MNM's week of giveaways: Adventures in the Kitchen

After yesterday's melancholy, I think it's time to move on and just bless because I know how much that will cheer me up. So are you ready? For a week of giveaways - are you?! Are you really?! Well come on, let's get started then!

Here's Monday's giveaway for you: MNM's favourite tried and tested recipes from our kitchen to yours. There's Mark's crowd-pleasing brownie and my famous double dark chocolate cookies with sea salt I'm always making for people for starters.

Then there's some of our quick and easy go-to family dinner meals that still pack a tasty punch like Thai Green Curry (not too spicy for the kids!), Pork and Sausage Cassoulet (great to warm the belly on a cold winter's night) or Ridiculously good Risotto.

Either way there's bound to be something for all kinds of different tastebuds contained within these pages.

It's super easy to win your very own limited edition copy of MNM's Adventures in the kitchen.

Entry details:

1) For one entry, leave me a comment with your favourite MNM's Adventures recipe. For more ideas, click over here to the Cooking page.

2) For another entry, head on over and like/follow MNM's Adventures page on Facebook here and leave me another separate comment here that you have (or already do!).

3) For a third entry, tweet, instagram or share this giveaway on Facebook and leave me a comment that you have.

Entries close on Friday 11th April. Giveaway open worldwide.

All giveaway winners will be drawn and announced here on the blog on Monday 14th April.

Good luck!

Potty Progress: The Poo Whisperer

So it's been a while since our last potty update. I believe my husband shall henceforth be known as The Poo Whisperer. He has taken on the lion's share of this task and it is therefore a fitting nickname. But to explain...

Mylo grasped the wee wee part of the equation pretty quickly in the end. Within about 2 weeks, he was managing most wees on the toilet with just the odd accident here and there.

Poos...not so much.

So much so that we were beginning to wonder if he would ever get it.

At the time of the last potty progress update, we'd celebrated the first poo in the toilet after a couple of weeks trying. Which in hindsight was obviously a real fluke.

After this, at least 3-4 times a week Mylo was coming home with soiled undies to clean from daycare. Sometimes the teachers would clean the undies up a bit for us, sometimes not. I have to say they really were very patient about the whole thing.

The worst part was that sometimes they'd been sitting in a plastic bag in his little daycare bag for a good part of the day before we got to work our magic on them. One friend suggested to me I should just throw the soiled undies away and buy more, but I was a bit horrified at this suggestion. Its just poo after all and they came out fine after being scrubbed and washed. Besides, if I was going to be enduring months of poos in undies, I could imagine it beginning to cost a small fortune in new undies!

The other frustration was that opportunities to try and encourage a poo in the toilet seemed few and far between, between the almost daily poo that would be in his overnight nappy plus the accidents at daycare, we just weren't getting a chance to try and beat this thing at home!

Things came to a bit of a (turtle) head (sorry bit of a rough toilet joke I know!) a fdw weekends ago when we went up to the Hawkes Bay and he didn't go for a poo the whole time we were away, despite several sessions sitting on the toilet trying, we were positive there was one in there waiting somewhere. We arrived home midday Sunday just in time for Mark to take Noah straight back out for his swimming lessons, and in a few moments of distraction, suddenly there was a small person bent over the couch with a poo in his undies and a wee all over the carpet. Gah!

I must admit I did get a bit annoyed. I'll leave my response to your imagination.

This was just before his nap. So I put a nappy on and when he got up from his nap he had another poo in it. I was OK with that (well not OK but I wasn't as annoyed).

I put him back in undies and walked outside to pick some berries for the boys. I came back in and found the same small child bent over the coffee table with an intense look of concentration....gah!

So. not. impressed!

For whatever reason, that day seemed to be the turning point. I'd like to hope it wasn't just the telling off he got that day (as it so wasn't my intention but I was kinda at the end of my wits after six weeks of solid trying and encouragement with little result!). We didn't want to give up and go back to pull ups or nappies because he had the wee-wee side so sorted, but I was really wondering how much longer we could keep going on as we were without something or someone having to give in.

But clearly something just needed to switch on in his little brain.

And then it did.

Sure we still get the morning poo in nappy if we haven't been able to get him out of bed and into his undies before he finds he needs to go. I can live with that. Poor Mark had an unfortunate code brown in bed the other morning after an early wake up when Daddy (aka the Poo Whisperer) put him in undies at 5.30am and Mylo went back to sleep but woke up and clearly forgot he was in undies...oops.

