A change in plans -- and a tinkle.

I had planned to write something about the deterioration of society in the last 100 years. But it might be a topic too complex for my little light-hearted Mommy Blog.

Meanwhile, this afternoon as Daddy sat, enjoying his geekTV, Monkey girl, (AKA Butterball) grabbed his hand and pulled him up off of the couch. She then drug him down the hallway and beat on the bathroom door. So, he opened the bathroom door. At about that point, I joined him to see what was going on. We're used to being summoned into the kitchen for a snack, or a drink. Sometimes she'll even demand to go go bed. Once or twice, she's gone to the bathroom and expected a bath (she leans over and beats on the inside of the tub). But this time, she patted the toilet.

So, thinking it was a fluke, I pulled off her diaper and put her on the toilet. She sat there a minute, holding onto the handles. Her eyes gleamed with pride at being such a big girl on the potty. And after a few seconds, she let it loose. The little girl, barely 13 months old, tinkled on the toilet. And then she clapped her hands with us as we praised her.

And then we gave her a cookie.

I'm not giving up on diapers, or even expecting it to amount to much. But could she really be thinking about potty training? She can't pull down her pants or say "potty." That has always been my rule about when to start potty training - -that it was useless if they weren't old enough to do most of it by themselves. But I guess if she's going to drag us to the bathroom when she needs to go, it's one less diaper to change. And it's a start. Although it's a start I'm not sure I'm ready for.

A typical day in my life.

Today is one of those days that I will look back on and laugh about. Eventually. Eventually, but probably not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But probably sometime pretty soon.

It started out a bit too early. Right about 3:00 AM. And again at 4:30 AM. And 5:15AM. 6:30AM.

Then, Butterball decided to exercise her lungs. And the capillaries in her face. For three hours. Without stopping. After I gained about sixty new grey hairs, and sympathized with every mother whose ever thought about doing horrible things to their four month old, I put on some crazy music, and she finally went to sleep. Ten minutes before we needed to leave for the afternoon play date. A play date that I definitely needed. Little Monster needed it too. In fact, I'm not sure who needed it more.

The last time we went over to this friend's house, Little Monster had a diaper explosion of catastrophic proportions. There was poop everywhere. Thinking of that, I packed an extra pair of socks, underwear and pants. I didn't want to have a problem. I also packed an extra outfit for Butterball.

We got to my friend's house and the kids began running around the backyard, playing and having a good time. It was hilarious to watch them all play together, using such big imaginations. And then it happened. One of the children came into the house and announced:

Little Monster's pants are down!!

What? His pants are down?

We looked outside to find Little Monster standing in the middle of the yard, jeans and underoo's around his ankles. There was a streak on his leg, and poop on his shoe. He must have had an accident and then tried to clean it up for himself.

I walked over to begin getting him cleaned up.

Did you have an accident?

Yes. Me doop in mine pants.

I see that. As I began pulling off his pants, careful not to disturb any remnants within his pants, I noticed that there were no remnants in his pants. Not even a skid mark was left in his underwear. WHERE WAS THE POOP?

Little Monster -- where is your poop?

In da back ward.

You pooped IN THE BACK YARD?

I began cleaning up Little Monster's shoe while he went inside the house. Without pants or underwear. My friends began searching the backyard for the poop. And that's when my friend's husband came home. To a bottom-less Little Monster. What a nice surprise for him, huh?

After hosing down the backyard, his shoes, and getting him dressed in his 'backup' clothing my friend offered me a cup of coffee. I took it, and considered asking for something to "Irish" it up.

Luckily, things settled down. Butterball enjoyed playing with other mommies, the kids threw a wedding in the backyard, complete with veil and flower girl. And there were no temper tantrums when we had to leave. I felt refreshed, glad for the time with good friends who wouldn't judge me for having a three year old who would poop in someone else's backyard.

So, I began making dinner. As I got elbow deep in chopping veggies, Butterball started whining and crying in her chair. And Little Monster, sitting on the toilet was whining for a butt wipe. Just in time for Not the Momma to come home and find out what my life is like every day.

Every. Day.

The Potty Train

The trip was postponed, but it did happen. Little Monster got to ride the POTTY TRAIN!!! Really, it was a train up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was pretty.

I think he was so overwhelmed he didn't know how to react.

He is ready to give his ticket to the "maaaaan."

