Potty Training is Really a Poopy Job!

Never did I think my world would be so consumed with the thoughts and worries of someone else’s bodily functions as I am, and yet here I am, writing about it and how my son’s diaper days NEED to be over!

With Lexi it was easy. One day we decided it was time to potty train her and the next day she was in panties and doing great. The girl has had maybe 3 accidents ever.

Mateo on the other hand, is the king of control. This toilet training thing has become a battle of the wills in my house. I ask him to go potty he says no. I offer him a treat, he negotiates for a Halloween basket worth of candy and then changes his mind to up the ante and then he holds more power. The more I offer, the more power he gets but just when I am about to throw my hands in the air and give up, he goes.

We are two weeks into the process of training and Mateo is having one accident almost every day and I am finding myself so frustrated and so bothered by it that I can’t concentrate anywhere. I call his school to check in and hear how many times he’s tried, succeeded, missed…I wait and watch as he withholds bowel movements for days like it’s the most important thing. I am pretty sure the next time he goes number two on his Spiderman potty I will be as shocked and thrilled as if Ed McMahon came to my door with an oversized check.

Truth be told, we only decided to train him to save money. It had nothing to do with freeing the landfills of one less child’s disposable diapers filled with excrements or advancing him to the next level of independence. It was all about the $120 we spend a month on him that we could be saving for something more important like, I don’t know, our mortgage?

So now, I am wondering how long is this process supposed to take? What are the secrets to being successful? How do I get the kid to hold it from 8:30pm to 6:00am? Am I going to lose my mind before this whole thing is over, and how does one accident result in so much dirty clothing?!? Do you know how many socks the kid goes through? I had no idea socks would need changed!

Too good to not!

I just discovered these two little gems on the internet yesterday and I feel the desperate need to share them with you:

The Customer is Not Always Right

Sorry Mom!

Enjoy these nuggets of gold!

Never Bring Plants into the House

Garden Grass Snakes also known as Garter Snakes can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes. Here's why:A couple in Sweetwater , Texas , had a lot of potted plants.. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze. It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants and when it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.She let out a very loud scream.The husband (who was taking a shower) ran naked into the living room to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa. He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind.He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor. His wife thought he had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance. The attendants rushed in, wouldn't listen to his protests and loaded him on the stretcher and started carrying him out.About that time the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital. The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor man..He volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief. But while relaxing, she dangled her hand in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted and the snake rushed back under the sofa.The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp so badly that he needed stitches.The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that he had been bitten by the snake. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat. By now the police had arrived.They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all when the women explained that it all happened over a little green snake. The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.The little snake again crawled out from under the sofa. One of thepolicemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over, the lamp on it shattered and, as the bulb broke, it started a fire in the drapes.The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through thewindow into the yard on top of the startled family dog who, jumped out and raced into the street where an oncoming car swerved to avoid the dog and smashed into the parked police car. Meanwhile, the burning drapes were seen by the neighbors who called the fire department.The firemen had started raising the fire truck ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires and put out the electricity and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area. But they did get the house fire out.Time passed and both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police were issued a new car, and all was right with their world. Several days later the wife and husband were watching television and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night.
The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.
That's when he shot her!

I figured we were do for a picture here somewhere. This is a picture of the kids the other night sitting in the yard. Its finally warm enough that we can be outside past 5 pm so, we've been taking full advantage.

I am pretty sure, if I were solar powered, I would have been fully charged at the end of last weekend.

Mateo must be imitating the flash that goes off when a picture is taken.

My One Year Anniversary with the Feral Plant

I have a black thumb, those of you that know me, know that this is no exaggeration. I could kill your plant simply by looking at it. Its something I am not proud of by any means but I am aware of and work with it.
A year ago, my boss gave me a plant, a live one. I accepted it with a cringe, worrying of the offense that might be taken if it died within a week.

I started out by giving the plant the last of the water that was in my cup every week or so. Then, it became the last of whatever might have been in my cup. You wouldn’t imagine how perked up that plant would get after a dose of crystal light. I left it on my desk, under the fluorescent lights day in and day out with no chance of ever having it see actual light. It continued to not only grow but bloom.

This plant will be the ONLY plant EVER that has survived more than a week in my presence and I have deemed it the “feral plant” because it does not live in a manner similar to its own kind with naturally derived chlorophyll or fresh water. It actually does best with lemon water, tea, sugar free juice drinks and the occasional soda. And the deep green leaves are the direct response of office ambiance also known as fluorescent tubes.

I put it out in the sun for thirty minutes the other day, thinking of giving it a treat, and it whithered quite quickly. I promptly returned it, gave it a splash of sparkling lemonade, and waited with baited breath. I had grown fond of this strange plant. It needed to live! Within an hour it was showing visible signs of improvement.

I love that feral plant and don’t know what I would I do without it, anymore!

Please don’t call the Plant Protection Services on me!!!

Wednesday - Hump Day

Lately, work has been a bit stressful for my husband (his firm is finally joining the rest of us, clinging for their jobs with absolute desperation) and so, I have been a bit more nurturing than I might normally be. I have cut out eating out at lunch (the horror!), I have cancelled cable (did I mention I work in TV?!?), and I have been making more macaroni and cheese than I care to admit (can I get a salad up in here?). I even decided to postpone any vacation plans we might have wanted to day dream about for the next year or so (sucking the LIFE out of me, here!!!)

Yesterday morning, the alarm went off and I attempted to shake Ruben out of bed. “I don’t want to get up!” he grunted.
“But its Wednesday,” I coaxed.
“Oh greeaaatttt…”
“Come on, you know: Wednesday – Hump day”

That’s when I realized that even before the sun comes up at least *those* synapses are firing for men.
“Oh really?” He asked as he scooted closer…

I wacked a pillow in his face, called him a perve and hopped in the shower.

The line must be drawn somewhere…