But...but...but...every other poo during the day is going in the toiiiiiiiiiiiiiilet (just imagine this being sung in happy sing song voice).

Patience and persistence and some poo whispering the key, as well as chocolate mnms, chocolate buttons, and some mini chocolate Girl Guide biscuits (yay for it being Girl Guide season!). I do feel bad for having yelled at him that day and also for doubting that he would ever 'get it'. And I'm telling you this because I'm keeping it real here.

If I could take some learning away from this, it is this:

The ability to do what needs to be done on the toilet will come.

But it might take time.

A lot of time.

And one part might happen long before the other (I wasn't really prepared for this which I think was where my biggest frustation lay)

You may need to do some poo whispering

But they WILL get it in the end.

It's a good thing this parenting journey is just that....a learning journey.

I wish I could say that I kept calm and pottyed on the whole time but hey we all know this wasn't quite the case. The intention was there, just a bit of a failure to carry out on my part. So with that in mind, I've just adjusted the lovely freebie I got from Angela-Noelle at Striking Keys to reflect our reality.

For previous toilet training posts, click here and here.

And if you're wondering how happy the little person is that he is able to do what needs to be done on the toilet all the time, just imagine this little face sitting on the loo looking up at you chuffed to bits and you get the idea.

Potty Progress

So, we're 2.5 weeks into this toilet training malarky. I can say with (some) confidence that we are making upwards progress. I have to keep remembering that it's a journey not a destination to be reached in the shortest timeframe possible (although that would be nice too!).

Last weekend, we had a couple of accidents each day, and it would be fair to say we've been struggling on the whole on the poo front. Someone seems to prefer having it mush around in their undies than letting it plop freely and easily into the loo. What is with that?! I know it happens to a lot of kids but I still don't quite get why if you're mastering the 'weeing' in the toilet, why the 'pooing' should be any different. Different part of the brain maybe?

Anyway, between 3 nasty code browns in undies that came home from daycare for us to clean up (the teachers only go so far in their support of the process which is quite fair to be honest!) and a few early morning nappy poos, we just weren't getting any opportunities to practice pooing on the toilet.

So hurrah hurrah, yesterday afternoon just before we went to the beach we finally hit the mother lode. There was singing, there was dancing, there was high-fiving, there was Chocolate Santa eating, and general celebration to be had all round in our household. Now if we could just repeat that a few times over and I think we might be confident that we're on our way.

Last but not least, another story to share. On the way home from the beach yesterday, there was some nervous fidgeting in the back seat and a little voice said 'I want to get out, I want to get out' which we now know is Mylo's code for 'eek..I need a wee pretty darn soon'. Despite the fact we'd all only just been to the loo before getting in the car 10 minutes before, we thought we'd better stop as I wasn't keen to repeat the previous week's car seat washing experience anytime soon.

Luckily it was on a bit of a back road connecting two suburbs so it was forested and bushy and fairly private.

Mark got out of the car to assist proceedings.

Which went on....

and on.....

and on.....

I watched out the side mirror while various different positions were assumed. Squatting, crouching, sitting, standing. I'm not sure if it was the shock of being asked to go on the side of the road, but for whatever reason it seemed to be taking a long time.

Finally, success!

The picture says it all really. Well not all, as you can see I've left a small amount to your imagination. Note the look of triumph/thank the Lord/that was painful on Mark's face!

Anyway, here's the same chuffed boy pretty happy not to be baring his all to the world any longer, instead hanging out in quite possibly the cutest pair of boxer shorts I've ever seen on a two-year old!

Is someone going potty?

I can already hear some tongue-in-cheek replies to that question about to roll off your lips. So before you start on my mental health, today we're here to talk about an altogether different kind of potty.

The kind that makes a two-year old dance with excitement upon using said receptacle (although I tell I small white lie as I actually mean the big hole in the floor not the little pretend one that kids sometimes start out with). The dancing with excitement is because he knows he's about to get a sticker and a chocolate mnm (very apt in our case of course!) for doing a wee in the toilet.

We started out on this journey the day after getting back from our holiday, not really too sure how it would go but feeling (more like hoping) the time would be right. But also knowing that Mr. M's personality is pretty different to his older brother's. Noah = malleable and would do anything to please, Mylo = not so much.

