Crawling, Squash and Peeing Outside

Well, Erin is now crawling like a pro. It's slow at times, but she is definitely finding out the mysteries under the computer desk, how it smells inside Daddy's work boots and every clear scrap of cellophane that has been camouflaged in the corners of the living room. She has not ventured off the carpet yet. I guess hardwood floors are harder on the knees than we had previously thought. I caught her eating a 3x5 note card, so she is now paper free and swinging, with some Puffs in her tray.
Ian woke up with a tummy ache and a need for extra loving, so he got 1/2 of a Kid's Tums, a cup of juice and some pretzels and bundled up on the couch with Mommy's special fuzzy socks on. Don't worry. They are grey. And OLD. And the treads are almost worn off on the bottom and I've had them for years. But they are fuzzy inside and go up to his knees, so they are Magic Socks. Thank you very much.

Well, I was making supper last night, which is always interesting when you have two days to go before a grocery trip and you are on the last legs of the offerings in your freezer. So we ended up with fried chicken drumettes and the startings (can't say fixins, truthfully) of a squash casserole. My favorite squash casserole has the stove top stuffing in it, but I live with my darling husband, the chief eater of meals (besides me) who has been incurably burnt out on numerous things, including stuffing, through his culinarily traumatic childhood. Add to this list beanie weenies, meatloaf, sloppy joes, tuna casserole and anything else that could possibly have onions in it. We don't DO onions in this house, no ma'am. Not that I'm an onion lover, but I do like green onions in some stuff. Chris likes them sparingly, like if he sees them in the fridge, once a year.

Back to the squash casserole. I have the added bonus in my life of having the cookbooks of three separate churches. My home church from 10 years ago, my Gramma's church of 5 or so years ago and our church here, from a few years ago, but hey there is a rocking Women's group here and they ALL cook. Thus my never-to-be-traded pizza crust recipe. he he he. The reason why we will never order out again. Oh. Yeah.

I also have my own binder of a collection of recipes. And more on the computer that haven't been printed out and stuck in the binder. So I finally decided on the recipe for the squash casserole and cut up the squash and started cooking it. I figured I could substitute bread crumbs for Ritz crackers, a house staple since we have kids. I looked in the cupboard for the cream of chicken soup I always keep on hand and realized that I'd already used it for who knows what. So here I am, in the middle of cooking this recipe and I don't have a key ingredient. I decided to take a leap of faith (we leap a lot around here). I grabbed a can of cream corn and got out some sour cream. The sour cream was to mask some of the corniness and the cream corn was to preserve the texture (not because 'cream of chicken soup' and cream corn both have the word cream in it--give me a little credit here). So I made the thing and it was good.

Good enough, may I boast, that Chris ate it (badum ching). He said it he wouldn't mind having it again (though I'm sure he didn't mean for breakfast the next morning). That is the ultimate Pass/Fail in our house. This variation got a big thumbs up. Yeah, it was corny. And somewhat mushy. I should have added more cracker crumbs. But I DID have it for breakfast and I still give it a thumbs up.

I must add at this time that Ian is having fun being potty trained. He is enjoying the boy part of himself that has the freedom of peeing outside. Now, since he has shocked and traumatized poor Ms Geraldine, the old lady across the street, he is working on the other neighbors. Nothing satisfies him but to pull his pants and underoos down to his ankles and then pee for hours (it seems like hours to the embarrassed mother who is trying to teach him discretion (ha ha)). Everything is fascinating. The fact that you can make funny pictures, the fact that if you point it up it goes farther, etc. Groan! We'll hope he learns how to at least turn his back before he's 6.

Film Development

Yes, we are one of the last of the old school beginner photogs. We have a nice camera, with APS film, but we still use this stone age thing called film processing at Walmart. Call me crazy and old fashioned, but give me a photo album over a DVD of pics any day.

So without further ado, here are the best of the lot.

Here you can see Chris reading Erin her first book, Green Eggs and Ham, from the doctor who delivered her. We have to keep this away from Ian or he will 'borrow' it.

Here, Ian is on 'forced' potty time. This lasts until he gets a potty seat ring on his bottom or something actually appears in the potty. :) This hasn't happened for quite a while. He is very excited about the 'pee real quick and go' method.

