Birthday highlight

Today was a great day for a birthday.  Beautiful weather, well-behaved kids, fun-time reclaiming back the living room from Christmas decorations and envisioning what I'd like to do in that room next when the budget fairy sprinkles her money dust my way (my husband is scared, very scared), and my son's end-of-the-day comment.

After enjoying supper at my favorite restaurant with our parents, I was summoned to the bathroom while in the middle of cleaning/straightening up (my usual pre-bedtime ritual), and I reluctantly went.  As I peaked my head around the door jam, my wide-eyed, adorable, blonde-haired boy was slouched on the potty, looking as if he was almost ready to fall in.  He very innocently looked up at me and said,

"I onwee poopoo for you mama.  HAPPY BIRFDAY!"

Followed by a huge sweet boy grin.  Then he said,

"Now can you hep me wipe?"

What a way to end the day. :)

Do you think I'd get arrested if I let him pee outside the store?

I got pretty brave the other day. Seven days into potty-training, I decided to venture out into the deep, dark, black hole of nothingness, also known as Wal-Mart. It was a much needed trip and I prepped as much as I could. Extra clothes, successful potty-break before we left, pad in the car seat, short list and shopping route prepared, etc. I was as ready as I could have been.

All the items were in the basket and I was on the way to the check-out when Nathan started staring off into oblivion and he was "concentrating." I abruptly stopped the shopping cart, placed my hand over his crotch and said, "No, pee-pee in your pants!"

Oh to be a fly on the wall for the next 15 minutes.

I noticed a nickel-size wet spot on the outside of his pants and encouraged him to "Hold it! Hold it! No pee-pee in your pants! We're going to the bathroom right now. No pee-pee in your pants! Hold it! Katherine sit down and hold on!"

We made a bee-line directly to the lovely I'd-rather-squat-outside-the-building bathrooms at Wal-Mart. I unloaded two dazed and confused children and luckily the handicapped stall, though I like to refer to it as the "Family" stall, was arms wide opened, ready for our arrival. Nathan did conveniently stick his arm out and run it along the length of the tile wall as he was walking in. I mean, how do you know what a tile wall feels like while walking alongside it, unless you try it?

It wasn't a full house, but there were at least 2 other occupants in same room. I can only pray that they were mothers or grandmothers because only the baptized-in-children few would have understood what was going on in our stall. God help those ladies if they hadn't been around children very much.

I did my best to "cover" the seat with flimsy 1-ply toilet paper. Don't know why because every time I do the hiney-hover-landing on top of the paper, it's always moved and a piece of the germ-infested seat has been exposed, touching skin.

This is where the dialogue started to get sketchy, or maybe the best adjective would be, interesting.

At home, when it's potty showtime, the bathroom is quiet, free of distractions and many times I've had to ask Katherine to step outside for Nathan to have his privacy. She understands and starts dressing up a Barbie or something. Him and I usually have about 3-5 seconds worth of locked-in-eye time while I hypnotize him into going, or basically whisper sweet nothings. But we didn't have that luxury in the current facility, so the distractions were abounding.

Nathan's eyes were darting from one corner of the bathroom to the other, listening to conversations and watching his sister bounce around the large Family stall. I did my best to get his attention,"Nathan, it's time to go pee-pee honey. Shhhh, I don't hear it. Is there pee-pee coming out?"

Poor guy, he's trying to listen to me and concentrate on releasing the flood gates the entire time his sister is skipping around like a fairy and asking a hundred questions about what the toddler restraint seat is for.

K: "Mom, how do you put this on? Does this go over your head and then it clicks, like this? Is this for babies that open the door when their mommy is pee-ing? I think Nathan should get tied up in this, don't you? So, babies just sit on it like this?"

M: "Katherine, hush! Be still and be quiet! He hasn't gone yet and he needs to concentrate. Just stop!"

This is where the contorted mouth enters. I'm doing my best to be quiet, yet firm and let my little ones know I'm serious. So what better thing to do but turn both sides of my mouth down, scrunch up my nose, enlarge my eyeballs to a freakish size and talk without trying to move my lips. You know, the silent mom yell (hereby referred to as [smy]) I remember Bill Cosby perfecting.

N: "Mama, I all done."

