Random Everyday

Hello all. Well I thought while I had a few minutes I'd included just some random things. The first item I would like to dedicate to my Grandmother who will read this thanks to my cousin Frannie!! Thanks Fran for printing it out and mailing to her - means a lot to me!!!
Anyway, it has to do with the local paper. It's definitely done different here. First of note is the delivery. It comes about 5:30pm, not AM. So the paper is from all that has happened either later the previous day or early in the day. Secondly, it only comes Mon-Fri. Though Friday's has a nice Puzzle section that I use to relax, crosswords, sudoku and a few others. But we read every inch of it just to keep informed so we're getting our money's worth. Speaking of which, a young boy delivers the paper rain or shine and a few days ago it was raining fierce. We pay him each Friday and Kevin likes to give him a couple of Rand extra for his troubles.
A few weeks ago we went for what turned out to be a very long drive to see snow! (Told you it was cold here.) Though it doesn't snow in Mitchells Plain, it does on the mountains and was a rare occurrence in that the thing to do was go see it. So we drove into the town of Ceres, up into the mountain tops to see the white stuff. It was scarce, since it had been there a while and was beginning to melt. There was enough to enjoy a few snow balls and to build a very short snowman. The girls had a good time and that was the main reason we went.
Once last quick item - KATIE USED THE POTTY!!! Just yesterday (Sunday) she said, "I have to go pp on the potty" and ran for the bathroom. I helped her up and she did her business!! Look's like Emily's been instructing her well - LOL. Let's see if it continues or is a one off thing.
XO

Bathroom Talk

Good day all. I thought I'd share some new developments in regards to Emily. I've found that the statistic is the average 4 year-old asks 437 questions a day. Well despite the fact that Emily is just over a month away from that glorious age, she's begun to meet this quota.

The other day as we were grocery shopping, of course, she had to use the bathroom. Yea, public bathrooms (sarcasm I promise). Any how, just in the stall alone I got grilled, the toilet paper dispenser being the main subject. Here's how it went:

Emily: What's this?

Mommy: The toilet dispenser. Its holds the toilet paper.

Emily: What's this?

Mommy: Its the screw that holds the dispenser on the wall.

Emily: What's this?

Mommy: Its the window so you can see how much toilet paper is left.

Emily: What's this?

Mommy: It's where the toilet paper comes out.

(Okay, so maybe it's the same question 437 times!)

Now this was not the beginning of the inquiry. The first question was… 

Emily" "Is that the toilet?" 

Mommy: "Yes, that's the toilet." 

Now why would she ask that? Because here in SA, the public toilets for the most part are not your average looking toilet. For one thing they're completely round, not oval like we're use to. Secondly there's no toilet seat. The thickness of the rim is such that it's ample sitting space. 

Emily: "What's that button on the wall?"

Mommy" "It's how you flush the toilet."

We've seen these before. It's just a button on the wall. I usually flush these karate style - with my foot.

Once out of the stall we wash hands.

Emily: "How am I going to dry my hands?"

Mommy: "Use my jeans."

Now here in SA its hard to find a public bathroom that has a paper dispenser. It mostly the hot air dryer thingy, which is best I know, but Emily refuses to put her hands under something that is that noisy and blows hot air on her.

With that we were out of the bathroom to resume our shopping. There were more questions of course.

So now what? Well Katie's potty training has begun with the leadership coming from big sister Emily. Here's how it went one day.

Emily: "I have to go to the bathroom. Come on Katie."

Katie: "O-hey"

Emily: "This is the toilet. There are no monsters here. (as they both look inside the potty). Now you take your pants off like this. And sit on the potty and then the pee-pee comes out."

Katie watched like the good student. And then handed her big sister some toilet paper. Of course we were there to assist the clean up and redressing. And so the rest of the day, Emily would proclaim, "I have to go to the bathroom, come on Katie." To which Katie would reply, "O-hey." 

So we'll have to see how quickly the student learns from the master! LOL

How Cold Is It??

Okay, I know this is a subject of late. But hey I'm a born and raised Floridian and this is cold. Its so cold... now for the collective "how cold is it?" Its so cold that you can see your breathe INSIDE the buildings!!! That's right! So while you're experiencing the heat of the Sunshine State and getting cooled off by the breezes of your air conditioner we're breathing "smoke" inside! So enjoy! :P

Happy Birthday

Our little Katie turned 2 yesterday. To celebrate we ordered pizza - which she was happy to gobble down, a small cake that was finger-licking good and we watched Curious George. It was a nice evening, though Katie was quite the grump all day. Was she remembering her birth?? Nay, just having a day - and it was her birthday so her choice. You'll note the candles are not lit. It wasn't because we didn't want to, it's that we couldn't. We didn't have matches or anything. We attempted to set napkins and tissue aflame to use as a torch but no luck. All we got was small embers and lots of smoke. So that's the story with that