This pic is funny because it was cold in the house and Ian said he was cold during his morning potty time. First his legs were cold. Then his arms

were cold. Then his hair was cold. Then he wanted to get closer to the heater. We managed all of this and then he was happy.

Now we get some cute ones of Erin and Chris again. She is SUCH a Daddy's girl. And it's so precious to see.

This one is in a frame right now because it's such a Good picture. Finally, one of Erin smiling! Now doesn't your day seem a little better now? I know it works for me!

White Pasty Legs

Well, hallelujah and pass the sunscreen. Uh, make that the sunless tanner. Because we wore shorts today (outside!) for the first time since, sheesh, last September, and our legs are scary! Even Ian's legs were all white and unreal looking. We were outside at the swingset and I was swinging both kids at the same time and mentioned that Mommy's legs were white and pasty. Ian thought I had some sort of cookie dough or something on my legs (who knows what he thought?) because he got off the swing and examined my leg and assured me that I didn't. Thanks. We'll compare in a couple of months when it becomes obvious to the world that Ian gets his tanning characteristic from Chris and not from me. We'll see how Erin does, but she DOES have reddish hair. She also still has her blue eyes (Ha! to the doubters that said her eyes would change!), so she could be the 4th redhead in the world to tan.

Either way, she has little shades and little sun hats to wear. She has started to yank the shades off to chew on the stems, but she still leaves the hats on.

Well, sports fans, we got plane tickets last week and will be heading out in a coupla weeks to see how it goes down South. Ian has been asking to go on the plane every 15 minutes since we purchased the tickets. Luckily, he is distracted by a friend's birthday party, which is tomorrow afternoon, so after the party is over, he'll be asking about the airplane every 7 minutes.

Erin is not interested in either. She just wants to be held constantly and won't go to sleep without nursing/being held. This is not the last time I have wished that someone else in our family was lactating! Wouldn't it be fair if Daddies could do it? I mean, hey, Mommies have to deal with the whole childbirth/recovery thing, which will not be taken lightly, but then our bodies are forever changed. Stretch marks are forever, man! And then things start to sag. Don't worry, I won't get graphic, but give me fur and a tail and I could masquerade as a kangaroo! Wait, maybe that's not a good comparison because they eat kangaroos in Australia. Never mind.

Well, we revamped the garden and put down a whole lotta weed-mat. So this year, since I'm not extremely pregnant, I will be spared the chore of weeding the garden. About a year too late, but it still works. Still, though, the garden is a lot smaller than last year and I am still convinced that we will sell the house before we harvest any of it, but I still can't do without it. I can, however, do without certain dogs (you know who you are) traipsing through and squishing plants. At least have the courtesy to cover your large paw prints. Blame it on marauding bunnies.

Ian has gone through some kind of miraculous transition in the Land of Potty-training. It has been two days in big boy undies and no accidents! No skid marks or dribbles or anything! I could SO get used to this! All Chris and I can do is clasp our hands together and fervently pray, "Please, Lord, please please please!"

And just in case anyone wonders what that is around Erin's mouth, don't worry. It's not Oreos. It's dirt.

To Fly a Kite

...You need:

1) a kite. Check.

2) Wind. Check.

3) A field or an open space sans power lines and trees. Check.

4) An attention span longer than 5 minutes. Uh.....

Well, we got a little kite for Ian for a buck at Walmart and of course the next morning at 7am, he was begging to go fly it. We have a little backyard with a fence around it, dogs, outbuildings (tiny), one tree, and several things to trip over should you look straight up and try to run around. So we relocated to a field next to the park and let it fly. I think Chris and I had more fun than Ian. Even Erin seemed transfixed. I don't know what Ian envisioned, but the wind was very strong and we hardly had to do anything but stand there and hold the end of the string. After a few minutes, Ian started throwing rocks and dirt clumps into the wind and had to be challenged to a race to the tree at the end of the field. He was out of breathe at the end of the race, but not worn out. Sigh. It was time for lunch!

Then we went back to Lincoln, AR (again!) to get more of Berry's pills for his Giardia, not to be mistaken or confused with Ghirardelli, good fancy chocolate. Rachel! :) ha ha.

He is taking his pills like a trooper and there is already a marked difference. (Don't ask "in what?" because I really don't want to go into it and gross everyone out, especially since I just mentioned expensive chocolate. Let's just say that there's no more gastrointestinal distress.)

