Wipe, wipe, wipe (not noses this time!)

So it's been potty training week and I'm barely able to write anything positive.  It is so tough!  The books all say to be really positive with your child but that is incredibly hard to do when you think they've got it and then there's an accident.  The first day went incredibly well.  We were putting her on the potty very regularly so there wasn't a lot of time for accidents.  We had one at the end of the first day but that was it.  So day two we decided to let her take some more responsibility.  We had lots of accidents that morning but the afternoon was better.  By then we were all getting a little cabin feverish.  Day three brought more accidents (mostly of the dirty rather than wet variety – this is a difficult topic to write about without grossing everyone out – sorry!).  By day 4 she was screaming every time she did a poo and we had to wipe her bottom.  That made it even harder to stay positive with her as we were so busy trying to get her to stop crying.  We'd picked these few days as it was Thanksgiving here so should have been a four day weekend for Pete.  However, work was so busy that he had to go in to the office a couple of times and be on the phone or computer a lot.  So by halfway through today (day 4) I was ready to give up as it was so hard to be positive and do it all myself.  But on speaking to my parents and sister I felt better and decided to continue for the rest of the day.  I'm not sure how I'm going to feel tomorrow as Pete will be at work all day.  And if she keeps crying for every poo it doesn't seem fair to her to carry on.  We'll see.

So whilst that has definitely taken most of the emotions of the week there has been one other major event.  Lydia is on the move!  She's figured out crawling.  She's been on all fours for a while and doing the rocking back and forth thing but hadn't figured out how to actually move forward.  And now she knows how to do it, she's off!  Which is quite a worry as we have stuff all over the floor that she is now after.  We have some shelving for the playroom waiting to be built but 2 of the base pieces are yet to be delivered so we don't know when we may do that.  That will help as I can limit the number of toys that Naomi gets down and help to make it safer for Lydia.  I've already had to move some Christmas lighting as Lydia was trying to pull the electrical cord and it wouldn't be long before she'd be trying to bite it – not great!  So it is an exciting step but comes with its challenges.

Our rental furniture has finally been collected.  So that's left some more space but we're still surrounded by boxes.  I manage to get about 1 unpacked a day but that's it.  So it's going to take a long time to get fully settled.

The weather has been crazy this week.  The snow falls and the machines come out and everyone carries on as normal (whereas I freak out about trying to drive anywhere).  But the rain comes down and everything stops!  The rain meant that there was more ice on the road and the walkways, so it was decided that the schools should be shut as it was too dangerous for those living away from main roads or those who had to walk to school.  Naomi's childcare follows the school pattern so it was also closed. But we managed to find enough to keep Naomi occupied.

I also went to the gym one afternoon and thankfully Lydia was happy for the entire time I was working out.  I think she's starting to get used to it.  She seems to know the lady in the crèche now and as I'm going in the afternoon it's a lot quieter so I think she feels safer when it's a bit quieter. 

Pete got tickets for the Alaska Shootout this week.  It's a basketball university event that happens every Thanksgiving.  He was really happy to be watching basketball.  We went together one night and then he went by himself the following night.

So that's about it for our week.  Keep praying for Naomi to be ok with potty training and that she'll go ok trying to do it at childcare too.  No idea how much they'll be helping her out.  So I may have to deliver more clean clothes to them over the day! And I think Christmas present shopping needs to start too.  As always much to do!

Alaskan Licence

So I've finally had a free evening to update you all on the comings and goings of the Scotts this last week.

So this week I passed my Alaskan driving road test.  Phew!!  Would have been fairly embarrassing to fail when I've been driving for 13 years.  But I managed to overcome the nerves, forget the cold and ignore the fact that Lydia had me up for half an hour in the night, and pass. So I am now the holder of an Alaskan driving licence.  Now to get Pete one.  His trouble is finding the time to even sit the knowledge test let alone the driving test.  He is incredibly busy with work at the moment but continuing to enjoy the new challenges.

