summer is here!

the waterpark opened yesterday. when the water park opens, it means "summer time!" timmy has been waiting weeks - an eternity for a three year old.

after a delicious ham dinner at mom's, we and tom, taryn & ethan, went to the water park. it is a little teensy slab of concrete with a few water spraying devices, but it's absolutely perfect for little guys like timmy and ethan.

all alone

such a tough week. exhaustion. 3yo attitude galore. 5mo pleas (shouts, demands) for constant attention. so trying i can't even form complete sentences.

but this morning my husband is off. a rare event. rare. ready for an argument last night, i told him i was sleeping in today. (sleeping in? what is this thing? never happens, unless timmy happens to sleep until 7:00.) like i said, i was ready to thrown down, but tim just agreed.

i woke up once in the night to comfort timmy during the lightening and thunder (i told him if he watches, he'll see the lightening looks like a flashlight and if he listens, he'll hear the thunder sounds like a drum. he wanted to know from what song, so i told him it sounded like george strait to me. that worked! thank you, God!) and not again until 7:30. i felt i should get up, but in the next instant, it was 9:24. nine twenty-four!

i only woke up then because tim came in to get something out of his drawer. they'd been out eating breakfast and flirting with the waitresses at double d's and were now on their way to sportsman's warehouse. (sportsman's warehouse = hours!)

now, it's been over an hour and i feel so lonely and purposeless. i made a banana split dessert (recipe to follow) and now i'm listening to "rebel yell" on my playlist while blogging. no, i'm not folding laundry or mopping the kitchen floor. yes, i should be. maybe i will. yes. i will. dang it. and then i'll enjoy just a teeny-tiny piece of the banana split dessert.

success-ish

today as i washed dishes, timmy came flying from the family room, through the dining room and kitchen saying, "peepees are coming!" i ran with him to the potty seat, where he pulled down his undies, sat on the potty seat and let loose. he and i were so proud!

twice today he told me and then went without any interaction from me. woo-HOO! however, he did decline to stop chasing louie (minpin) outside long enough to come in to use the potty seat. but small successes. that's what we're celebrating.

the pizza sauce of perfection

my younger brother lonnie and i experimented in the kitchen when we were kids, from ages maybe 8 to 13 or 14? none of my other brothers ever did get into cooking or baking, as far as i recall, but lonnie and i - we were masters.

we would obsess over one particular item and make it over and over again. sometimes because it was delicious and sometimes because we were trying to perfect it. once it was pizza. we lamented that pizza sauce always tasted like spaghetti sauce. it should be different, we agreed, and we determined to fix it. we made a lot of pizzas over i don't know how long, each time tinkering with the spices and tomato sauce and tomato paste ratios. finally, eureka! the perfect pizza sauce recipe.

that pizza sauce lives on even today in my memory, but in my memory only. we made many delectable and highly-coveted-by-our-other-brothers pizzas with it, but eventually another recipe enticed us. and then another. and we slowly forgot all about our precious pizza sauce. we never did write down the recipe. i remember a couple years later when we got the taste for pizza again, we could not duplicate our earlier success. ever again, in fact.

i now make a pretty mean pizza. the best crust ev-ah, if i do say so myself. (and i do. i really do!) lots of sliced onions, mushrooms, black olives, green and red peppers, zucchini and yellow squash. sometimes italian sausage, since tim prefers a meaty pizza. my sauce is good, but it is just not the same.

maybe i'll call him up and challenge him to recreate our signature sauce. his low-carb diet be danged! family memories are at stake!

12 of 12! 12 of 12!

i started this blog so i'd have a place to post my 12-of-12 layouts. a little pressure, you know? not that anybody sees this, but they could.

on the 12th of april, i took my pictures. on the 13th of april, i edited and cropped them. on the rest of the days of april and the first ten days of may, i stared at them and moved them around and just could. not. decide what to do with them. i suffer low scrap-esteem. i don't really know anything about using embellishments, so the few layouts i've completed have been very minimalist, which i like, but i do wish i could embellish, too.

on may 11th, at 11pm, i threw caution to the wind, printed out my minimalist journaling, slapped it all on some cardstock, and viola!

i don't like the look of it. i've never scribbled on a layout before (and incidentally, after i scanned this, i "colored" the date on the last line, too). i won't use this style on anything else, but i did decide i'd do exactly this on may's layout. how freeing!

