“I can’t believe you just farted in my face! You remember how we were just discussing romance? This is NOT romantic!”
“But I’ve always farted in front of you.”
“Don’t you remember how long it took me to pass gas in front of you? Years!”
“And think of all the pressure you built up. You’ve always told me it’s not healthy to keep things bottled up.”
We went today to get our Christmas tree. The last few days have been in the lower 60’s (much warmer than it has been) so we decided to go today before the cold front hit. Well, we managed to get to the tree farm WHEN the cold front hit. It was very windy and poor Squeaks’ fingernails were blue. But it was fun. We took a ride in a hay-filled wagon through all the lots of trees. When we found one we liked, we cut it down (the first time I’ve ever cut down my own tree!) and they hauled it back for us. After our hay ride, we went inside their little gift shop for cider and candy canes, then we all picked out a new ornamnet and we were on our way home. And then the fun started.
We got the tree in the house, only to find that it is too tall for our living room. We squished it into the room, but the top was all bowed over, pressing into the ceiling. Oops. At this point, Squeaks was freaking out because Oh. My. Gawd. there is a tree in the house! She melted into the floor, whimpering “No tree”. As she wailed, we laid the tree on the floor in order to saw some more off the bottom. The noise of the saw only further freaked out the fragile Squeaks, who hid under the kitchen table for the duration of the festivities. Once we got the trunk sawed down, we put the tree back in the stand and stood it up, only to find it was crooked with a capital C. We had cut it wrong. Instead of re-cutting, I came up with a genius plan. Our tree is now level, thanks to some jumbo Legos shoved under one side of the stand!
So we went to Wal-Mart on Sunday and purchased a potty chair. I was really thinking that this was going to be a huge hassle, but so far it’s turning out okay.
Within minutes of me having the chair put together, Squeaks climbed onto it and went potty. I was shocked. I figured it was just a fluke, but she’s gone potty in the chair once a day since then. Still a long way from being potty trained, but she loves going in the potty and who am I to refuse her that?
But now I’m raising a nudist. She wants to be naked all the time. She won’t go potty unless all of her clothes are off and she hates wearing anything but socks. From some things I’ve read, this is okay, as letting her run around naked helps to potty train her faster. Thankfully we have wood floors and tile floors, so this isn’t an issue with the carpet.
But the best part of this whole ordeal is that she spent the entire morning naked on the potty, playing on her little laptop. I’ve got a future blogger in that one.
I’ve always been the kind of parents who doesn’t want to push my child before she is ready. Of course, I encouraged her to walk and talk and such, but I don’t want to force her into things. Such has been my attitude towards potty training. I’ve been around enough children to see that potty training is miserable when the parent forces it on the child. I’ve read the books about potty training and Squeaks wasn’t exhibiting any signs that she was ready, so I was content to change diapers until she was ready. After all, she JUST turned 2, so I figured I had a year or so until we got really into this potty stuff.
A few months back we bought Squeaks a book about going potty, simply because she picked it out at the store (probably because it makes real flushing sounds while a little kid squeals and laughs). We read it all. the. time. After reading that book a few hundred times, Squeaks starting following us to the bathroom, watching intently while we did our business. But while she was exhibiting these signs, there were no other clues that she was ready. She didn’t know what she was about to go, she couldn’t even pull her own pants off. Despite all of this, I had planned to buy a little potty after the holidays and start introducing the idea to her, letting her lead the way.
So imagine my surprise when, for the last 3 days, Squeaks has come up to me to inform me that she is about to poop! Three days in a row she has told me BEFORE she was dirty that she was about to make a stinker! I can’t believe she started doing this all on her own. Now I know this is a far cry from actually going in the potty, but I realized I need to be getting a little potty for her sooner than I had planned. She seems anxious to go, so I should roll with it, I guess.
This shouldn’t surprise me…after all, this is the child who has transitioned so easily her entire life. When she turned one, I told her she was a big girl and didn’t need bottles anymore and THAT WAS IT. There was no horrible breakdown weaning process. After that speech she was done and drank only from a cup. Same goes for moving into a big girl bed. I told her she was a big girl now and that she can’t get out of bed without Mommy or Daddy there to help her. And we’ve never had a problem since. Even though she can now get out of bed on her own, she always sits there and yells for one of us to get her up. There was about a week where she wouldn’t sleep, but I bribed her into staying in her bed again, and that was the extent of it.