M: "No, no, no you're not, you've haven't let the pee-pee out yet. I didn't hear it. [smy] Get your hand out of your mouth. This bathroom is disgusting, full of bugs that get in your ears and hurt."

Sidenote: Two weeks ago our Dr. visit yielded yet another ear infection and the best way I could describe it to Nathan was that bugs got in his ear and were stinging him. He got stung by something a couple weeks before that on his thumb so, now he describes ear infections as bugs in his ears. But the rest of the world doesn't know that story, we just sound like Rainbow people living in the woods with a hygiene problem when I tell that story in public.

N: "Mama, I all done."

M: "No, you're not, stay there and look me in the eye. [smy] Katherine, be still and don't put your hands in your mouth either. Let the pee-pee out."

Silence has overcome the bathroom. Probably some out of fear and some out of wondering if I would make it out alive.

And we have a tinkle sound.

You could almost hear the other women breathe a sigh of relief.

There was lots of praising, high fives, reminders to keep hands out of the mouth and convincing Katherine that she really didn't need to go here, it could wait until we get home.

Pull the pants up, make sure I'm not leaving a child or a purse in the stall and we head to the sinks. Nathan was thrilled because there was a shorter one and he declared 4 times in a row, "I unna do it all by myself, Mama!"

This is also when, in the heavenly realms of angels watching over mommies and children, one angel passed on her lighted torch to another. As we walked to the sinks, there was a younger mother there changing her child on the diaper changing table.

The torch has been passed because my angel was exhausted and ready to pass out.

That's all Katherine needed to see: an infant. It didn't matter what the infant was doing, it could have been hanging from the ceiling or even chewing on it's hand, it's an infant and she's mesmerized by them. So, one child is occupied, still and quiet and I've got the chance to take care of the other one.

I do as little assisting as I can with Nathan washing his hands and remind him once more, [smy] "Do not put your hands in your mouth." Dry off his hands and tell him, [smy] "Do not touch ANYTHING!"

And then it happened again. Well, maybe not the torch passing, but star-sprinkled glitter dust fell from the heavens and provided my little family with another toddler to attract Nathan's attention. The young mother calmly changing the infant's diaper also had an adorable toddler standing next to her with gorgeous, flowing, long brown curls and a sweet bow in her hair. But she was jumping up and down, holding her crotch, screaming, "I gotta go pee-pee! I gotta go pee-pee!"

That kept his attention long enough for me to help Katherine wash her hands, dry them off and calmly escort my kiddos out of the bathroom, drama-free! And it might have even looked like they were that good the entire time, to a select few!

Needless to say, making trips to any store with less-than-stellar bathroom facilities is not on the radar anytime soon.

Weeks worth of updates

I've been jotting down "events" that have happened in our household over the past 2 weeks. Here's the run-down...

The GREAT news: Nathan has started letting me hold him to sleep. It's not something I do every night, but sometimes I just need the cuddling. Also new, he was fussy in the middle of the night last week and did the unthinkable. When I brought him into our bed to calm him down, which usually doesn't work, he fell right asleep. He usually thinks it's time to play, bonk Daddy's head while he's sleeping, do the back-arch-baby-roll out of my grip, and I end up putting him back in his bed to let him cry it out. Rocking him in the chair and sometimes even walking around with him wouldn't do it. But that night, dare I say it for fear of jinxing any chance it might happen again, he cuddled. And I ate up every second of it. He nestled right in between my arm and side and fell asleep with no resistance. It has been the only time in his life he's ever slept in our bed, and I loved cuddling with my baby.

The NOT-SO-GREAT news: Nathan has found one of my weaknesses and last week decided to take full advantage of the situation. My weakness: paying attention to our children when people first come into our house. I feel it is my duty as the hostess to at least open the door, say hi with a smile (which means no raising my voice at children), have a small conversation with them when they come inside (and I mean small, "Hey, come on in. Have a seat. You find it okay? Want a drink?, etc.), get them situated (seated or at least comfortable) and then go back to paying attention to children. This is usually a 5-minute process. Not long, by any means, but the little stinker found it out and exploited the situation. The first incident happened when I was letting the babysitter in the door. She had been here before, but only once, and I was trying to show her the food set out for the kiddos' lunches, etc.

