Wearing the Brown Pants

Arg...it has been well over a month since my last blog. I swear, there is never any time for anything...

The last several weeks have consisted primarily of the following:

1) mind-blowing work stress ("when you have a minute, Baker, can you....")

2) doing laundry

3) getting my 3 year old to stop pooping her pants

Since the first two are rather boring (and blogging about #1 would likely get me fired), let's study #3 (which would be funnier if I'd made it #2....heh).

I have blogged about potty training in the past. Getting started with potty training is a unique time between parent and child--parent is trying to get to know the child on a whole different level. I spent time trying to learn Rachael's 'tells', kept eyes on the clock, had her bladder at the front of my mind. During these early stages, there's a 'win some, lose some' mentality that allows the occasional pair of wet undies to do little but raise an eyebrow. I was down with this process.

Proud of my patience, and prouder of Rachael's mastery of her bladder, we warped to Level 2: Poop.

She seems unwilling (NOT unable) to take ownership of this bowel situation. I honestly don't get it. I've tried to explain to her that the same techniques used for bladder management can be applied to her bowels. I ask, "what do you do when you feel you need to poop?" and she says "I go poop on the potty." She then poops in her pants. Really? REALLY?! The fierce denial is what really gets me: "Rachael, did you poop in your pants?" (while she is standing there with a load in her drawers). Answer: "No! NO NO NO!" Arg!

Perhaps realizing that I was nearing the brink of insanity (did I mention the mind-blowing work stress earlier?), husband shows up with an article he found about...Rachael. I kid you not--it's an article about smart kids who simply will not give in on one lingering piece of the whole potty training experience. I read through it three or four times, considered its advice, and decided to give it a try.

The whole premise of the article is to put your kid in control by letting go. Stop pestering, stop asking, stop issuing punishments if pant-pooping occurs, etc. My previous technique was, if Rach pooed up her pants, she wasn't allowed to watch Dora the Explorer on TV that night. She quietly accepted the Dora-free nights, but it wasn't changing her behavior one bit.

So, on Tuesday this week, I had her go pick out her underpants, explained that the underpants are very pretty and don't want poop on them, then....closing ceremonies: "Rachael, you are a big girl, very smart, and I know you can go potty all by yourself. If you feel you need to be on the potty, you have to do it by yourself now, ok?" She nodded, and that was the last time we've really talked about potty.

So how much poo have I cleaned up since then? Zero. No accidents--three poop successes at school, too. I'm not expecting that this chapter is entirely closed, but I have a totally new outlook now, which helps. If she has an accident, I have to go along, business as usual: no Dora blackouts, no tense rides home from school. So I'm gritting my teeth and talking my type-A self into making poop a non-issue.

Once we get the poop under control, we'll move on to graduate-level topics like 'nighttime bladder awareness'. But for now I'll be satisfied with a bachelor's degree in 'daytime bowel management.' :)

Rach on a school day--she's such a great kid!

.

And here's my pretty, super-motivated Erin, who is desperate to walk (because after all, Rachael walks, and Erin thinks that everything Rachael does is amazing):

.

I'll take 'Pink Tricycles' for $1000, Alex...

Was watching a few minutes of Jeopardy the other night and got to thinking...what would my girls' Jeopardy categories be? Here goes!

If Rachael's life was a series of Jeopardy categories, they would be:

* Cartoons with Ducks and Chickens
* Foods Dipped in Ketchup
* Scenes of Dangerous Tumbling/Acrobatics
* Pink Tricycles
* Trials of Left-Handed Children
* Preschool Sociolinguistics (all answers are to start with "NO NO NO!")


Oh, fun. Now Erin's turn:

* Binkie Taxonomy
* Seborrheic Dermatitis
* Words that Start with "Buh Buh Buh" (all answers are to start with a juicy, toothless grin)
* Big Sisters I Worship
* Handed-Down Clothing
* Funny Grey Cats

Haven't decided on Final Jeopardy 'answers' yet... :)
.

Beam me to Michigan!

Cute lil moment Saturday...Rachael and I were driving to gymnastics when, once again, she said, "Momma, wait! We no get Uncle Jim! He come with us!"

My brother, who adores Rachael, went with us to gymnastics the last two times he and my sis in law were in town. Since then, Rachael has decided that Uncle Jim will be coming with us to gymnastics each week. Now that would be a lot of commuting... :)

Perhaps she'll stop asking me why we left Uncle Jim at home once I can get her to understand the distance between Michigan and Connecticut...until then, Jim, I think you're on the hook for getting yourself to gymnastics every Saturday. Hee hee... :)

Merry Chr...Thanksgiving!

