Playdates, Petting Zoo and the Potty!

We've had an exciting week!

Tuesday, Mika and Tess and Sarah and Logan came over for a playdate! Marin was so excited to see baby Tess and baby Logan again, that she and I waited out front for them to arrive. I had a great time playing and snuggling with the babies, and Marin just played at our feet the entire time. She may be taking this sharing thing a bit too far though; she tried to feed three month old Tess a scone.


Tuesday night I had my own playdate with my mom and her friends. We went to go to Eat, Pray, Love. I hadn't seen a movie in the theater since Frost Nixon, before Marin was born, so it was a real treat for me! I Eat, Pray, LOVED IT, by the way.

Wednesday Marin and I met our friends Caroline and Tommy at the Petting Zoo, just a short drive away. Marin loved seeing all of the animals, and even feeding a few. She proudly told everyone in earshot that the cow says "MOOOOOOOOO", that the sheep says "BAAAAA" and that the duck says "duck duck". We'll have to work on that last one. She got so excited to feed the deer that she got her bag too close to their mouths and they snatched the entire food bag from her hands. Lucky for us, Caroline and Tommy graciously shared their food bag with Marin. She loved watching the animals up close.

We couldn't leave the park with a trip to the playground, and Marin loved swinging on the swings and sliding down the slide. We finished the afternoon with lunch at a cute little spot near by, and Marin slept the whole way home.


Wednesday night we met our neighbors a the ballpark for Jason's last softball game of the season. Marin loved cheering, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" to Jason as he ran the bases.


Today we hit the road again to go visit our friends Susan and Rachel. Marin made herself right at home in about 2 seconds, choosing a baby for Rachel and one for herself so they could play babies together. Marin especially loved lounging in Rachel's big bean bag chair as she tapped on her computer, and she loved playing with Rachel's play kitchen. We had a quick walk to the park and played there for a while before we walked back and had lunch together.


We've had a great week and lot of fun, but the REAL excitement of the week in our house is that Marin went to the bathroom on the potty!! She has sat on the potty plenty of times before, and even has gone in it twice. But those other times she went weren't really on purpose. I sorta threw here there as she was going in an attempt to show her what you do there. But today, after she woke up, I set her on the potty and said, "Go potty, Marin." And sure enough, she did it! The little horn sound on her potty rang and I rewarded her like she was splitting atoms. We made a VERY big deal about this. Marin has learned that the potty makes the horn noise when the button at the bottom of the potty is "activated". Today after the horns sounded, Marin got so excited she danced to them. Then she stuck her finger right in the full potty and pushed the button to make the horns sound again. I quickly said, "oh yucky, yucky... but YAYYY you went potty!!" How's that for a mixed signal.

I don't expect her to be fully potty trained next week or even next month, but she has been interested in her potty for a while now, so I figured I might as well teach her about its intended purpose. If we can keep this up, we might be on to something!