Ian is doing good in his potty training. Nothing magical overnight, but it is steadily getting better. His sticker chart in the bathroom is filling up a lot faster than the last one (Hallelujah!).

There is still a need for constant laundry, but he is getting it and we are all thrilled and relieved. Even when he wears pullups (like when someone needs to get cracking with the laundry, or at night time) he is still peeing in the potty. Pooping not so much. Okay, only once. In six weeks. So we have at least one accident a day from that alone and have used gallons of bleach and color-safe bleach. Shudder!

Moving on to other topics. The frost of last weekend killed ALL of the plants in my garden. They are all brown and shriveled in the row. It is very sad. But today I snuck some money out of the jar and went to the Red Barn and got some seedlings. We've got some tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers and straight-neck squash. At Ian's wheedling (and my own whim) we also got two little strawberry plants. It has to be better than last year's attempt which yielded absolutely nothing. I knew I buried the stems upside down. Or something. This time all you have to do is bury the peat pot and voila! We'll see.

My seedlings got drowned in the torrential downpours of last week and then got copious amounts of lime deposited on them, so they are sad and moldy. A loss. So now I feel EVEN BETTER about the $$ I spent on ready-made plants. Next year I'll do better with my own seedlings. Next year we will be in Florida and won't have this weird weather (yes, I know you had a cold front in FL, but boo hoo! It got to 24 here!).

Plans are now nonrefundable for our trip to Florida next month. Chris will be taking that law enforcement review, commuting an hour and 15 minutes and the kids and I will be staying at Mimi and Grampa's house, chilling. I am looking forward to visiting and enjoying the weather and letting Ian and Erin play in the sprinkler in the backyard. I'm also hoping that Grampa will consent to let Ian decorate the driveway in sidewalk chalk, as he will be over the moon when he realizes that the driveway is THAT BIG.

The only downside is that this time, we can't bring the tricycle.

I just need a minute...

...to catch my breath!

The weather has been up and down. There's been some severe storms around. Lots of flooding in the low areas and way too much rain (obviously). There were some tornadoes south of us and then the wind did something to our antenna (no PBS! The travesty!). Chris grumbling because he has to mow the yard again. I don't see the problem, since he has a brand new mower. What's the deal? Will I be grumbling after I get my dishwasher that I have to do the dishes...again? OK, bad example.

So due to the weather, the computer has been off. Erin has been teething some more. That means constant crying and her wanting to nurse around the clock (aaaaah!). And the usual progression (if you can call it that) of Ian's potty training. Which has been a struggle. Again, it seems to be the norm.

We have also been back and forth to the vet for Berry. To risk the disgust of all 3 of my readers, wait, make that 6! Hey there Dickinsons and Kristen...I don't remember your new last name...and beautiful Baby Hayleigh!. Anyway, we have been trying to cure Berry's chronic squirts. Sorry, gastrointestinal distress. He is also overly excited while working with Chris that leads to more Gastrointestinal Distress, liberally sprayed all over the back of the cop car. Thus our Race for the Cure! So we got some doggy yogurt type substance to dry him up, so to speak and some doggy Valium to calm him down some while he's working. Also some special dog food in case he's allergic to Purina. Everybody say "Cha Ching!" But that's okay, we're charging it to the town. We get to go back tomorrow to get Buddy's rabies shots, since it's (get this) Rabies Week in this part of the country and rabies shots are $7 at participating Vet's offices. Normally we buy the shot and administer it ourselves, but the extra coupla bucks gets you a rabies tag, so we're splurging. Buddy will be very pleased to have a car ride until we get there. Dogs always know.

Erin is too big for her swing. Yes, hear me sobbing wildly. Her #1 napping tool is too small. So we have before us the gargantuan task of weaning her off of the swing to something normal. Say, the crib. Yes I will open myself up to the world's derision and say that she has never slept in her crib except for the rogue nap here and there. Okay, 2 rogue naps and that was only after she screeched herself hoarse and sweaty and kind of went into an unconscious stupor for about 10 minutes. Well, it happened again today when we decided to try napping normally again. Since her birth she has slept with us in the Big Bed. Ian was not a cuddly baby and couldn't wait to be left alone, though he did his fair share in the swing. Erin does not want to be more than 2 inches from warm skin (and warm milk) if she is going to be drowsy/sleeping. She is almost 9 months old now and happy pink thoughts of transitioning her to the crib on her first birthday, having been weaned off breastmilk and co-sleeping, are starting to resound with the tinny, raucous laughter of those more experienced. In other words, this is going to be easy right? Like potty training. Ha.