what's most important is that i am documenting my everyday life. when my grandchildren wonder what life was like way back in 2008, they'll be able to look at my layouts and know. there isn't much detail in these particular layouts, but completing them does inspire me to go forth and multiply (my scrapbook pages).

like this one. actually, now that i look at it, i think this might be my "sketch" and not the scan of my actual page, but they look pretty much the same.

blogalicious

dear blog,

until a few months ago, i didn't know what you were. i'd never read a blog. i know! where have i been, right? well, i've been busy, not that it's any of your business. busy with lucky ducks and crayons and little people. but not with housework. oh, noooooo. not housework. but i digress.

i can't remember how or why, but i stumbled upon the pioneer woman. and i read her entire blog - from the first entry through. what a nerd. no, me; not ree. i spent every naptime for i don't know how long reading that sucker. and then i clicked on a commenter's link. then followed it to another. and another.

now, i do journal. of course i do! not as often or as in-depth as i should. my whole life, i've intended to keep a journal. and i have. usually in january. maybe a couple days in february. then again in january. but when i was pregnant with timmy? oh heck yeah. i recorded every detail of my life. then when he was born, i recorded every detail of his life. if the need to know how long he nursed the early morning of june 3, 2005 ever arises, i'm all over it.

for the past - oh, say . . . 8 months or so, i've slacked off. holding a pen or pencil really, really hurts my hand. it's the weirdest thing! maybe not all that weird, as holding my steering wheel, knitting needles, mop handle or shopping bags also cause my hands pain. but again, i digress.

i got a wild hair after seeing various 12-of-12 blogs last month and whipped one up. ok, i opened a template, but that's just efficiency. an admirable trait, really. why reinvent the wheel? i still haven't finished april's 12-of-12 layout (oh, Lord! is it really almost the 12th again? so soon?!), but this blog has allowed me to vent about my every day . . . vent-worthy . . . stuff.

let's face it; my friends don't want to hear about poopies and peepees every day. oh, who am i kidding? i don't converse with anyone over the age of 3 more than twice a month. today, for example, i chatted (oh yes i did!) with the turnpike toll-taker. i couldn't help myself - she was reading a book with paper pages (as opposed to a board book). she was very kind. she may have taken pity on my frizzy pony tail, boogie-smeared shoulder and happy meal toy-strewn jeep.

but my point, dear blog, is this: thank you. you're there for me, man. really there for me.

we are the champions!

weeeee are the chaaaaaampions! of the (potty training) woooorrrld! (sing this like queen)

the drugging worked! today, i saw the largest . . . umm, never mind. all you need to know is timmy was successful.

he called everyone he could think of to celebrate. we drove directly to the video store to rent blue's big musical movie. we ate happy meals in the family room while watching said musical extravaganza.

and then he peepeed in his undies. and in the time-out chair. no, he did not go to time-out for anything potty related. what kind of monster do you think i am? no, time-out occurred following regular three-year-old time-out inducing behavior. he earned several time-outs throughout the day and each time he peepeed in the time-out chair. i need to think of a strategy for this one.

an excerpt from his bedtime prayer tonight: "dear God, thank you for this wonderful day. thank you for making all the birdies and their beautiful songs. and thank you for my big big poopie today!"

today i drugged my child (or, the all-potty-all-the-time blog)

well, maybe not drugged, exactly. let me back up a bit.

the peepee bidness may be on the upswing, thanks to my friend susan's suggestion of nakie-ness. how does this work? well, timmy loves to play outside, but going outside requires undies. we won't have any undies to wear if we keep putting peepees in our undies. wham! connections made in his little-guy brain! (this theory is still in the testing phase.)

you see, timmy can control his bladder function. he has simply chosen to keep his peepees out of the potty seat. i know this because he kept his undies clean and dry (and used the potty seat) all afternoon and evening yesterday at dinner out and then playing at chuck e. cheese's. he was wholly motivated, as i'd clearly let him know if he at any time put his peepees in his undies, rather than in the potty seat, we would immediately return home.

this morning, though. (big sigh) no outrageous fun planned, so no potty seat motivation. until the great nakie-ness of 2008 began. it worked today, and we'll continue tomorrow and beyond, as long as necessary.