The turkey just doesn't stand a chance these days...

It used to be annoying, but I've finally just accepted it: I will shop for Halloween costumes among Christmas tree displays. I understand that stores fund entire fiscal years around holiday sales, but dang...I was at the mall on October 30th and the kids trick-or-treating in mall definitely clashed with the tinsel and holly berries on display at JCPenney. And, at least here in the Detroit area, radio stations start playing Christmas music during the first week of November. Who wants to listen to White Christmas when the jack-o-lanterns haven't even hit the trash can yet?

This rush to the American Christmas season does make me a little sad for poor, lonely Thanksgiving. Is Thanksgiving is nothing but an eighth rest in the middle of the loooong Christmas carol?

Well Thanksgiving--I appreciate you! I think it's fabulous that we have a day in our year bookmarked specifically for us to be thankful. Yes, there's the arguable history behind "the first Thanksgiving," but it's pretty well accepted that Thanksgiving is a day to acknowledge our blessings. So I'm going to turn down my Christmas music and set aside my wish list for a moment to give Thanksgiving its due attention. :-)

Here's a short list of what I'm thankful for:

* my beautiful, smart, healthy daughters
* my beautiful, smart, healthy husband
* the roof over my head and the (soon-to-be-new!) carpet under my feet
* my job and my colleagues (even the snarky ones in Ann Arbor) ;-)
* my health insurance, which helped pay for my Tamiflu prescription last week
* my city's autumn leaf pickup program
* my brother and Jen, who love me, Dave, and my girls from afar
* Sandy and Ron, who love me, Dave, and my girls from afar
* my inlaws, who are so generous with their time

* my mother, for doing the best she can
* my furnace, which warmed my house to 68 degrees right on schedule this morning
* my tub of Infant Vics Vapo Rub
* my kids' pediatrician, who made me laugh while I nervously held my feverish baby
* the heated seats in my car
* Dr Seuss, who reminds me to try new things, even if I'm sure I won't like it
* AIM Instant Messenger--how did I ever function in corporate America without IM?
* my friends, new and old
* gas being less than $4/gallon

I could go on...but an eighth rest only lasts so long! Thank you, Thanksgiving.

Back to Christmas!

We took the girls in for holiday photos already. Yep, weeks before Thanksgiving...I know, I know. Here's a hint of what you'll see in your mailboxes next month:

Neither of our girls had any interest in having pictures taken. Oh well! They're still cute. ;-)

Happy Thanksgiving, gentle readers!

Trying, Once Again, to be Responsible...

David and I try, but we admittedly fall short of being perfect parents. I know...contrary to popular belief... ;-)

We've been talking about getting a Will and Living Trust drafted for about three years now. We even got as far as meeting with an attorney (two, actually), but never got the whole effort off the ground. It's an incredibly daunting task.


Well, I'm proud to say that *today* we finally went back to the attorney and gave her everything she needs to process a first draft of a will, living trust, and the re-deeding of our house (this process also helped us discover that buying our house before we were married opened up a few legal loopholes. Awesome.) It'll take a few weeks for her to get everything together for her first draft, but heck, after the three years it took D and I to formulate the content of that first draft, two weeks isn't bad.


For those of you who are not experienced with estate planning with minor children, this is why it took us forever to get to this point in hella-serious estate planning. You need to:
* decide WHO should manage your estate (liquidate your assets, invest the proceeds, close accounts, collect your life insurance, deal with your house, deal your cars, deal with your children's new guardian, etc etc etc)
* decide HOW that person is to manage your estate (work with an investment counselor, plan for kids' college, etc)
* decide WHO will raise your children, which is almost as hard as this last biggie...
* decide HOW you want that person to raise your children


So let's say you decide you want Ralph Smith to manage your estate (cash) and Loretta Jones to raise your children. Sounds cut-and-dried, right? But now consider this: if Loretta Smith dies, do you automatically want her husband, Jerome, to raise your kids? Do you want Ralph Smith to have a say in that? Oh, and how much are you going to pay Ralph for managing your crap? And do you want Loretta to send your kids to private school instead of the Jonesville Public School? Who decides if Jonesville Public School is acceptable? Who has to agree before the estate (Ralph) will pony up for private school? Oh, and what if Loretta decides to move to Paraguay? Or worse, Cleveland? Can she take your kids, or does the next-in-line guardian get the kids? And how old/how accomplished do your kids have to be before they can get your cash? 25? 30? 26.5 with a college degree? 27 with a Masters degree? AUGH!