So I guess we’ll be trying to potty thing soon. I’m sure there will be a million setbacks, but I’m encouraged that she’s taking the initiative here. Stay tuned for the follow up stories!
With all the festivities this week, I am out of class and I’m not really sure what to do with myself. I seriously contemplated cracking open a bottle of wine around 10 am yesterday, but then I remember this little person I call Squeaks who somewhat needs me to be alert. So I scratched the booze idea and baked instead. I hate cooking, but damn if I can’t bake and enjoy it, too!
So tonight we enjoy a big turkey-day dinner at my parents’, then we spend Saturday at my husband’s redneck side of the family (where you HAVE to drink in order to not kill any number of them). But that still leaves my MIL (shudder) and my hubby’s grandfather who don’t have any festivities to go to. Being the domestic goddess that I am, I invited them over for dinner tomorrow night, but I laid out the rules early: I don’t do turkey. Not when I’m eating it 2 other times in the same week and only 5 people are going to be here for dinner. So I’m making homemade pizza and they can take it or leave it. I would prefer if my MIL left it, but I digress.
My best friend is VERY pregnant right now, but she was desperate to get out of the house, so last night we met up with her and her husband for dinner and bowling. Yes, bowling. And that was the choice of the pregnant one! I hadn’t been bowling in a long time, possibly because I suck at bowling. I’ve come to accept my total inability to keep the ball in the lane, rather than the gutter and I usually have a pretty good time making fun of myself. I’m talking I usually score in the 50’s when I bowl. That bad.
But something finally clicked last night when I walked up to the lane. Or it might have been the fact that I begged my pretty little yellow ball to go straight and then pretended to kiss it. Either way, I was on fire! I bowled 3 strikes in one game and countless spares. Not only did I break my record score (not hard to do!), but I beat everyone else! I was so excited that I took a picture on my camera phone of me pointing to my high score on the screen. I know I’m a dork, but I was so excited.
But apparantly I peaked too early. The other two games we bowled were horrible, with my scores back in the 50 range, but I didn’t care! I had finally won a game of bowling and it did wonders for my way too competitive side. So for the next week or so I’ll be gloating that I finally beat my hubby at something he’s good at!
I had promised to write about Squeaks’ 2nd birthday party, but now I forget all of the little details I was going to describe. It’s been that long of a week (a congested, snotty week at that). But what I DO remember is that the child would not take a nap on the day of her party, so we were all walking on eggshells that evening, waiting for the ticking little time bomb to explode. But she never did. Sure, she was exhausted (with the time change, she wants to go to bed at 6:30), but she put on her party face and did very well. She wasn’t too interested in opening gifts after a new book caught her eye in the first gift she opened. She got a bunch of loot, from a talking Baby Jaguar to a Diego tent to an aquarium to a little kids 4 wheeler. But she really liked the little kitchen set we got her (don’t get me started on stereotypes — it’s what she wanted!) and she pretty much ignored everyone and everything after she opened that. I was able to pry her away long enough to sing Happy Birthday and to pretend to blow out the candles (she has no clue what that blowing this is all about) and then she was back to her kitchen set. She wanted nothing to do with the cake, which was really fine with me since it was already past her bedtime at this point. After she had played for awhile she had a bite of cake, but that was it. I somehow managed to get her to hug and thank the 20-some-odd people that were here and then we were left with cardboard boxes, trash, and too much cake. It was a really good party, especially for her not having had a nap, but I’m glad it’s over. We’ve gotten rid of old toys to make room for the new and now I’m just left facing Christmas. So here’s a picture of the cake that Squeaks absolutely loved to look at, but didn’t want to eat (and for those of you dying from curiosity, you get to read her real name!):
So that birthday post I promised will have to wait yet again due to the crazy events of today. But first, some background.
