Potty hair is worse than potty mouth

So, CJ is potty-trained now.  He’s almost three and a half!  I guess some kids potty-train this late in the game, but if I had my druthers, it would be a lot sooner!  Diaper messes from a three-year-old butt are MESSY.

We tried, and threatened, and took privileges away — like not letting him have meatballs — hoping to “train” him sooner.  But my CJ, he’s a stubborn one.  He said, “I just won’t eat meatballs” and pooped in his diaper anyway.  And that’s pretty determined, seeing as meatballs are his favorite food!

One morning last week, at 6:30am, he came into my room and said, “I have to go pee.”  Ugh…  roll out of bed… Couldn’t you have decided to potty train yourself at a more decent hour?  He hasn’t had an accident since!  He wakes up dry every morning, and even impresses me with his iron bladder.

(My dad used to call me “Old Ironsides,” because I often refused to pee at rest stops on the way to Florida.  Maybe there’s a connection here?)

On the way to the airport Tuesday night, CJ announced, “I have to pee.”  We were on the beltway in Baltimore, already running on the late side to pick Anna up, so I said he had to wait.  (I’d put a diaper on him before we left, just in case!)  It was an hour later, at McDonald’s, that he finally had a chance to pee!  And he was still dry.  I don’t think any of my other kids could’ve held it that long!

Today I was wishing CJ wasn’t quite so excited about this potty thing.  I’d just wiped him after a poop, then left him to flush and wash by himself.  I went back to check on him when I realized he was still in the bathroom, and found his hair dripping wet!  I was hoping that it was just sink water, since all my kids are fond of sticking their heads under the faucet, but nope.  “I stuck my head in the potty!”, he said.  (Umm… he wanted to see where the poop was going?  Who knows.)  I asked him several times why his hair was wet, hoping he’d change his answer to, “I stuck my head under the sink“, but he never budged.  It was potty water.

He got a good scrubbing down in the tub!

This post is linked up to Weekend Bloggy Reading.

Happy!!!

Nine more inches of snow last night!  This makes me happy!

No, I’m not contradicting myself.  Warm days and green grass make me happy too, and that makes sense, right?  And I wasn’t ready for winter to be over.  Winter means snow!  Remember, Massachusetts imprinted on me for life.

It’s sunny.  Sunshine makes everyone happy!

My husband is home for the day.  This makes me happy too!

The kids let us sleep in a little.  (My trick of cutting out nap time for CJ is working!)  Happy again.

My husband let me sleep in even longer.  Happiness.

He also made coffee.  Definitely happy!

He shoveled and plowed all the snow while I sat inside and drank my coffee.  Isn’t he awesome?  Of course I’m happy.

We’re driving to the airport in four and a half hours to pick up my sister Anna.  She’s staying for a couple of weeks!!!  Yes, I’m HAPPY!!!  (And no, not high.  I’m being good and only drinking one, um… two… cups of coffee a day.)  My kids are happy too, of course, since Anna is a super-cool auntie that makes life extra fun when she’s around.

Kids are happy, the mom’s happy too, what else can I say?  Wish I could spread some of my happiness to any of you that need some!

Where I talk about the weather.

Our 70 degree weather is gone.  I miss it.  The sunshine and warmth made me ridiculously happy!  Three whole days of wearing flip-flops, drinking iced coffee (wait — that’s normal), letting the kids go barefoot, and hours and hours at the local parks.  School?  Well, maybe a little.

For the last couple days, we’ve had high winds.  Like, so strong there were warning signs on the highway.  It made driving on winding roads through the woods a little exciting!  I kept ducking.

I was in the woods for a while, driving up to York, PA to visit a friend.  I stayed for a ladies’ secret sister dinner/tea at her church, where my friend was speaking.  Moosies was the only kid accompanying me, and she was a perfect angel!  She slept the whole two hours up and two hours back, and performed her own little cuteness show the whole evening.  Reminded me a lot of when it was just Kbug and me, once upon a time…

Today we’re home from church.   Sickness, again.  CJ this time, spraying snot out of his nose.  Literally.  I’ve been feeling really, really good, but I had to run to the bathroom and throw up after a particularly violent sneeze!  Snot dripping down his face, globs of it all over the floor — SO gross.  They say once you become a parent, you get used to your own kids’ bodily fluids, but that’s not entirely true!  We just clean up because we have to.  It’s still gross.

More basement:

The window spot.  (Two more windows are going side-by-side in the other garage door space.  The garage doors are leaving, and a wall arriving.)

Dee keeps threatening to carpet my purple stairs.  Uh-uh!  No way!

Friends like these are rare…

Last week I had my first midwife visit.  Sometimes I think I get pregnant just so I can see Rosie for nine months!  I love my midwife.

Rosie picked up Baby’s heartbeat, at just ten weeks.  So nice to know that all this throwing-up, indigestion, exhaustion, and getting fat is not just my imagination!