I have no idea what this is all about, other than I told him to smile. This is what I got.

Then the train whistle blew. It was a bit loud, and he was surprised by it.

In the end, I think he had a good time.

Ninety Eight Percent Complete

After days and days of cleaning poop from walls, toilets, legs, feet, hands, arms, trash cans, sinks, carpets, and potty chairs, we're almost done.

Little Monster has successfully gone in the potty with only a couple of accidents. During this training period, we've put him to the test too. We've disrupted our schedules, traveled long distances and given him full strength apple juice (creator of one of the accidents).

He's gone through more nights than not without using his pull-up and refuses to soil himself if possible. (It wasn't possible to avoid the accident after the apple juice).

So, I guess it's time I take him to the potty train. When he started yelling at me to change his diapers saying "I need a diaper change!" I told him it was time to be potty trained. He misunderstood and believed that there is an actual potty train. I tried passing off the caboose at the KOA we recently stayed at, but it didn't cut it.

So, the potty train trip is planned. Stay tuned.

Reasons for Laughter

Daddy takes LM to the potty -- in a public restroom. Potty training is working!

He helps LM to use the toilet. Then tells LM to wait patiently while he uses the bathroom himself.

As Daddy is washing his hands, LM asks:

"Daddy, did you get all your pee pee out?"

Yes, Little Monster.

"Good Job Daddy!!!!"

Apologies. And then, the rest.

First, I need to take care of some business. Little Monster has taken to saying "Stupid Woman!" in a rather rude and hilarious tone. I blamed Not the Momma, because he has been known to say those words, with that inflection when he is driving and a woman cuts him off, etc. (You don't want to know what he says to guys. Praise the Lord that Little Monster hasn't repeated that!) So, I blamed him. We are not allowed to say the "long S word" in our house anymore, because each time LM hears it "Stupid Woman!" or "Stupid Dog!" or stupid something comes out of his mouth.

This morning as we were getting ready to leave the house, Little Monster was watching one of his favorite shows -- Calliou. I used to hate the show, but because it grants me 30 minutes of peace, I've made peace with it. Yes, the kid is whiny and the parents are perfect and never lose their patience (even when it is freezing, snowing, you lose your keys, the car won't start and you were already running late). BUT, there are generally lessons learned. This mornings lesson: Stupid isn't a nice word. It all starts when a skateboarding kid nearly crashes because of some birds and says "Stupid Birds!" with the same inflection that NtM and LM say Stupid Woman! So, perhaps Little Monster learned that word from somewhere other than NtM. I apologize sweetie. But you still can't say that, or any other fun words around the kid.

That kid of ours. What can I say? He's a parrot. But if you tell him he's a parrot, he'll probably say. "No, I too loud." And then go on to tell you about how he's a "duper-hero" and how he has to "ressssue teeple." If you're really lucky he'll tell you about how he and his blue hands are taking a rocket ship to the moon with Mickey Mouse. No joke. He really thinks he's going to the moon with Mickey. I hate to spoil his fun, though. At least we're getting past the whole "poop" everywhere thing. We've not had an accident or wet pants or pull-ups (during the day) for a week now. Progress! Of course, we have had to discuss the texture and shape that the, um, fecal matter takes once it lands in the potty. Isn't that a fun discussion? So, while I'm not cleaning up the poop so much, my life is still heavily saturated with discussions about it.

Even though I won't miss the potty-training clean ups, I'm going to miss the 2 1/2 year old version of this child. This child whose imagination knows no bounds. The child who makes up stories daily, pretends to be a dog, cat, Buzz Lightyear and Boo-bot Monsters or Dinosaurs. I'm going to miss his giggle and the dance and song he preforms when goes poop in the potty. I'm definitely going to miss hearing his demands for the cowboy song at nighttime, and his know-it-all attitude. Especially when I tell him he's cute, and he says "No, I'm LM."

Poop. Poop. Poop.

Have you ever potty trained a boy who refused to poop? The other day Little Monster told me that he had a lid on his butt and that was why the poop wouldn't come out. After a few hours of whining, crying and yelling, James finally listened to me and took the "lid" off and threw it away so he could sit on his frog potty and get his poop out. I have to give it to the kid. He's smart. He knows that if he goes a little bit, he'll get his M&M for using the potty. Then he'll wait a few more minutes and go a little more to get another M&M. But the poop, the poop is killing me.