So we started out cold turkey in undies on Day 1 into undies with some very frequent reminders from mum and dad to 'let us know if you need to go for a wee'. This was us trying to follow the principles of the 'how to get your child trained in 3 days' book I had been lent by the head teacher at daycare.

Well we managed a few wees (1 mnm) and even a poo (2 mnms) on the toilet over the course of the next three days amongst a fair few accidents all over the house to go with it. The poor kid was cooped up at home, not allowed to leave the house but he didn't really seem to mind or notice (which I think was an advantage having been away for nearly 2 weeks before that, he was quite happy just hanging out).

After Day 3, we didn't really feel as if we could see much progress and every 'let us know if you need a wee, Mylo' was met by an 'OK' and then five minutes later we'd have a waterfall all over the floor. And if we ever asked him if he needed to go, it would, without fail, be met with a definite 'NO' despite the fact he might be (at the very same time) straining to fill his undies with something of the brown variety.

So we changed tack the following day, instigating a sticker chart for anytime he even tried to go, and set an alarm to go off every half an hour. On only about the third time I went to pull down his undies for a timed wee but was met with an 'but I've got poos, Mum'. Choice. And that was not the only code brown of the day.

We persevered through Saturday and Sunday with the timed toilet trips, sometimes with nothing to show for it but a sticker, but other times hearing the joyful sound of a tinkle in the toilet.

So it was with more than a little apprehension that we sent him back to daycare on Monday, wondering how on earth the first day would pan out, and hoping that it wouldn't be an epic fail, and we'd have to give up on the whole idea.

At this point, I must stop and extol the virtues of having a fantastic daycare, and an awesome bunch of teachers who are super encouraging and supportive and who totally embraced assisting us through the process. Which was a good thing, as Day 1 brought mixed success, there were quite a few wees on the toilet but also 3 wee accidents and a code brown (gah!) too.

But here is where our story takes a turn......

We'll never know what it was, perhaps a sudden firing of a neuron in the brain overnight or something like it, but Mylo woke up on Tuesday morning, asked Dad to take him to the toilet twice before they left for daycare, and proceeded to have 3 totally accident free days from there on in (even managing one poo on the toilet at daycare during that time).

We have been completely amazed (in a nice way) at the sudden transition from complete unawareness and reluctance to even sit on the toilet to this in a week and a half. Pleasantly surprised, as little Mr's personality is such that I really wondered if we would have a long battle on our hands. But on the other hand it appears there is much to be said for consistency, encouragement, praise, focus, and perseverance.

On about Day 3 of the journey, I went back and read the fantastic posts that Angela-Noelle of Striking Keys wrote on the subject mid-last year. I would totally encourage you to do the same if you are heading down this path in the not-so-distant future. They really gave me hope that he would get there, and that the smallest of victories is worth celebrating. You can find them here:

Toilet Training: Mental Exhaustion
Toilet Training: Our Strategies
Toilet Training: Appendix A
Toilet  Training: Months Later

But just so you don't think I'm totally skiting about how well Mylo has made the transition and how we have it all in the bag (or all in the toilet as the case may be), I have a final story for you.

I took the boys grocery shopping Friday morning, and I made sure we ALL went to the toilet before leaving the house, and we all went again whilst out at Pak n Save (despite the fact I'm not a big fan of supermarket toilets). And again, no accidents all day. That was until I took them both out to Kilbirnie pool that afternoon. He did wear a swimming nappy in the pool (it's early days and I sure don't want to be the one responsible for closing a busy regional aquatic centre during school holidays due to a...what do they call it...oh yeah....faecal incident. So I was smart on one front, but I should have insisted after we were all changed afterwards that we all do a wee before coming home.  I was kind of going on the assumption that being in the water all that time, any need for a wee would have come and merely been captured in said swimming nappy.

But apparently not. So there was a mother of all floods for me to deal with when we got home, a boy who got sheepishly out of the car with a dripping wet bottom half, a soaked toddler seat, the volume of it meant it had even heavily soaked the actual seat of the car underneath. I guess that'll learn me.

So for now, I'll accept this is a journey. We'll win some days and we'll lose some. And through it all, I will...

Thanks Angela-Noelle for the great freebie!

Flips, Flops and Jumps!