Every single decision opened up Pandora's box a little wider. Crap.


So, realizing that our current plan of just ignoring this whole mess might not be the most responsible decision, we wrote a narrative on what we would generally like to see happen....the pretty essay written in a pleasing font had clear sections describing the things that are important to us and the things that confused us (see Paraguay issue above). Proud of our work, we handed it to the attorney, then watched as she stared first at us, wide-eyed, then at our single-spaced narrative, and asked if we'd really written a narrative on our estate plan. Said she'd never seen that before. Heh. Clearly she needs to get to know D and me better. So, she talked us through her recommendations and agreed to have her draft in the mail in two weeks.


Not easy stuff, no easy answers. I am glad that we at least have the process in gear now.


Anyhoo, here are the princesses we're doing all this for! Check out my pretty-pretties in the Halloween gear:

Rachael as Minnie Mouse

Lil Ladybug Erin

Me and my girls...with Rachael in her other costume (was too cold for this on Halloween night!)

Stop the Insanity (Ins'anity?)

Sometimes it is so painful to witness ignorance in action.

I realize I am a snob when it comes to grammar. Worse, I'm sure I make my fair share of typos (typo's? typos'? ty'pos?), given that I spend most of my day pounding out emails and instant messages by the hundreds. But dammit--it's shameful when college-educated people (MANY OF THEM EDUCATORS THEMSELVES) cannot use an apostrophe to save their (they're?) lives. Forget the comma, the semicolon, the colon--they are all just instruments of torture. But I think anyone can be taught how to use a frigging apostrophe. It's (its?) not that hard. Here's a quick overview:

http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/apostrophe.html

Anyhoo....

I found myself suffering another bout of grammar depression just this morning. I was in the drive-up line at Tim Horton's (yes, that's possessive, folks) when I saw a van with this painted on the side:

Fine Touch Window Washing's

248-477-nnnn

Come ON. You had your WORK VAN PAINTED and no one made sure you were SPELLING THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY CORRECTLY? I weep.

Is there a school somewhere teaching that, if a word ends in 's', you need an apostrophe? I really don't get it. When I was a youngster learning how to use these darn little hooks, I sure wasn't bold enough to just splash them where ever. I was careful to ask myself, "is this possessive? Is this a contraction? What are the rules for the situation I'm in?" I asked myself these questions until the usage because more natural for me.

I know this makes me a b*tch, but I'm putting this out there for the good of the many: people judge you when you use poor grammar. If you are an educator sending letters home with crap like "...student's need to..." strewn about (real example, by the way), parents will THINK YOU ARE STUPID. Pick up a copy of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style and make it your business to learn from these masters. It does not matter if you are teaching science (s'cience?), English, or wood shop--you had to take English to graduate. So prove that you showed up for class.

Rant over. But would it be wrong for me to paint over the apostrophe on the Fine Touch work van? ;-)

The holiday of my people: http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/

Cari, I dedicate this post to you...I would be lost without our fierce instant-messaging sessions over poor diction and apostrophe abuse (abus'es'?) :-)

Rachael and the Big Wide World

Rachael discovered the moon last night.

We were walking out of the mall around 7:30pm last night, so it was pretty dark outside. I just happened to notice a nearly-full moon in our line of sight and said "ohh, Rach, look at how pretty to moon is tonight!" She looked around for a bit until we got her to look up into the night sky.

"Moon? Over der? MOON! The moon is over der, Momma!"

It never occurred to me that she hadn't really seen the moon before. I mean, we're outside a lot in the summer, but the sun is out until after 9pm--no moon out when she's playing. And in the colder months, we're inside most of the time. Rach is in bed by 8pm most nights during all seasons, so very few moon moments. Reading Goodnight Moon only gets you so far...

Rachael talked about the moon the whole way home. "Where's the moon now, momma? Over der? Over DER?" She was fascinated. How many times have you noticed the moon in the past month, the past YEAR, and given it much thought? I can't properly express how amazing it was to see, feel, and hear this experience through her eyes. What's more is that she able to TELL US so clearly about what she was thinking and how she was feeling--after more than a year in speech therapy, we definitely don't take that for granted!

How neat. One more piece of the big wide world tucked inside that pretty head of hers. One more thing she can teach her sister ("...and then the MOON comes out, Erin..."). I can't wait.

Here are some pics from my little astronomer's third birthday party! Yep, she's three! We had a princess-themed party for her:

Purple Pearl Cake

Princess Bounce House...Rachael and her lil friends LOVED it!

My lil kangaroo...in a tutu :-)

Keep on exploring Rach!