This being a mother of a potty-training pre-schooler and an infant, it is hard. Probably, no definitely the hardest job I've ever had. My days of making Blizzards and shooting whipped cream at my friends, or playing with my preschool class, or working on ID Card templates, heck even listening to people yell at me because they were too stupid to know the difference between the power button on their monitor and their computer were easier. What did I do with all of those free Saturday afternoons when I wasn't cleaning poop off of walls, toilets, trash cans, floors, and carpets? I don't know, but I'm sure it was time wasted. Well, maybe not. My apartment was usually generally clean. By "generally clean" I mean it didn't look like a toy tornado came tearing through the place dropping stuff off as it went.

Life was definitely easier when I wasn't trying to potty train a child. That in and of itself is hard enough, without trying to keep an infant happy. Butterball is a generally happy baby, but it seems that the second Little Monster does something that requires my full attention, she has a fit and won't stop until I'm holding her. And nursing her. Have you ever tried to nurse an infant while cleaning poop off of every surface of your home? It isn't fun.

But then there are days like yesterday. When there was no whining, no accidents. Days when my child behaved as though he were an angel who knew how to use a potty (even if it is shaped like a frog, sitting in my living room and requires being cleaned after each use). Days when my little girl is all smiles and coos and giggles. And suddenly cleaning up all of that poop isn't such a bad deal. After all, even if the job requires biohazard removal, at least I get to come to work in my pajamas.

Rambling... Because I can.

Yes. I'm still pregnant. I plan on remaining that way forever. That way I can torture my husband by making him do all of the cleaning and laundry. And because it gives me something to complain about.

My stomach now sticks out as far as my entire forearm. The muscles that support it are starting to flip me off. Daily and nightly. It used to be just nightly but now they've decided to take turns during the day shift as well.

Everyone seems very concerned when they see me. But that's just because if you walk up to me from behind you don't notice, then when I turn to the side, my body suddenly quadruples in size. That, and if my stomach is this big, how big is the child? We have an ultrasound scheduled for Monday to find out. I am praying that because I scheduled that ultrasound I won't need it.

The other day we were walking somewhere, and I didn't realize that my belly was sticking out of my pants and my shirt was riding high. I realized when I got home and looked in the mirror why everyone I met gave me a silly smile. You could see the pants were falling off. That was a great day. Most of my clothing fails to meet standards these days. So, I sit in my house in my husband's undershirts and old pajama bottoms waiting.

Little Monster is growing LEAPS and BOUNDS these days. He is finally expressing some interest in potty training. He'll tell us immediately after he goes #1 that he's done it. Then, he wants to sit on the toilet for the congratulatory chocolate. The problem is, as he puts it:

"Mommy! Pee all gone! There's no pee left."

This, after squinting, grunting and trying to eek out just a dribble. He knows that if there is not tinkle, there is no treat.

He's also decided that driving me crazy isn't good enough.

Me: "You're driving me crazy today!"
LM: "No! I driving you NUTS!"

Not the Momma is amazing. He has taken charge of not only studying for finals and getting the last minute things out of the way for him at work so he can be here when the baby comes, but he's taken care of most of the last minute things around the house as well. And he's been cleaning. And cooking. Real meals. I know. Last night, the man even ate leftovers, which is something he doesn't do.

What can I say? I have a few things left to do before the baby comes. But I'm hoping that by leaving them undone that I'll have to do them while in labor before we leave for the hospital. At this rate, the guest bed will have sheets on it sometime in 2011.

Not Me Monday.

Warning: This post contains talk of poop. Lots of talk of poop.

I did not skip an entire week of posting for no good reason. Nope, not me!

I did not skip church this week because my two year old insisted on going poop at home. He did not begin whining about it at breakfast and continue it while we ate our entire meals. I did not chuckle a little when his face turned red and his head got sweaty while the whines got worse. I did not tease him in the car on the way home and suggest that we go all sorts of places including Church, the beach, and to get ice cream. I did not nearly die laughing when he answer to each one of those questions was "NO!!!! MOMMY! I go home!!!" I did not laugh when we left the restaurant and he was obviously walking with clenched butt cheeks. Then, I didn't almost cry when nearly two hours after this episode began, LM pooped on the potty for the first time ever. (In all seriousness, I've been delaying potty training because of the new baby coming.) I did NOT for about 30 seconds consider taking a picture of the toilet with LM flushing to commemorate the moment. We did not laugh when LM started freaking out about what color the stop lights were and would yell "Stop! Red! Green! GOOOOO!!!!" on the way home. Nor did we laugh when he announced "Stop Mommy!!! I walk home!" when we were about 6 miles away.*

We did not go to Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream on Saturday at 5:00. And then decide that was good enough to be considered dinner.