Maybe if it ever stops raining and gets above 50 degrees, I can console myself by mowing the yard with the new mower.

Just say No to Doo Doo Depression

I've always heard that things get worse before they get better. The only thing they fail to mention is how bad 'worse' gets. How much poop will I have to actually Touch before the whole nice tidy wipe and flush happens regularly? I'm even skipping the dump and wipe out part of the potty chair too. Anyway, there has been flooding here, close to the river. My peat pots are extremely hydrated and any minute now I will be tempted to get the air soft gun and pepper the truck that has currently been revving its superloud mufflerless engine for the past twenty minutes. Yes, your truck is on. Any more questions?? The hazards of living in a small hick township. And I have actually met girls who think noisy engines are sexy. These organisms should be kept in isolation and studied.

Back to our normal venue of entertainment. What was it? Oh yes, scrubbing the potty seat out. Mmmmm. And might I add, if anyone from the potty seat industry happens to come across this, let's make the next strain of potty seats seamless, okay? Because nasty things get into cracks and are very very hard to get out. Comprende? Bueno.

More revving. What do you do? Oh yes, you call your cop husband and fuss. Whoops, maybe not. He's on a traffic stop being annoyed himself. Ooh, really annoyed, he's checking warrants through county, something that normally doesn't get done on a routine traffic stop unless someone is ticking him off or he finds something naughty...hm...oh well, the dispatcher on duty had a similar story and we made each other feel better. At least my engine revver is not related to Chris. Well, of course, while I was fussing to the dispatcher, the truck was turned off and the garage closed and all the lights turned off. Finally! Take that sucker to the Car Doctor tomorrow!

Okay, looks like this post is mostly about broken cars. Didn't plan on that one. Well, while Chris was in court this morning for 3 hours, only to get on the stand and find out that the case wasn't about what he thought it was and that he had nothing concrete to contribute to the charges brought, the DA dismissed him. So he came home and was only 10 minutes late to his physical and they [graciously?] allowed him to keep his appointment. So that's done. Anyway, Chris amused himself by taking pictures of the courtroom. To understand Adair County politics, you must know that there are two courtrooms in the courthouse. The one most commonly used is downstairs, around the corner from the little secretaries behind the plexiglass with little holes cut above the counter to pay tickets, etc. There are signs posted there. For example, the judge's side job, "Marriage Ceremony $10". Shucks Ida Mae! Let's just skip the movie and go get hitched! Wait, I need 35 more cents.

The real shiny courtroom, the one used for important cases is upstairs and since most of the cases are not worthy of the room and it probably is a cost liability to heat and cool, it isn't used much. During Chris's down time, since he won't take my advice and take a Book with him, he went to the courtroom and took some pictures on the camera phone for me, so I could see what it looked like. So that's what all those pictures are. Hyuck. You can tell that it must give the judge a real charge to sit in the Big Chair. If they really wanted to make enough money to be able to use the Big Courtroom year round, they would tape some of the silly cases and sell them to a cable show. People would watch. Gramma and Grampa used to watch Citrus County court on tv, so I know that people would watch here. It might actually pry them off of the police scanners for a while. That would be good.

Ian played outside today for a long time, since it was chilly and muddy and somewhat sunny. I got more laundry done, since there is a constant rotation of tiny underwear. Since Erin is getting mobile, I have to keep the floors cleaner than normal, so the broom is staying within reach. Especially since she somehow got a piece of dried caulk from the tub and tasted it before Ian pounced and stole it (Whaaa!). He is starting to get smart though. If she has something that he wants, he is learning to bring her another toy to distract her with so he can get his car/train/book/cup/sock, etc back. Tonight before bedtime (and the engine revving concert) Ian was putting blocks on his head and chew rings on his eyes and making her laugh really hard. Then he started throwing the blocks over his shoulder, again causing loud chuckles and gurgling. Mommy was beaned by a flying red cylinder and put a stop to the whole thing. That's when the somersaulting began. More laughing and gurgles. More Mommy putting a stop to festivities. Then it was 'make-the-baby-dizzy' time by running in circles around her. This is actually a neck exercise. Then it was everybody-sit-in-their-chair-and-calm-down time. Bedtime followed soon after.