but a boy cannot survive without the whole potty package. that is - and please excuse my indelicacy here - poopies are necessary! we haven't had little guy poopies here since friday. six days! i've sneaked (snuck? no, i think sneaked) finely chopped prunes into his oatmeal every morning without result.

timmy's pediatrician is not worried, unlike timmy's mommy and daddy. she suggested miralax at 1/4 adult dosage. so, during dinner tonight, i offered timmy some of daddy's soda. note: small boys do not drink soda. small boys drink water and milk and juice. so you can imagine the enthusiasm with which timmy accepted my gracious (umm . . . guilt-ridden) offer of caffeine-free pepsi secretly laced with poopie powder.

oh, how i fervently hope drugging my child doesn't drive him to therapy in years to come.

pray for me in my hour of need

will i survive potty training? it remains to be seen. not even nine o'clock in the morning and we've already gone through three - no, wait, four - pairs of undies. help me, Lord! no, i mean it - help me!

maybe it's not the potty training. not the endless laundry loads. maybe it's not even timmy constantly resisting and running from me and having the general bad attitude of a three-year-old engaged in a battle (to the death? oh, God, i hope not) of the wills. maybe it's the bloating, headaches and cramps.

why? o! woe is me! who invented this whole peri-menopause thing, anyway?!

ah, but there's good news on the horizon. i may soon be the proud owner of a new camera. right now, i have a canon digital elph and a jvc/victor gx5 video camera that takes good still shots. i occasionally use my brother's camera - a high-end point-and-shoot. and i've been happy with my little canon for almost six years now.

but. now i'm not. now i have been reading everything about photography i can get my hands on. and i want a digital slr. there are some obstacles. yes, some fairly tough obstacles. one being money. or lack thereof. cops make no fweet coin, you know. but i discussed a plan with tim to save up. i want a nikon d40. it's a "starter" dslr, i know, but it's what i can afford (or, rather, what i can achieve in savings). (i should note that tim automatically suggests credit card usage, but the idea of interest chafes.)

my friend sharon and i will take a photography class together. oh, the pictures i will take. thousands of pictures of small boys in peepee-undies, no doubt.

the japanese have such happy little poopies

potty training is not easy. i can't even remember how it went with andrew and tori, but i know it couldn't have been this hard. timmy got his undies wet first thing this a.m. but stayed clean and dry all day afterward. actually, he did not urinate again until 8:30 tonight - a couple drips. i'm worried he's going to develop a urinary tract infection or become constipated from holding it all day!

tim bought some individually-wrapped sunsweet pitted prunes to encourage poopies. let's see him hold it after those puppies! i was disappointed to learn they are just as sticky as the regular canister of prunes. might be a problem for timmy, who doesn't like to touch sticky, messy things.

the good news? we watched many entertaining potty videos on youtube. one in particular was quite fun, in a disturbing way. oh, those japanese. gotta love 'em.

storms and diapies

we had an intense storm last night. we've always made sure we let the kids know we love storms and "we'll sleep good tonight, with this thunder!" so far, it's worked well, but last night? last night the thunder and lightening scared timmy.

timmy cried hysterically - you know, that hiccupy, can't-catch-breath type of crying. he said he wanted to hide under blue soft blankie. tim rocking him was not enough. he needed mommy.

we talked about the storm, the thunder, the lightening. i reminded him he's always safe with mommy and daddy. we also talked about what we do when we're scared in the night. we pray, "dear God, please help me feel better and give me wonderful dreams."

today while we ate lunch we talked about it again. timmy said when he's scared - "can i go up in heaven?" swinging wildly between "oh, how cute!" and the oh-so-irrational-fear-no-you-can't-go-up-to-heaven-you-have-to-stay-HERE-with-me! i just ignored that part and continued the rest of the conversation.

despite all my worries, he awoke perfectly healthy and happy. i was a walking zombie, but he was fine.

i actually started this post last night, but got busy with something else and never came back to it. today - TODAY! - is the day all diapies are gone and timmy wears only undies.

he has been so excited, counting the number of diapies left each time i changed him. however, he was significantly less excited. in fact, the neighbors might have heard the shouts of, "no! i don't WANT undies today!" but what can we do? we're all out of diapies, and as we explained, once we're out of diapies, there are no more. no more! then we'll be so proud of timmy because he will be wearing only undies. undies!

. . . we will see how it goes . . .