We did not watch the movie Bolt 3,000 times while it was rented only to return it to Blockbuster and on the way home stop and buy the movie.

We did not spend our entire Sunday Afternoon outside in the backyard watching Little Monster dig in the dirt, bark at the neighbors walking by with the dogs, kick his soccer ball, and play on his slide. We also didn't feed him a cheese stick and ice cream for lunch because it was too nice outside to bother with real food.

We didn't laugh at LM when we gave him some sparkling apple juice and after drinking it, he said "it hurts!" only to continue drinking it. He drank the entire bottle, saying "it hurts" after every sip.

I did not nearly peg a bird with a rock after it has spent the past few weeks scratching and pooping on the rear view mirrors of our truck only to start scratching and pecking at the back window when we covered the mirrors with bags.

We did not witness a gopher pop out of its hole and eat some weeds.

After not witnessing the gopher, I most certainly did not let my dog dig in the hole after it to keep it from getting any closer to our backyard. The dogs did not thoroughly enjoy being allowed to dig and hunt to their hearts content.

I most certainly am not writing this to appease my husband who has been complaining all week about the lack of blogging. You're not welcome baby.

*I did take him to the bathroom in the restaurant, but it was busy, and he hasn't shown much interest in potty training before. His diaper was clean, so we returned to the table. We really aren't mean parents who were just laughing at our child. Sort of.

Woe is me. And my husband. And the chair.

Potty Training. It's all over the place. One of the mommies from Playgroups are no Place for Children just wrote about her situation. I wish I could say that ours is different. But, it isn't.

We have spent days and days talking about the potty. Practicing sitting on the potty, flushing the potty, watching Mommy and Daddy go potty. Talking about how his doggy and his fish (and all the rest of his stuffed animals) go potty. We have purchased Elmo potty rings, Cars potty rings, potty chairs, special underpants, padded underpants, rubber underwear covers and chocolate for treats. We have had discussions, which he claims to understand, about how we potty and poopy in the toilet. About how diapers are for babies and he's getting to be a big boy.

After a couple of days of trying, he was getting frustrated and no longer wanted to sit on the toilet. So, we gave it a break. No big deal. We'll try again after the grandparents leave. However, the diaper removal is getting out of control. We are having problems.

1. The child is nearly too big for all of the padded underpants. He is in 3T clothing, which means he's at the top of the line for padded underwear.
2. Onesies under clothes won't work either, because he knows how to unsnap them and I don't think I could find any to fit him anywhere anyway.
3. He is able to remove all articles of clothing. The only thing I haven't seen him personally remove is denim jeans with snaps and zippers. Daddy, however says that has happened when I haven't been around.
4. He tells us when he is peeing. He says "Mommy, I pee-pee."
5. He removes his own diapers when he is uncomfortable with the wet feeling.
6. He refuses to sit on the toilet 80% of the time.

The only thing that is keeping us from going full-steam ahead on the potty training train is number six. He really refuses to sit on the toilet. When I suggest it he says NOOOOOO!!! and runs away. He cries and whines and says "I'm done" after being on the toilet for about 3 nanoseconds.

Then there was this morning. If you thought the pee in the bed episode from yesterday was comical, wait -- just wait.

This morning I had to go help out with an event for my bible study group. I wasn't planning on being gone long, but I did need to be dressed and look presentable just in case I was needed to stay longer. The morning had already gone wrong. Not the Momma was dusting the fan blades while standing on the ottoman. When he stepped off, he landed on a wooden cube toy. The pointy corner created a small hole in the bottom of his foot. He began to nurse that, and I talked to Little Monster "LM, I need to go check on Daddy. He stepped on something and has a boo-boo on the bottom of his foot. Can you go play in your playroom for a while so that I can make sure he's okay?" "Yes Mommy." I was surprised. He has been pretty clingy and hasn't wanted to play by himself much lately. I checked on Not the Momma and got in the shower.