Ian normally makes himself scarce while I am changing baby diapers. He stopped wanting to see when I was throwing a poopy wipey into the trash receptacle and didn't see him standing there. He was very grossed out and now I think he hides whenever we smell something that's not him. Anyway, I was mentioning to Erin that we were going on an airplane to see Gramma and Papaw. She kicked and squealed. She is excited. Well, Ian had his selective hearing Extendable Ears (another Harry Potter reference. Similar to the whole Nosebleed Nougat entry a while back) and popped his head around the corner. When he saw that the clean diaper was on and I was snapping her shirt back in place, he deemed it safe to enter and question/interrogate/demand clarification on what I had said. He wants to take a helicopter to the airplane, by the way. Then he wants to fly in circles. I asked him if he remembered going to Mimi's house at Thanksgiving. He got excited. I told him we were going to stay at Mimi and Grampa's house again and that we would see Gramma and Papaw. He was ready to leave right then. I told him it would be a long time until we went, but that we would ride on a plane. That announcement called for a cookie. Or that's what he thought. Anyway, the cat's out of the bag and May cannot come too soon. At least for Ian. Maybe by then the Poo Poo Panic will be an absentminded inquiry and Doo Doo Depression will be a thing of the past.

Going, going, and going some more

Well, potty training is a very interesting business. One of the things so, um, exciting about parenting, I'm finding, is that if one thing doesn't work you try something else. Well, bribery did not work. Waiting until Ian was sick of sitting in his own waste did not work--he doesn't care. All he did was get a chapped bottom and a rank odor (think PigPen from Peanuts). We even tried the whole "babies wear diapers and big boys wear underwear" thing. As well as the important fact that he can't go to school (preschool) if he can't use the toilet All the Time. In 3 year old logic, every time he goes on the toilet, he asks to go to school. Go ahead, give yourself a big Homer Simpson "d'oh!" and wave it in our direction. No, we don't watch the Simpsons, but some things are just pop culture. Well, we heard every "solution" in the books from parents, grandparents and strangers in the Pull-Up aisle in Walmart. Some were silly (the solution was to enroll him in a daycare and let them train him--What?!) and others were horrifying (every time he goes in his pants, take him outside and spray him with the hose. Some sounded a little excessive (just let him run around naked or just make the toilet area like a play area and stay in there until he learns). Since I have another child and the bathroom is not big enough (or plush enough) to stay in all day long, besides the fact that it is our ONLY bathroom and we all share the toilet, this didn't sound promising. And the fact that toilet ring on your bottom doesn't make you want to sit there longer than 3 Thomas books.

Another solution was to just keep him in Pull-Ups or diapers until he figures it out for himself. By the time he gets to public school, if he isn't trained by then, peer pressure ought to do it. Yeah, and that one will NEVER be forgotten by the kids at school. No way! Since waiting for him to get the incentive could take years and he turns 4 this summer, we were getting kind of alarmed at his easy acceptance of sitting in a gross Pull-Up until you caught him and pried it off. He's getting harder to catch, too.

So we went to Wal-Mart and bought big boy underwear and let him pick. Thomas and Cars won. So we went home, threw out the last day time Pull-Up and stuck Thomas on his cute little bottom. Thomas lasted about 10 minutes before we required a costume change. Underoos, pants, socks and even the shirt. At least the pants prevented a large puddle on the floor, but no one liked peeling the soggy clothing off. As the day went on, we gritted our teeth and kept changing clothes. That afternoon, we ran out of clean underoos and had to revert back to Pull-Ups. I have started doing a load of laundry every day just to keep us flush. Today was better, only three costume changes and when I neglected to put pants on him, a large puddle on the carpet/heater platform. And a big glob of grape jelly on the potty seat (don't ask).

I think he is starting to welcome bath time because that means pjs and pullup. We've only had one poop so far in the underoos (gag, gack and bleagh!) and it wasn't pretty. Every time the kid squirms or changes positions or blinks too long it pops out of my mouth. "Do you need to go poo poo?" He groans. "No, Mommy!" he answers in a longsuffering sing-songy voice. Well he'd better not go....

So how is potty training going? Hm. This is day 3 of big boy underoos and potty training is going, uh....well it's going. All over the carpet. :)