As I've just mentioned, Lydia has been a bit of a mischief this last week or so.  She's been up in the evening or overnight for most nights.  She's had a cold but it doesn't seem like that is what's bothering her.  I think it's more of a separation anxiety thing as she stops crying the second we go in and starts again as soon as we close the door when we leave.  Not sure what to do really.  Hopefully she'll get over it soon.  She did manage to last for about 20 mins in the crèche at the gym this week.  I went during the afternoon and it was really quiet in there, so maybe that helped.  I did a really, really short run and came back, expecting her to be screaming and she was fine.  Lots on this coming week though but I'm hoping to be able to take her again so she gets used to being in there.

An exciting event this week was our sea freight from Australia arriving.  Yippee!!  Was so good to see some of our things again.  But we are now surrounded with boxes and 2 sets of furniture (ours and the rental company furniture).  We had also made a bit of an error with timing and invited all the neighbours on our street over for a party at the weekend.  So we had to apologise for the state of our house as we all manoeuvred around everything.

But having said that, we had a very successful party.  We'd only had 2 houses who told us they were coming so we weren't expecting many people but in the end, lots turned up.  We had a great time and Naomi loved being around the other children (mostly girls).  Apparently in summer, everyone is out on the street lots and all the kids run around together.  That will be something to look forward to.

I joined a book club this week.  The lady who was our relocation agent here invited me to join her group and I went along this week.  Was a lovely evening.  We all had dinner together and discussed the book along with life in general.  They meet once every other month which is a nice amount as I don't have tons of free time to read.  So hopefully another forum to make new friends.

In amongst all that we've tried to do some unpacking although there is still LOTS left to do.  I put up some Christmas lights outside our house and in the playroom.  Yes I know it's quite early but other people here have theirs up and we are leaving to go back to England on the 16^th December so they have to get their use for the year.  Naomi gets really excited by the "pretty colours" on our neighbour's house so I wanted to have some on ours too for her to be excited by.  So even though ours are far less impressive, she still seems to like them.

We also bought ourselves 2 La-Z-Boy recliners this weekend which is our Christmas present to each other.  Very exciting.  Just hoping they'll fit in our lounge room.  We'll do a proper measure once all the rental furniture has moved out tomorrow.  We can still change our mind on the new recliners but I'm hoping we don't have to.

So this week holds Thanksgiving.  We had a wonderful invite for thanksgiving from someone at the mums group at church I go to each week.  I had met this lady once and she sent me a message asking if we'd like to come over to their house on thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving here is a big family event so I'm very touched that she's asked us to join her family.  Unfortunately though we've had to say no, as we'd decided we wanted to use the long weekend to potty train Naomi.  Eeek!!  So please say a prayer for us as we run to the bathroom at lightning speed over and over and we enter this new phase.  Fingers crossed she gets it quickly.

Not tonight

So I usually try to blog on a Sunday night but it's just one thing too much tonight. Lydia has been awake for a lot of the evening plus we don't have any power to our laptop so I'm trying to do this by phone (takes a lot longer). So I will do my best to blog tomorrow night instead.

Apologies.

Separation Anxiety

No, I don't mean I have separation anxiety from Australia. I mean Lydia. She's not doing very well, whenever I'm not around. I tried to leave her twice in the gym playcentre this week. The first time she was crying after 15 minutes of me not being there. The second after 15 seconds! And the same at church. She's even not very happy when someone else holds her, even if I'm still in sight. She doesn't quite cry but she frowns and whines a bit. So it's something I'm still working on. Will try to go to the gym in the afternoons next week in the hope that it may be quieter and so she may feel a bit safer. Hopefully she'll get used to it otherwise I won't be able to go and I'll have to cancel my membership. That would make me sad as I've been looking forward to getting back into shape.