We are enjoying the last long weekend of the year before Christmas which is (eek!) less than 2 months away now! Noah has continued to do well on the potty this week (even going for some wees on the toilet at daycare). At home we have been encouraging (read: bribing) him with an M&M for doing a wee and a chocolate fish for poos (we've handed out two of those so far!).




 
I've been off all week studying, and odd though it sounds it has actually been great to have the whole day to focus on the exam uninterrupted. Not that I didn't take a few breaks along the way, however, and went for a couple of runs and a bike ride...for me it was a litle dangling of the carrot for what I can get up to as soon as I'm not studying! This week hasn't been without its hazards as I managed give myself a jolly good slice through the finger with a knife on Wednesday - it didn't stop bleeding for an hour and is still pretty sore now, and then I choked on a grape Thursday and couldn't catch my breath from coughing for a good few minutes... just goes to show that too much study really is bad for you!



 
Saturday morning we enjoyed having Becky, Jonny and Brooke over for brunch (pancakes, banana & bacon), and after a nap Daddy took Noah swimming while I went to work to do yet more printing and binding of exam notes (I am SO sorry to all the trees!). Last night, we had fun in another homemade cave complete with tunnel entrance, then we turned the tunnel into a wiggly worm, and just before bathtime, Noah found some new found confidence to jump off the couch (a first!) which we captured on video.



 
Sunday morning it was off to church, home for lunch, and then a trip to the shops as the weather was still too cold and blowy after the overnight southerly to do too much else. We got a present for Maya's birthday (his little girlfriend at daycare is turning 3 on Saturday....takes after his daddy likin older women!), and also bought Noah's first bike. It's called Glide2Ride and hopefully it means we can skip the trike, then training wheels then bike and just have one bike that does the lot! Although he might be too little for it for a wee while yet.

 
This week, I enjoyed one of my most precious moments yet with Noah, when he came up close to me as I was down on the floor with him and said 'You're beautiful, you have beautiful eyes'. My heart just melted on the spot. Mark was quick to give me a reality check and said that it was only cupboard love as he was about to get an M&M for another successful wee on the toilet, but I prefer to believe it was because he was just being gorgeous and cute! And as Ann-Marie said when we were chatting on Facebook about it in the week, in this family they do know how to woo the ladies!

A couple of other funny videos from last weekend, the first one is entitled Noah Flips and the second one Noah Flops.






Monday night update: we have had a lovely long weekend, the weather finally came right this morning, meaning Mark could take Noah to the ducks/park so I could do some study, Noah and Daddy cooked corn fritters which we enjoyed eating in the sunshine for lunch, and we then headed to the zoo this afternoon for a catch up with all Noah's favourite friends. But the absolute best news is that we put Noah in normal cotton (Scooby Doo!) undies this morning and he had a completely dry day!! This was even though he was out for over an hour with Dad at the ducks this morning and at the zoo this afternoon - and he was happy to go for a wee on a big toilet with Mummy's assistance whilst we were there. Go Noah...you little legend.

Less than 70 hours to go until the exam to end all exams is over! Bring it on!

Gone potty......

 
This week has seen us making some great progress in the potty training department, albeit with a fair few bribes along the ways - Ice Age animals, Toy Story figures, and a sticker chart on the fridge, but whatever works right! This weekend Noah has gone for a wee on the potty about ten times, and he even managed a poo on the potty tonight to earn the last two Toy Story figures Buzz and Woody. It'll be interesting to see how he goes at daycare this week, we'll send him in with some pull up pants and ask the teachers to continue encouraging him to use the toilet.

Even though we didn't have much planned this weekend we ended up doing quite a bit and seeing a few people. Saturday morning we spent a little extra time than usual watching the planes as there was no wind and we were fortunate to watch three 737's take off in a row. We enjoyed some spaghetti bacon cheese rolls outside in the still calm air for lunch and then made a dash up to the park after Noah's sleep as the weather was looking like turning into the southerly that had been predicted. Our friend Judith from antenatal and Grace (same age as Noah) met us up there for a runaround, then came back home for a cuppa, and it was nice to catch up with them for the first time in a while.


 
Sunday we had Mark's friend from work Jared, his girlfriend Carrie and her little girl Charlotte (2 and a half) around for morning tea (brezels, croissants and Mark's chocolate brownie). This afternoon we went up to the park again, and enjoyed running around once more. Noah is actually getting quite good at catching a rugby ball and in the first shot he looks like it'll be next stop hooker for the All Blacks!