A few weeks back, I noticed what looked like a bug bite on Squeaks, just where the top of her diaper hits. It was not a big deal, other than the fact that it’s gotten colder and I couldn’t figure out what kind of bug had bit (bitten?) her. This week, a few more similar bumps showed up, but since she plays outside a lot, I brushed it off, as well. They weren’t bothering her, so it was something I quickly forgot about. Then yesterday morning I noticed a blister in her diaper area. After her bath, it popped, but still didn’t seem to bother her. By the time I picked her up from daycare at my sister’s that afternoon, she had broken out in a bumpy rash all over her diaper area and had a huge bump in her groin. I debated calling the doctor, but it looked like it could just be a diaper rash plus she still had no pain. Plus her party was last night and I was being childish and not wanting to upset her at the doctor before her party.
Then today she woke up and that bump on her groin had a huge head on it. I broke down and called her doctor to get his opinion, which was to take her immediately to the emergency room. Since The Hubby was working today, my mom went with us. To make this long story a little shorter, it turned out that Squeaks had a boil in her groin that was abcessed and needed to be lanced and drained. My poor baby had to suffer through a lot of pain to clean it out. Apparantly all of this was caused by a staph infection that is running rampant in Oklahoma (if not everywhere) right now. But the one thing that made me feel better was when the dr. told me that even if I had taken her in yesterday, she would have to be in the ER today because the boil hadn’t come to a head yesterday. So even though I still feel immensely guilty for brushing it off, I feel a little relief.
So my next few days will be spent changing bloody bandages, forcing nasty medicine down her throat, and taking care of a sweet little girl with a sore leg. But the best thing is that this whole ordeal really hasn’t slowed her down. Of course she screamed through the actual procedure, but she’s enjoyed an evening of playing with all of her new birthday toys. And I’m the one left emotionally scarred.
We took Squeaks to Sears a few days ago to visit a friend of mine who is a photographer there. She takes amazing pictures and Squeaks loves her, so we wanted her 2nd birthday pictures done there. The Hubby and I decided to be in some of the pictures, considering I only have 2 photos of the three of us as a family since Squeaks was born! So here they are, which two side notes: 1) The toothpick behind The Hubby’s ear was airbrushed out — what a redneck! 2) Someone please tell me how to post pictures in WordPress where they aren’t HUGE! I try to minimize the size, but then they look really squished. So if you know, please help!
In other news, we survived Squeak’s 2nd birthday party last night, so a full update and more (huge) pictures will be posted later, when I recover!
One year ago we moved into this house, with lots of dreams in mind. There were so many projects we were anxious to do and we had big ideas of adding on to the upstairs and adding a game room. A year later we are wiser and coming to terms with what is really going to work around here. We rennovated the kitchen first, although we still hate the cabinets. While everything else in the kitchen is to our liking, we plan on having new cabinets built after the holidays. The ones we have just are not salvageable. The upstairs has been completely redone (although no add-on) and I now have an awesome home office where I can do school work and otherwise escape from my family! We had new windows and siding installed, as well as new doors. And then there’s the bathroom.
Exactly 11 months ago, The Hubby started tearing into the bathroom. It started because the hot water heater had previously exploded, soaking the floor, and causing the floor to rot. We knew about it when we bought the house, but we didn’t realize the full extent of the damage. We wound up having to completely tear the whole floor up and put new floor in. We tore out the shower, got rid of the claw foot tub and added a new corner shower and two person Jacuzzi tub. We tiled the new floor and painted. And then….the tile started coming up. And we decided we hated the color of the paint. And this project grew.
So as I said, it’s 11 months later and the bathroom remains unfinished. We got into a burnout phase where we didn’t want to touch anything. Electrical wires were haphazardly strung around for lighting. The ceiling was open to the upstairs storage. Half the floor was tiled. We were just sick of the whole thing. But now we’re having Squeaks’ 2nd birthday party here Friday night and we’ve decided it’s time to kick it into high gear. There is no excuse for having a bathroom remodel that lasts almost a year! So we’ve been working night and day to get it done. While we might not be 100% finished (think molding and such) by Friday, we will have a fully functional, much better looking bathroom (or so I hope). So this week you can catch me up to my ears in paint, mud, mortar, grout, and all things bathroom!