When I got home, my house was sparkly clean.  A few weeks ago, four of my friends called me up and said they wanted to clean my house and make me a meal.  They picked the day I’d be out of the house for my midwife appointment.

Isn’t that just the nicest thing EVER?! 

Yeah, I thought so too.  I almost cried when I walked in the door and saw that they’d done EVERYTHING on my list, plus some.  Besides my dusting (whole house, including ceiling fans and woodwork), they mopped my floors, washed my dishes, folded my laundry, vacuumed my stairs, swept my front porch, and scrubbed my bathrooms.  All three bathrooms!

*Happy sigh…*

I was sooo wishing I had bubble bath, to pour right then and there in my nice clean bathtub.  It’s on my Walmart list.

Instead, I put half my kids in bed, shipped the other half outside, and sat on the couch soaking up the sunshine.  I could see it, streaming in my squeaky clean windows.  (My friends washed the windows and front door too!)

The dust is here again, with the never-ending laundry pile, the dirt, and the window smudges.  (Which I don’t mind so much…)  But every time I think about my lovely friends and their generous gift of time and elbow grease, I feel wrapped up in love all over again!

A snuggly kind of Wednesday

Dee is home for the day!  Nothing going on at work.  He and I stayed up late watching “Parenthood” and playing Super Mario Brothers last night.  When the boys woke up at 7:00am, I stuck “Spiderman” in the DVD player, and crawled back in bed with my warm hubby.  I wish all Wednesdays were like this!

He’s pounding away in the basement now, with two boys eager to sweep up sawdust and hand Daddy screws.  I had to use the chop saw for the first time this morning, during an emergency, and I cried!  I hate power tools.

I love the way the basement is turning out!  Still a long way to go, especially with Dee working on it just a few evenings a week.  I can’t wait for carpet, tile, more windows, and cool track lights!  Dee’s wiring today, so it’s a little dark in the basement.  He managed to zap himself a few times.  Guess I have some boo-boos to kiss later!

My kids watching Daddy.  They asked him for popsicles, not me…

And this has nothing to do with the basement, but I LOVE this little face!

Nope. I can’t do it.

                                                                              (started February 3rd, 2011)

My throat hurts and my nose still burns, from stuff dripping back down.  I hate it!  Dee always comes in to rub my back, if he’s around when I’m puking.  I love the feel of his hand, but I feel so unlovely and just YUCK with my head bent over the toilet!  He loves me anyway.

It’s been a rough couple weeks, I’m not gonna lie!  Not horrible, but definitely rough.  On the days when I feel good, or even just the hour or two that I feel half decent, I do school with Kbug.  So my dishes, my laundry, my dust, my dirt… it all just sits.

You’ve all heard that phrase, “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle,” right?

IT’S A LIE!

If we could handle it all ourselves, what a proud and arrogant people we’d be.  God is always giving us more than we can handle, so that we have to rely on Him.  That’s when His glory shines.

I remember late last year, Dee and I were discussing the best time to conceive this baby.  Before or after garden planting?  Or harvesting?  Wait until Moosies is two?  Maybe I shouldn’t have a brand new baby right at the beginning of a school year, and I definitely don’t want to be sick while I’m still learning the ropes of homeschooling!  (I didn’t want to be sick anytime, but morning sickness is a given for me!)  So many factors…

Is there a perfect time to have a baby?

Even while we were talking, I thought, “God doesn’t want us to have a baby when I think I can handle it.  God wants us to have a baby in the middle of our busy, overwhelming, messy life.  Because then HE has to be the One to give us strength.”

He did it, you know, made us lean on Him.  We were going to get pregnant this March or later, and now here I am a quarter of the way through this pregnancy!  I don’t think anytime would have been easy, but I’m definitely overwhelmed right now.

One day last week, shortly after we got back from Massachusetts, I could barely stand.  Our suitcases were still unpacked, I had trash bags of dirty clothes, dishes teetering, dirt and stuff EVERYWHERE, and I realized I had a choice.

Should I break down and sob, “I can’t do this!” when my husband came home?  (I’m really good at getting stressed out and complaining to Dee!)  Or should I smile peacefully, right in the middle of the mess.

Dee found me washing dishes, and he found me with a smile.  It was a tired smile, but he wrapped his arms around me and I knew it was okay.  He has strength like God sometimes.

I didn’t get to that smile easily.  I knew I needed to, and I knew only God could put it in my heart, but I didn’t even have strength to eloquently ask Him for it.  “Help me, help me…” was my auto-repeat as I tried to focus on my kids, and finding food, and keeping food down, and just doing the next thing in front of me!

It’s not that rough anymore, I’m just telling my story.  (And explaining my blogging absence for the past couple weeks!)  I’m feeling better every day, and for that I am soooo grateful!  I’ve heard that morning sickness means a healthy baby, so I am grateful for a safe pregnancy so far. 

Today, in fact, I feel awesome!  Iced coffee and pizza with banana peppers will do it every time.