argh

Since I posted last we've made sushi - figuring it was time to illustrate what this mat was actually for. It was fun. Nina liked playing with the rice and then using a bowl of water to get it off her hands. She ate a bit of it. She likes asparagus. I really liked not paying 4£ for each little avocado roll, though I admit that despite various seaweed purchases, and having scoured the city for actual miso paste, my miso soup is not up to the standard of the local high-end Japanese restaurant. Surprised? not so much.

We went to Cornwall for three days, stayed in a pub in Looe, and enjoyed one beautiful sunny perfect day and one very wet, expensive and somewhat miserable day. We walked along the South West Coast trail to a tiny fishing village, sat on the beach, made sand castles, took a couple of little boat rides, and generally had a great mini-vacation. These pubs are great, not just because all pubs here tend to be pretty great, but because the rooms are all behind a locked door (and are themselves locked) and the baby monitor works from the pub downstairs. Brilliant. Looe itself is cute, if a bit overrun with touristy things. Lots of kids sink little bags of whatever fishy stuff, and then pull them up again, usually with a crab attached. They collect the crabs in buckets and then throw them back in. Nina liked watching the crabs. 

Then ... we came back. And started toilet training. I'll spare you all the details, but OH MY GOD. I wouldn't say it's easy. And it's not that it's not going well - actually we haven't had any yucky accidents and have had a manageable number of (as they say here) wee's. It's just that it's a lot of running back and forth to bathrooms, of trying to convince a wriggling child to sit there, and mainly, I think it's a bit stressful for Nina and she's acting out in other ways. It doesn't help that her appetite has taken a nose dive, but that last night she demanded more food at 9pm and we ended up giving her shreddies (what SUCKERS!). She's into this thing of saying she wants something, then she doesn't, then she does, then doesn't. She refuses her dinner, then the minute it's gone, wails about how it was HER dinner and she wanted to EAT it (after refusing it countless times). She's stopped going to bed like the little dream child that she was until we came back. She wants to go to the bathroom, but then when we finally get through a line, refuses to enter the stall, or try the potty which I'm now obliged to carry everywhere. She was such a delight just a few short days ago - eating fine, sleeping fine, agreeable (well, ok, we had a brief playground-related tantrum in Cornwall but other than that I don't remember many whiny moments), she was so patient at the Eden project (don't go there with a toddler, it's an expensive and pretty boring disaster with 11,000 other people) ... So is she not ready for this yet? Every online potty-related checklist, and there are a LOT of them out there, claims she is, both physically and cognitively. It's stressful for all toddlers, I know that. But, but, but ... well, maybe H-, her childminder, will sort her out. Maybe we'll wait. Maybe she'll learn. This is only day 3. What did I expect?