As I was finishing up getting ready to go (read: I was already running late and had about 10 minutes before I had to leave and about 30 minutes worth of stuff to do in that 10 minutes), I heard a commotion downstairs and some stomping up the stairs. Into the bathroom stormed Not the Momma carrying a very naked Little Monster by the armpits, arms straight out to keep him as far away as possible. Then I smelled it. I looked up and noticed the streak down Little Monster's legs.

As Not the Momma tells it, he was sitting on the couch, nursing his foot, when he heard the sound of a nearly empty ketchup bottle being squeezed in the playroom. That alarmed him, being as we threw away the nearly empty ketchup bottle a couple of days ago. Either Little Monster truly is a genius and managed to get the nearly empty ketchup bottle and play with it, or there was a seriously bad situation brewing. He walked in to find a completely naked (he removed his pajamas and diaper) Little Monster, sitting in the chair in his playroom, using it as a toilet. And saying "yuckie!" He removed his diaper. THEN pooped. Nice, huh?

Of course, this would only happen as I am frantically trying to get out of the house, wearing a white sweater. At least the carpet extractor (thank Heavens we bought the one with the tools for furniture!) was already out since we had to clean a mattress yesterday.

At any rate, I am left with but a few conclusions. 1)My child is never going to potty train and I should start seeking out diapers for older kids and adults. Also -- I'm going to have to spend a lot of money on duct tape to keep his diapers on. 2)He is ready to potty train, but is going to be stubborn about the whole ordeal, causing me to go greyer than I'd like earlier than I'd like, as well as drive me into complete insanity instead of the 80% insane 20% sane that I already am.

I'm thinking it's a little bit of both. First the duct tape, then the losing my mind trying to really potty train this kid. You know he'll end up being really potty-trained by May. Just in time for Baby # 2 to make it's arrival. So he'll regress and we'll have to do it all over again.

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Oh, and If you're hanging out around here and notice things are all amuck. They probably are. I'm redoing stuff.

It won't be Christmas...

Not the Momma and I have discussed at length what ages we had our first real memories. Little Monster is quickly approaching that age, so at Christmas this year, I wondered as we came downstairs and he noticed that Santa had visited, as we opened gifts, visited Church, had family time and then friends over if he would remember any of it.

I've now come to the conclusion that Christmas will not be his first memory. That would be too nice. His first memories will probably be one of the following:

• Me opening a Hershey's kiss in front of him and denying him the chocolate, even after opening his mouth and saying "aaaah" like a baby bird.
• One of the multiple times we've groped him to check his new 'big boy' pants for wetness while harassing him about whether or not he needs to go potty.

If it has to be one of those mean memories, I hope for the first. The second one I hope he can repress until after years of therapy. The whole potty training thing. I'm not sure if it's a good sign that for the past 3 hours, even through dinner and 2 cups of apple juice, wrestling and Daddy torture, tickling and giggling uncontrollably that the child is still dry. We have put him on the toilet at least 6 times in attempts to get him to go. He sits there looking at magazines, kicking his feet, talking and singing the whole time with nary a trickle. Will he remain dry until he explodes? Is he biding his time until we put a diaper back on him? What are parents to do?

***Update*** Apparently, 3 1/2 hours is the amount of time that a 2 year old can control the contents of his bladder before he has to empty it on the carpet.

Interrupting Christmas...

I have an "Old Traditions" Post that I am going to put up soon, including a yummy recipe, but first I have an interruption.

The past few days have been rather interesting around here. Little Monster is on the cusp of needing to be potty trained. But I'm lazy and don't want to deal with the mess of wet pants and loads and loads of never-ending laundry. We already have never-ending laundry. I can't imagine what a potty-training toddler and a new baby are going to do to this household's laundry piles.

I have not been very gung-ho about the whole potty training thing at all and Little Monster has NO desire to actually use the toilet. However, he certainly has the desire to remove his pants and diaper if it gets too wet. We've been lucky so far **rapping on all the wood I can find nearby** that he hasn't felt the desire to remove poopy diapers, but I'm sure that day is dreadfully near. I guess it's a good thing we have two full weeks of not many places to go. While we're home, he'll be wearing the new underwear and ruber pants he got for Christmas and diapers while we're out. Otherwise that duct tape I've been thinking about strapping him to the wall with is going to end up wrapped around his waist to keep his diapers shut.