Adventures in potty training.

I avoided posting or making any big announcements about it. After all, I jinxed myself at LEAST twice on these very pages, bragging about how I was going to tackle potty training Josh and how smart I was going to be in figuring out timing and blah blah blah. No, this time I kept my damn mouth shut.

Monday night we were doing our weekly grocery shopping and Jeff asked if we were picking up pull-ups for Josh since the stash was getting low. Now, I hate buying diapers and pull-ups. I'm cheap when it comes to those, that's why I loved cloth diapers. So I decided right then that we were going to try potty training. Again.

Tuesday morning he stayed in a pull-up until after we picked Nicky up from school. Mostly because he usually takes his poo sometime in the morning and I was only interested in tackling one thing at a time. Come lunch time, poop out of the way, we pulled out the undies! We were very excited! This was going to be so much fun!

Pee everywhere. Pee on the couch. Pee on the kitchen chairs. Pee on the rug in their playroom. Pee. Pee. Peeeeee. But in the midst of that, he went on the potty unassisted and unprompted. I swear to god, that one pee was the only thing that gave me a ray of hope that day.

So Wednesday. Wednesday looked very much like Tuesday, but with a little more sitting on the potty and a little less pee all over my house. It was progress.

Yesterday was even better. Sure we had a bunch more pairs of wet undies BUT he was catching himself after the first few dribbles and going and sitting on his potty. All by himself.

Today he woke up and immediately banged on the bathroom door for Jeff to let him in to do his thang. And so far this morning, no pee accidents. That's not to say it's been a total success because now that he has the hang of peeing, we're doing the poop part. So there was that. That was fun. But hey, at least it stayed in the underwear and not all over his hands and my walls. Yippee!

...oh God, it's true. I'm sorry. After all this, I just realised that maybe you're not as interested in hearing about my kid's bodily functions as I am in writing about them? Yup it's true about moms, because THIS, this right here? It's the highlight of my week. Sadness. I used to be cool.

For real this time.

After last week's ra-ra post on losing weight I sort of fell flat on my face. I lack discipline, and I got really lazy about my running program.

Today I found myself on the Weight Watchers site for the first time in almost 2 years. I watched myself with amazement as I typed in my old username and password and decisively signed myself up again.

I'm a rule follower. I'm not a rebel, I can't make shit up as I go along. I need to be told how to do things, how much I'm allowed to do, and I need a nice big pat on the back when I've done a good job. Fireworks are optional, but appreciated.

So a program like WW is perfect for me. I might resist a little and sneak a treat here or there without recording it, but when I'm on WW that little treat would be more like 2 snack-sized kit kats. When I'm free-styling a treat is more like melted cheese on toast, a bag of chips WITH DIP, and some ice cream. Way over the top.

You can go ahead and figure out what that means about my personality.

So, NOW you can all sit back and witness the incredible melting girl. Last time I lost 30 pounds in 5 months by only dieting. This time we're adding in some fitness so I'm expecting to be ready for my 'after' picture a bit more quickly than that.

Oh ya, that's right. I took a disgusting 'before' picture of myself last week. It's so scary that even Jeff hasn't seen it. In fact, I didn't even tell him about it. That's how embarrassing it is. But I will be thankful in a couple months that I did it. And who knows, once I've reached my goal I may even do one of those side-by-side pictures and we can all ooh and ah over it.

Then you can set off fireworks and give me some high-fives, k?

Call me vain.

Hair.

As a woman it's our crowning glory, no? We spend SO MUCH money on it, obsess over it, critique it (and everyone else's). Hair is what we use to hide behind or make ourselves stand out in a crowd, depending on your personality.

I luuuurve my hair. I love that I was gutsy enough to go through with chopping it all off. I'm growing it out right now just so I can chop it all off again. I'm a fan of grand gestures.

What I don't love is something that I spied in the mirror today. Every woman that's ever spent any time at all in front of a mirror scanning the top of their head knows exactly what I'm about to say. Gray hair.

Okay, not a lot. But not just one or two. They're interspersed all.over.my.head. Prior to 30 minutes ago, I was totally A-OK with having a natural hair color while I was growing out my hair.
Not anymore. Oh hell no, the only thing I have to decide on now is color. Hi-lites? One color? Decisions.

The only that is certain is that 32 is far too young to worry about this shit, and I am so glad that hair dye was invented!

Let's do this again.

Two years ago I started documenting a weight loss journey on this 'ol blog. I was 159 pounds and had just had a baby a couple months earlier and could be forgiven for carrying an few (or 35) extra pounds.

So I joined Weight Watchers, started counting my calories, and lost a grand total of 31 pounds. Success! I was SO CLOSE to my goal of 125 pounds and I promptly declared myself cured of the fat. And went straight back to the horrible eating habits that got me into trouble in the first place.

Which brings me to today and my current fat-ass weight of 153 pounds. Almost smack dab right back at where I was before. EXCEPT last time I had just had a baby 3 months earlier. I do not have that excuse this time.

I got lazy, I NEVER got into the regular habit of working out, and then when I stopped to think about how far I had let myself go I got depressed and would eat more crap. Vicious cycle.

So new plan. Back to counting calories, which I KNOW to be effective. But besides just that, I'm also taking up running. Indoors for now since HAVE YOU SEEN IT OUT THERE? Once the white crap melts, it'll be outdoors.

The ultimate goal with this running is to enter a 5K. I'm going to get halfway through my program and then book myself into one. No excuses.

