That Dreaded 'Potty'

Yes, I have not been blogging. I am recovering from a very severe case of blogger laziness.

Disclaimer:
Parents of children over the age of two, you might find this quite entertaining.
Parents of children under the age of two, you might find this quite disturbing and scary.
Non-Parents, you might find this quite effective to use as birth control.

Don't say I didn't warn you....

So begins a new phase in my niece's life... Potty Training. Oh yeah. She's really that old. Crazy, huh? Yes, it was arranged on purpose for us to start the day after I got home for Christmas.

We are using a guide given to us by one of my friend's mom. Supposedly, it has worked for all of her kids except her oldest, who was particularly stubborn and difficult to potty train, and really do just about everything. We have tried our best to do everything right. But we are not working with just any two-year-old, unfortunately. It has become a hobby of Lilli's to make the most simple things much more difficult.
 
The first thing we started was explain to her a few times a day, every day, for a week: "In __ days, no more pull-ups! You will have panties!" At first, she would get very excited, telling anyone who would listen that she was getting panties in __ days. Then those wheels in her head starting twisting. And on day three, it dawned on her: Her pull-ups serve a purpose to her. What in the world were these people thinking, taking them away from me? So that morning when I told her "In four days, no more pull-ups", she promply replied, short and sweet, "I need my pull-up" and grabbed her chest, trying to protect the mean old aunt from taking her precious pull-up. I explained how she wouldn't need her pull-up because her pee pee and poo poo is going to go into the potty now, and how if she went potty, she would get a sticker and a piece of candy, mommy and daddy and all her family would be proud, and the angels in heaven would sing the hallelujah chorus as God himself looks down on us and chuckles a little at how easy it is to please us sometime, the classic explaination. No lie. This kid looked a me like I was the dumbest creature on the planet for even suggesing such a horrible thing. She spoke very soft, but firm, a tone that would turn blood into ice if I hadn't already built an immunity from living with her mother for 20+ years, and repeated, "I need my pull-up". And ever since that day, when we tell her what's going to happen in __ days, her only reply is "I have a pull-up", and a small shiver runs down my spine.
 
Phase Two began last night. We got the canister to put her reward candy in. My sister and I both are big on bribing. We know it's wrong, but we believe in cling to for dear life the "OMG Whatever Freakin Works!!" Philosophy. This week's bribe is named Hersheys Kisses. I poured them into a container and decorated it with jungle animal foam stickes. We also have two sheets of Spongebob Squarepants stickers for good measure. Well, the candy and sticker radar must have been going off like crazy because the next thing I know, I hear two-year-old footsteps coming up the stairs, and as soon as she gets in my room she exclaimed, "WOW! Chocolate! I want chocolate!!" I calmly explained to her that this was special chocolate and you could only get it when you go potty. So she informed me she had to go potty and ran downstairs. However, after only sitting there for 1.4  seconds, in her mind, she deserved chocolate and a sticker, so she ran back upstairs and told me "I went potty!!" I looked at Kelli and she just shook her head no and told me what happened. So it was time to re-explain to her the concept of bribery. You have to SUCCESSFULLY go potty. We aren't going to punish her for accidents or anything, but if we reward her for just trying, where's the incintive to actually really try to make it to the bathroom in time? So I gave her the speech I have practiced in the mirror for a week now, "You can try again next time, but for now, no chocolate or sticker." I looked away as I saw her eyes swell with bitter tears, a window into her broken little spoiled heart.
 
We have done everything we could to prepare her. Yet somehow, I feel like we forgot some important step. I'm not ready for her to wake up. Let her sleep just a little longer, prolong the transformation to 'big girl' for just a few more hours.

A Morning In The Life Of Me

-Wake up. Missed breakfast.

-Facebook.

-Walk into the kitchen. Mentally slap myself for going to bed early instead of doing dishes.

-Spend a few minutes figuring out what time I need to put the chicken in the crock pot to be ready by 7 pm.

-Pray that I don't forget at noon to put the chicken in.

-Begin operation squeeky clean kitchen. Put away clean dishes in dishwasher.

-Take a minute to marvel at my amazing OCD-influenced organized tupperware cabinet.

-Put away only one clean steak knife into a container that holds six.

-Contemplate how only two people can use five steak knives in one day.

-Sit and try to remember what we ate yesterday.

-Make a mental note to look into cooking knives so all the steak knives don't get dirty during meal prep.

-Sadly watch as my favorite sponge deteriorates in my hand.

-Throw a mini-party with myself to celebrate picking a bright lime green sponge.

-Three dishes later, hate the lime green sponge for not having a scrubby side.

-Wonder how I am going to get 12,463 dishes clean during the course of this sponges life with no scrubby side.

-Wonder how many dishes I actually wash in the life span of one sponge.

-Decide to one day count the number of dishes.

-Pray that the rediculously high number does not push me into clincal depression.

-April comes back from class with news of a homework assignment she has due that she didn't know about.

-Watch as April reclines with her feet on the couch, snuggled in a blanket with a book.

-Continue operation squeeky clean kitchen.

-Get crock pot out so I don't forget to put the chicken in at noon.

-Watch April as she has to reach all the way to the end table next to her to grab her phone, groaning at the energy it took and the fact that she had to get out of her comfortable position.

