went to Epcot in the evening. The second day we went to Animal Kingdom and then to Epcot again at night. The third and last day we went to Magic Kindgom and spent alllll day there. We got home just in time to give Ashlan a bath and put her to bed. It was a great trip was so jam packed full of things to do and we were all exhausted. Then the next few days we just hung around the pool, and took a trip to Fernandina Beach. It was a great week. Ashlan had a blast with her Aunt Katie, Grammie, and Grandpa.

So a few other quick stories-

I had to weed the backyard the other day. I know this sounds weird, but I use disposable gloves when I weed because I can grab the weeds better. Ashlan saw me get a glove out and then we both went outside. She told me she wanted to help me. I just said ok and thought she would just pick some grass or something. She then told me she needed gloves. So I told her since she saw me get a glove, to go back into the house and get one. She ran into the house and was gone for a minute or two. She comes running back out with two oven mitts, lol! A little lost in translation, but cute.

During Ashlan’s bath, I’ve been reciting ABC’s lately and writing them (upside down for me) on the bathtub wall. The past few days, she’ll say the letter after the one I say. For instance, I was on letter R, and she said S. I then said S, and she said T. So she may not say them by herself yet but she knows the order of them.

She started going potty by herself the last few days. She’ll just leave the room and when we go to see where she went, she’ll be sitting on the potty. We are so proud of her. We still pull her pants back up, but hey, it’s a start. If it were up to her, she’d stay naked, lol.

We were impressed with her block structure that she built the other day. I wish we had taken a picture. She was sitting with Dan and started stacking her blocks on top of each other. Somehow, she left an empty space but other blocks were stacked on top of that empty space. Wish we had taken a picture but it was impressive, lol. It could have been completely by accident but still amazing that it didn’t fall over.

So we had Ashlan’s first swim lesson a few days ago. It was disastrous, lol! She just wanted to play and didn’t want to stay in my arms. She’s just too independent. We actually had to leave after only 10 minutes of being there because she was being too disruptive. However, we have since had a few times in the pool lately with either just me or Dan without her floaties on and she is definitely a lot more receptive. I wish we had practiced just a little bit with her without the floaties on before we went because it may have turned out better, lol. I think we will try it again in a month and hope that she behaves this time. With the floaties, she is already trying to float on her back, willingly jumps in, and also puts her face in the water, so just listening is the issue because she certainly seems willing. We’ll see what happens.