Stephen's birthday

Stephen is my best friend, and today was his 4th birthday, which makes him about six weeks older than me. Another way of putting that is to say he had to wait six whole WEEKS less than me to get his lego star wars watch. Anyway....i've forgiven him because he had his birthday party at one of my favourite places: the Adventure Zone at Granville Island. Joel is going to be mad when he finds out what he missed while he was at school today!

I wasn't too sure about the hot dogs we had for lunch, nor the cupcakes Stephen had instead of a birthday cake, but they did have plenty of icing on top, so i ate that.

All in all it was a very fun way to spend a morning, and now i really can't wait for it to be my birthday!

Back to preschool

After a week of escorting Joel to and from school (not to mention visiting at lunchtime to eat lunch with him and play in his playground) it was finally time for me to go back to preschool.

Even though i was too shy in my parent-teacher interview to say anything to either of the teachers, i did manage to choose a cubby (next to Stephen's - Yay!) and mom had prepared my earthquake kit, change of clothes, inside shoes, duplicate photos, hand towel (named and with a loop for hanging) and so i was all set...or so we thought.

Somehow when it came time to get dressed all my trousers had shrunk about two inches. Hmmmm...... Out came the age 4 trousers, some were good, some were on the short side. On to age 5. Hoorah for Next! My Levis fit in the waist, but i can't undo the button to go to the bathroom on my own, so they're no good for preschool. Anything that doesn't have an adjustable waist is hopeless...even though some of them are seriously cool skater gear. All i can say is Joel must have had a seriously big bum...none of my pants stay up at all without help.

So finally, dressed and ready, we made it. Our last year as a family at Wesbrook Preschool. Here's hoping it's a good one! Mom;s already enjoying just being secretary instead of being the President or responsible for enrollment. Now she just gets to tell everyone else what to do..It's called writing minutes apparently.

Finally....we get to go to IKEA

For the last few months mom and dad have been trying to coerce me into giving up the diapers and using the toilet.

First off they just asked nicely. Next they got cross and didn't ask so nicely. When that didn't work they tried bribing me with a candy machine (Joel was particularly keen on this approach), another failure there then led to blackmail.....but finally, almost by accident, they hit on the proper motivation.

On a family trip to IKEA Joel got to go and play in the kid's playroom, while i had to go shopping with mom and dad. NOT FAIR...but kids in diapers weren't allowed.

Thus started several weeks effort on my part to try and work out exactly how to go pee. Mom and i spent hours in the bathroom. I knew i needed to go...but how? Once mom tickled me until i got hiccups..unorthodox perhaps, but it worked! And then, while we were away at camp on Anvil island, i got it. Instead of sitting for 5-10 minutes, getting up, sitting down again, waiting some more..repeat as necessary...it just happened, straight away.

Phew.

Of course, since we were stuck on an island there wasn't an IKEA anywhere near by, but we got home on Saturday at the start of the holiday weekend and today we finally went. Not only did i get to go in the playplace, we also had meatballs for lunch, and ice-cream afterwards, and our friends Ethan and Stephen came too, to help celebrate.

What a great day!