At the start of this week it snowed a lot. It was really deep and I'm very glad I have a big car, otherwise I'd feel like I was struggling to see over the top of the snow in some streets where it hadn't been ploughed. I went to a meet up of the mums and toddlers group I've joined. It was at the group organisers house and was really good fun. Naomi loved playing with some other kids her age and with new toys too. There are lots of activities organised with this group but I think we'll only be able to make it once a week due to childcare. But that will be ok for us. It's good to be chatting with other mums and also with others who are new to Anchorage (as many of the mums in this group happen to be).

Pete and I had a night without kids thanks to a wonderful lady at church who offered to come over and look after the girls for us. There was an evening at Pete's boss' house which we went to. Everyone is so lovely and welcoming. Was nice to see some familiar faces that I had met at the mayor's ball. We had a fun time.

Naomi started full days at childcare this week. I don't think she sleeps as long there as she would at home so she seemed a bit more tired in the evenings. I did find out something bad about the childcare place. Apparently there are two days where they let them watch a video (I had been told it was once a week which I thought was ok). But not only that. The length of time they watch for is not the 30 minutes I'd been told but an hour and a half. I think that's way too much for a 2 year old. Plus why am I paying someone to look after my daughter and all they're doing is sitting her in front of the TV. But I'm not sure there is much I can do about it. One of the TV sessions is quite late in the day so I may pick her up early that day. I'm sure that will lead to tears when she realises she doesn't get to watch so I'll need a good plan for what we'll be doing instead.

The most exciting thing for me this week was that we booked our flights back to England for Christmas. And we're going for 4 more days than I'd originally thought which is awesome. Now to book in the dates we'll see people. Hopefully we'll have some rest time too as it's been a hectic few months for us all.

I ordered a bed online for Naomi and bought the mattress from a store near Pete's work. Hopefully she won't have any issues with her bed changing when they take away the rental furniture. We're hoping that if we get her the same sheets she won't really notice or mind. I also bought a storage solution for the toys in the playroom. I'm really looking forward to that room getting tidier as there are toys all over the floor. It's actually getting quite dangerous on a couple of fronts. First I've nearly tripped a number of times on different toys. And also now that Lydia is moving around more (mostly backwards crawling but she can spin around and get to wherever she wants to go), its worrying having some of Naomi's smaller toys on the floor that Lydia could very easily get into her mouth. So it will be good to only be getting out a few toys at a time.

Also went to the church mums connect group this week. Naomi was much happier playing than last week but the poor thing did get bitten on the nose by a younger boy. He was trying to give her a cuddle and it went a bit too far. I've seen it before and it's just a phase but the poor mum was distraught and felt terrible. Naomi was fine. Cried a bit but I think it was mainly shock. She kept telling me that the green boy bit her (he was wearing a green T-shirt). This is the way she describes people now. Pete was understandably confused when she was talking about the little green boy.

We had a lovely family weekend. We started just by doing our weekly food shopping but I'd found a different supermarket during the week that meant we could drink coffee/hot chocolate whilst shopping, Naomi could go to the playcentre whilst we shopped, Pete could buy some good quality snow boots and I could look at Christmas decorations. All in the supermarket! I then went out at lunch time to a different place and bought myself some snow boots. We then went to a place called Kincaid Park to do some sledding. Below are some videos and photos. We then went to a pancake house for a light dinner as a family. Was really fun.

On Sunday we went to church and then Pete took Naomi swimming. I went to our neighbour's house at lunchtime for a clothing party (kind of like a Tupperware party but with clothes). There were some really beautiful things and I wish I had more money as I could have spent a fortune. Managed to restrain myself to a top and a jacket/sweater. We then went over to the house of one of Pete's work colleagues. It was good fun. The boys watched the American Football game on TV. They had cooked us a yummy Mexican meal and I chatted with the wife. They have two kids and Naomi played with them although she did try to boss the little girl around quite a bit! Was a late night for the girls so there were a few tears in the car on the way home but overall it was an enjoyable evening.

This week should see our sea freight arrive, as well as a party with the neighbours to get to know them. With Christmas fast approaching I may have to get my thinking cap on for presents too. More shopping – what a shame (hehe!).