Short and sweet this week, but a few photos to enjoy nonetheless. I'm now off on study leave until the exam. I'm (sadly!) looking forward to having the dedicated time, i.e. all day to focus on study, rather than cramming in an hour before work before running in, or trying to stay awake and focused in the evenings after a long day's work. And only 11 days till freedom...to be able to say it in days now is RATHER hard to believe.

My favourite is...marshmellows

Slightly odd title for the week, but we will explain. On Wednesday night, we had musamun curry lined up for Noah for dinner. All the way home we kept saying 'what's Daddy made you for dinner, Noah, musamun.....' to which he said 'currrrrry'. He really loves it so he was more than happy to keep the game going and going.

However, when we got home and as I was lifting him into his chair, I said 'Hey Noah, look it's your favourite, what is it?', expecting him to say 'musamun currrrrrrry'. Instead, he said 'it's marshmellows'. Tee hee, got ya Mum, I know what my favourite is!

This week has been fairly uneventful, I took Tuesday afternoon off work to go and spend with my good friend Becky and her baby Brooke (5 weeks old). Brooke was a really good girl for me, and let me take her out for a big walk around Johnsonville, so her mummy could get some much needed sleep for an hour and a half.


 
Saturday morning Noah and Daddy did a quick whizz round the supermarket while I managed to get all the vacuuming and bathrooms cleaned while they were out. Then our friends Linda, Andrew and wee Oliver (now not so wee at 18 months old!) came over for brunch..pancakes, with bacon and banana...ala Markie..yum. Then it was onto business, and we went out into the gusty wind to scope out the backyard, as we are hoping Andrew will be able to do some landscaping for us, putting in a fence, a gate and helping us turn our yard back from river stones back to lawn for us to enjoy over the summer.

Later in the afternoon we braved the fierce wind and drizzle and took a trip out to a garden centre and bought tomatoes, lettuce, peas and herbs for our burgeoning vege garden. Sunday morning, we were up bright and early and found some time to put all our purchases into the garden before Mark took Noah off to the Splash Pool in Kilbirnie for a swim while I did a spot of study.

After lunch and a nap, Noah and I went to watch the planes, buy some more plants (flowers and more rocket lettuce), and then pick Daddy up after his netball game. While waiting for Daddy, we stopped into the supermarket to pick up a few bits and saw one of Noah's lovely daycare teachers, Hermione. Noah got all shy and wouldn't look at her to start with but gave her a lovely wave when she said goodbye. As were going around the supermarket, without any prompting he said 'I got a bit shy with Hermione'...bless him. I said 'yes you did'.

It was another one of the teachers last day on Friday as she is going off to have her second baby so they had a pyjama party to farewell her, and it was cute seeing him go off to daycare in his pyjamas, and even cuter to see him and all the others still in their pyjamas running around outside at 5pm when I picked him up!

Then home for a cuppa and a visit from Jonny and Brooke, I enjoyed holding Brooke for about half an hour bouncing her to sleep on the swiss ball and then sitting with her asleep in my arms on the couch. Mark rustled up a risotto in record time and sent Jonny home with enough for him and Becky for dinner, we wolfed ours down, and then it was back outdoors to finish putting in all the rest of the veges we bought this afternoon. We bought some netting to put over our new babies (mostly to keep the Murphster from thinking it looks like an attractive new toilet site!). Hopefully the shade cloth we bought will still let enough light in to get our budding plants to grow safely from any prying claws! Once the plants are established, we should be able to take it off again, but we're not taking any chances after spending so much time, effort and money getting the garden going!


 
This week, a fairly uneventful one in the making other than Mark doing an 8km hill run in a corporate team multi-sport challenge on Saturday morning. We are enjoying the longer evenings, even tonight it was great to be able to go back outside after dinner to catch the last of the light.

Not too many photos this week, but a few cute ones of Noah being a 'BIG' boy, a few nights this week we have put undies (Scooby Doo ones sent by Grandma & Grandad) on between dinner and bathtime as he was quite excited by the thought of being like his good friend Maya at daycare. Makes me think that potty training can't be far away...just got to get this exam out the way and then will have more time and energy to think about such things....also need to take the sides of Noah's cot too....definitely heading for big boy territory!