Mistake #1: I left the door open to the animal's food. ('Animals' being the dog & cat, not my children). Not one minute into my hostessing duties, I run back to the room and notice my son hunched over the dog food and water bowl. He was holding a couple pieces in his hand and making a yucky-fied face while sticking out his tongue. The front of his shirt was covered in water, along with the floor underneath him, because he had been violently splashing the water in the bowl. So, within a minute he did all this. I should have locked him up then.

Mistake #2: I left the door open to the bathroom. After cleaning his hands from the dog food incident, I mistakenly put him down and assumed the worst had passed. Oh no, dude made a bee-line straight for the bathroom, when he saw me opening the door to let in Aunt N and J. My time, again, was occupied with something other than watching children. Within minutes, the house was eerily quiet, so I went looking for the little monster. This time he was playing in the toilet. Thankfully (I say sarcastically), his sister forgot to flush. Without going into details, I know Nathan prefers solids that float and disintegrating toilet paper is fascinating when he tries to pick it up and it falls apart in his fingers.

Sigh!

On to Katherine: Jim was talking to her one day about how beautiful he thought she and myself were. He asked, "Do you think your mommy is beautiful?" (Does he not understand the significance of 'loaded questions'?)
Her response, "No, I'm the most beautiful."
I guess that's what happens when you hear over and over again how beautiful you are.

She's wearing a hat with a gator on it and Daddy's hat says, "Life's Too Short to be Dancing With Ugly Women."

My beautiful little lady showed her 'rougher' side the other day. Us 3 were outside picking up magnolia seed pods for brother's birthday party. She was sitting right next to me, chatting away like usual, then next thing I know it's quiet. I looked to my right and about 15 feet away, IN THE FRONT YARD, she had hiked up her skirt, pulled down her panties and was peeing in the grass! Uh, okay. It's not like she's ever seen one of us peeing in the yard.

There must be something about being able to pee right there, without having to bother yourself with going inside. I have a nephew that helped himself right outside of his school, in front of a mess-load of people. Half of them didn't even notice but the few that did thought it was cute and totally understood.

I actually got a picture of them playing in their tent this time. And they played together so nicely for about 15 minutes.
Katherine and her best bud, AC, watching Tinkerbell. This was Nathan's actual birthday. We 3 made cupcakes and decorated them together.
Some quality outside-time with Daddy. I'm so glad his schooling is over.
Some of the "finer" moments for Mommy and Daddy...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Makin' progress

Today was playgroup day, and because my little man has turned into the Princess and the Pea when it comes to sleeping (he totally gets that from me), we had playgroup at our house today. It was only Jodi and Aidan, but still very fun. We decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather, blazing hot sun to warm the frigid hose water collecting in the kiddie pool and quiet time inside for my sleeping Prince. So after breakfast, I told Katherine to go put on her bathing suit to get the backyard ready for fun, fun, fun. She used the bathroom first and after WAAAAAY too long in the bathroom I called from the kitchen:

Mommy: Katherine, are you okay?
Katherine: Yeth mommy, I still pooping.
M: OK. Let me know if I can help.
K: OK, Mommy.
Minutes later...she comes walking into the kitchen with her pajama shirt on and nothing else while holding up her Belle (from Beauty and the Beast) panties between her thumb and pointy finger with her nose scrunched up and says:
K: Mommy, you want to smell these?
M: Uh, no. Is there a reason why I should smell them?
K: Mommy, they smell like poopy.
The careful and quick inspection showed no tell-tale signs of the obvious, so she received further instructions to put on her bathing suit.

(Picture taken previously but a true sign of what happens when the bathroom stay is extended)

And my little man pleasantly surprised me this morning by peacefully going back to sleep after feeding at 6:30 and not waking until 7:45. Although, for nap time today, I waited until he had been quiet for 15 minutes before I decided to go inside his room and put a blanket over him (afraid the A/C vent might be waking him up), and he suddenly heard me walk in. He jerked his head up and I fell to the floor. Then the whimpering started and one hand peered over the bumper pad. More whimpering and two hands peered; the legs stood up and he was looking toward the door. I was precariously perched half way under the crib trying to hide from his sudden wakening. He then looked over to the closet, then down and saw two feet on the floor. His eyes curiously followed the feet to the body and head attached to MOMMY! He was very confused. My hearty-laughing didn't seem to calm him either. I'm sure it was all just too much. He didn't take anymore of a nap.

We're makin' progress.