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Did I not finish my last post by saying I didn't want the snow to come this week? Well that was a sure way to make sure it came down! I think we will be viewing white for a few months now. It's very pretty but has definitely brought some new challenges to us. But let me back up a bit.

Pete went away this week to New Orleans and Mum had just left last weekend so I was a bit worried about facing the week alone. Didn't start the best as I went to take my theory test at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and the process took a lot longer than thought. I'd driven all the way there and then they told me I didn't have the right ID. Had to go to the nearest branch of my bank to get something they would accept. Thankfully I then passed the test (phew!). But then they said I needed to wait in line. I wasn't sure what for. I just assumed it was for some piece of paper to prove I'd passed or a provisional Alaskan license or something. When I finally got to the front, I was told there was nothing I needed to do. Very annoying. Now the next step is to take the road test which is scheduled for a couple of weeks' time. Am nervous as still getting used to the other side of the road and I've picked up bad habits over the years since I last took my test. And now the snow has arrived there is another reason to be nervous.

For three of the days Pete was away, Rachel came to help me with the kids in the afternoon/evening. Was good to have someone else for Naomi to play with (and by play with I mean boss about!). Really helped having someone there, particularly at bathtime.

On Tuesday morning I woke to the snow. It actually scared me quite a bit. I'd been hearing so many stories of crashes and skidding in the snow whilst driving so I was getting quite scared about the snow arriving. I decided to stay in that morning. It was probably a good decision. I knew I had to go out in the afternoon to pick up Rachel. Thankfully before I had to leave, our driveway had been cleared as had our road. So I wasn't as nervous getting in the car (which is a better state of mind for driving).

Naomi cut her lip this week and I gave her some chocolate to help her feel better. The next morning she told me her lip felt better. But that afternoon, at the same time that she had cut her lip the day before, she announces that her lip was sore and so she needs some chocolate. Love it! Changed her mind and needed chocolate – definitely a girl.

Went to the gym for my first workout in a long time. Naomi was at childcare and I put Lydia in the crèche. The workout went ok but unfortunately Lydia wasn't very happy. She played ok for about 45 mins but then cried lots so they came to find me. Bit nervous about the next time that I have to put her in there now. They thought she was tired and hungry but she wasn't due for either a feed or a sleep. And after a couple of minutes with me she calmed down. If I can get my workout done quickly then hopefully she'll be ok for a short while. But I think we're hitting that separation anxiety phase. At church this week they had to call me back to the nursery as she was crying. So it's going to be tough there too. Will keep you updated.

I also went to a church group for Mums with toddlers. Was good. Naomi was a bit clingy at first but I think she'll warm up to it. And I think it'll be another good way to meet people.

Pete got back on Friday from New Orleans. He has also started at the new gym and enjoying being able to workout again. He's probably the most excited in the house about the snow. This weekend he went out and bought Naomi a sled but I'm fairly sure it's really for him! They went out on it after church today and seemed to have lots of fun. Pete has spent a lot of time recently on a particular high profile ad campaign in Washington which has all come together this weekend. Hopefully it will have the results hoped for.

Our current project is trying to find a new bed for Naomi. When we got here she moved from being in a cot to being in a big girls' bed. We've been renting our furniture but we've been told that our sea freight has arrived (yippee!) and may get delivered this week. So the rental furniture will be going and so Naomi needs her own bed. So we spent a lot of the weekend looking at different beds. Hopefully the one we've picked will work out ok.

Pete just did some late night shopping to get some emergency car equipment (torches, snow shovels, hypothermia blankets, etc.). Ironically the car skidded for him on the way there and he passed cars in the ditch. Thankfully our cars have an antiskid device so he made it there and back in one piece. Our babysitter also told us about her school bus going into the ditch and her friend's school bus turning right over. It's definitely dangerous out there.

So this week hopefully holds some safe driving, our things from Australia arriving, Naomi moving from half to full days at childcare and work dinners for Pete. We hope you're all enjoying life.