I have a long-term goal but it's EXTREMELY unrealistic at this point so I think I'll keep it to myself. Suffice it to say, it's over a year away and totally bad-ass. It's so beyond my scope of even imagining that most people would giggle to themselves if I told them.

I'll do it though.

Boo-hoo.

These days I feel like a salmon swimming upriver. I don't know what it is about the age of 2 that makes parents feel absolutely unprepared to deal with toddlers, but I do know it's a common theme.

At least I hope so. Maybe everyone else has it together and I'm the only one that has no grip on reality?

Because my youngest kids are effing animals. Although once I think about it, when Nicky went through this destructive phase, Josh was too young to mimic. Now that Josh is there, it's like Nicky is reverting.

The result is I want to hurl myself off the High Level Bridge.

This past week has been especially trying. They're fighting, with fists. They yell at each other. Josh gives Nicky shit every 5 minutes. They tattle on each other constantly. They are breaking things and wrecking things at record speeds.

Nicky has taken to acting like a frill-necked lizard. If you don't know what that is, google image it because I can't for the life of me figure out how to link properly. But, when he feels threatened by Josh he'll hiss at him and you can just picture, if he had a frill it would be WAY up there scaring Josh off.

And it's effective, 95% of the time Josh runs away. It's also the only levity in a really annoying situation.

Because I swear, I discipline. I don't let them get away with awful behavior. They go for time outs, they get spankings, they get toys taken away. They get yelled at, talked to nicely, bargained with. They're loved, they're not ignored, I'm engaged with them. I'm definitely not a perfect parent but I care about how they turn out.

And still. I feel like I'm raising future hood rats.

So that's why I feel like a salmon. I know eventually I'll be successful but damn is it hard on the way there. And I know it's not even the hardest part yet because I'm going through THAT with the oldest one. Although one could say that it's not necessarily harder, it's just a different kind of hard.

I meant to turn out a light-hearted, jokey post. Instead I spiraled down into mommy-whine. Honestly though, lately I've been aching to have the same stomp-your-feet, bawl-your-eyes-out, red-faced tantrums they've been having. But someone has to act like the adult.

It's about me this time!

How about another round of 'Random Things'. But this time about me!

-My energy level has tanked. Like, I could fall asleep right now as I type and my mouth is in a permanent yawn. There are probably many different reasons for this but I'm betting the biggest one is that I find it impossible to fall asleep before midnight every night.

-I have finally, and for the last time ever, quit smoking. It only took almost 17 years after I first started to be able to say it and mean it. And over the last week I've been tested, let me tell you. Probably the worst. time. ever. to quit but we can't predict what life throws at us.

-I'm going back and forth between saving up to buy a treadmill and trying to find a gym buddy and joining Spa Lady. The treadmill would probably be more cost effective but the gym! They have Zumba classes! That I'd probably never attend but still!

(This is where Jeff pipes in and reminds me that a) where the fuck would we put a treadmill? and b) I couldn't find the time to go to the gym before so what's changed? And I would say: Darling, I let you babble on about all your crap. Let me do the same.)

(But I am serious about wanting to do one of those 2 things. I've got it all planned out.)

-I'm in the process of growing out my hair. I'm an idiot and assumed that all I'd have to do is not go to my hair stylist. A word of warning to anyone trying to grow out a pixie cut, you still need to have your hair looked after or else it'll look like a big 'ol poofball. That, or you'll look like a sheepdog with all that damn hair in your eyes. It's not very attractive. Luckily I have an appointment this evening and I can go back to being stunning. Phew.

-One more thing, and you knew I wouldn't be able to not mention my kids right? This whole no-energy thing is making for one not very fun house right now. Because in addition to me being exhausted, the kids are no longer napping which means they are extra lovable and charming come about 2:30 in the afternoon. It makes it hard to keep tempers even and the yelling to a minimum. And that goes for EVERYONE in the house. We're all bitchy lately. I'm really wishing for one of those 'Easy' buttons about now.

On that note, I've got one child (I'll give you one guess who) whining and pointing at the fridge for some YOOOOGURRRRT. I've been told.

Hello again.

I've been in a blog rut lately. Can't think of anything interesting enough to write about so I've been silent for...a couple weeks? A month?

So how about some random crap? Yay!

-Nicky is majorly whiny lately. Like, make your brain bleed whiny. Apparently I've commented on this enough that when I give him the warning "Nicholas..." he responds with "I'm making your brain bleed?". Huh.

-Josh has a soundtrack to his life lately. It goes something like this: "Boom-boom, cha. Boom-boom, cha". All day, as he's playing with his cars, as he's eating his breakfast, as he's watching tv. We've all found ourselves making these sounds under our breath, it's quite catchy.

-After a serious talk with my eldest about respect, in which I told him he needed to look up the definition if he couldn't figure it out, life has been very attitude-free for the past 5ish days. I'm savoring it, who knows when it'll end? Also, he's going to be 13 in exactly 2 months. Thir-effing-teen. Where did my life go?

-Oh, and about Liam too. And this makes me roll my eyes and in some sneaky way be proud too (because he obviously got his looks from me). Amongst his friends, according to him, he's got the best hair. The guys are all trying to grow theirs out to look like his, and the girls think it's "so sexy". There's something that doesn't feel...right....about 12 year old girls thinking my kids hair is 'sexy, but unfortunately I can't control what comes out of other peoples mouths so I'm just going with it.

Oh look! A whole blog post! Who knew my kids were so damn interesting?