-Mentally kill April.

-Remember what God says about killing in your heart.

-Say a quick prayer of repentance.

-Mentally kill April again for getting me in trouble with God.

-Laugh out loud at the joke I made that no one but me heard.

-Pray that April didn't hear me laugh.

-Sweep floor, that somehow got dirty again in the last 24 hours.

-Decide to make a rule that everyone must have their feet/shoes pressure washed before they walk on my kitchen floor.

-Wonder why in the world the front door is in the kitchen anyways.

-Remember the mud tracked in to our old apartment living room carpet and feel thankful the door is in the kitchen.

-Write a post it note and put it on the crock pot so I don't forget to put the chicken in at noon.

-Contemplate the theory of post it notes, wondering who had such a sad life that they thought of the idea.

-Realize that person probably had a life very similar to my own.

-Quickly push the thought out of my head.

-Facebook.

-Blog.

-Facebook.

-Blog.

-Wonder how all this got done in only two hours.

-Wonder what I am going to do to fill up the entire day.

-Wonder what happened to my once exciting, eventful life.

-Blog.

-Hit publish.

Hot Tub Bans and Other Stuff

Night time swimming. Such good times.

Getting dehydrated in the hot tub. Not such good times.

Waking up with the worst headache of my life. Worst time ever.

April said I'm banned from hot tubs. That's okay. I can handle that.

Especially after last night.

I felt horrible.

Not fun.

Productive Item of the Day:
I got the entire week's meals planned for next week! We are still winging it right now, but starting Sunday, everything is planned out in our household. I have nothing better to do with my time. No classes. No kids. Just work, cooking, and cleaning. I even compared our evening schedules to know exactly what time to have dinner each night. Man, I'm good!

Non-Productive Item of the Day:
The Netflix movies are still sitting on the bar where I left them this morning after promising myself I would send them off before the mail came. The mail came. The mail left. And the movies are still on the bar. Oops.

And finally, my biggest dilema:
This weekend I face the terrible challenge of deciding if I want to go home to celebrate Michael's birthday with him and his friends Friday or stay in Houston and continue with my planned movie night Saturday. This is the time when having a car would make my life soooo much easier. Relying on others for a ride to and from La Marque is way too hard. My mom suggested coming home Thursday night and going back Saturday, but Friday is pay day which means we are going grocery shopping, and if we don't do that, we have no food for the rest of the week. Why it makes a difference on if I come home Thursday or if I come home Friday before going out is beyond me. Why can't I come home after I go shopping? But whatever. I'm thinking I will probably just go out with Michael next weekend for his birthday, celebrate it late. I have had the movie night planned for weeks. But making the decision has not been an easy one. Did I make the right decision? Comments welcome.

In The Beginning...

Well, okay this isn't exactly the beginning of my blog per se. But I deleted my old posts from years past and decided to start fresh. I mainly want to use this blog to keep family and friends updated that I don't get to see every day. And who knows? Maybe one day I will be able to look back on my old posts and laugh at the interesting situations life likes to throw at me.

Maybe....

Nah!!!!

Today has been a very good day for me. I have been more productive today than I have in a long time. During my week long bout with the flu last week, I had no desier to continue with my my normal household routines, such as cleaning and paying bills. Unfortunately, life does not stop when one is sick. So when I woke up this morning, you can imagine my surprise when I realized just how much I had to do today. But I managed to eat breakfast at a relatively early hour and get started. I spent the better part of the morning doing dishes and contemplating the whole theory. I cannot stress enough how annoying and discouraging it is to do dishes in the morning, and watch as the day brings new meals to cook and more dishes to get dirty. So at the end of the day, I am back to where I started in the morning. How does that happen with only two people in the apartment? Why do we go through so many dishes that we are forced to wash them twice a day just so our kitchen doesn't look like a mess? After I was done trying to make sense of such logic, I managed to finish rest of my chores on my to do list.

But instead of feeling satisfied like I normally do when I accomplish another morning's work, I am left to wonder what in the world has happened to my life where I can spend twenty minutes thinking about these things, like the woes of dishes, and be relatively entertained by doing so? Has my life really deminished to such lows? Have I really let myself get the point that my day is deemed as excellent if I find a new chicken recepe I can cook? Or have a heated debate on the benefits of a broom vs. swiffer? Or spend 20 minutes figuring out if you actually save money getting the cheaper paper towels if it takes five of them to clean your kitchen surfaces as opposed to two of the expensive brand? Or felt a deep sense of adoration every time I pull down my crock pot, which has become my new favorite kitchen appliance? That's right! I have a favorite kitchen appliance!! Let that sink in for a minute. What's wrong with me??

Even as I sit here writing this, I am looking at our shopping list and trying to figure out what we need of the list before I get paid Friday, and what we can live without until then. This is only one of the many things that run through my mind every day. I used to love winging through life, taking things one day at a time. But then I saw how much money I spend that I could save if I plan things out. But at what cost? Having the role and responsibilities of a domesticated housewife at age twenty...

Yay me...

And I never went to the post office today. Dang it! Never assume your day is done when you are trying to keep a house (or in this case, apartment) running smoothly.

Until next time...