Potty Training, Round #2

Those of you that have trained a girl...how is it different than boys? Anything I need to know? Avrie thinks she's more than ready but I'm not so sure. She:

• Takes off her own diaper as soon as she pees.
• Tells me every time she goes.
• Heads for the bathroom but is finished by the time she gets there and then she's frustrated that she can't get any more out.
• Will occasionally poop on the potty if I tell her to.

As much as I'd love to have her out of diapers before Baby #3 (I'm convinced this will be his actual name), I'm not sure that will happen. Or will it? Can it? She'll be TWO on August 10.

• This morning Avrie asked me for a ponytail. Then she asked to get dressed. After that she says "shoppin', Mommy. Book & toy store (that's what we call the thrift store), Mommy". Smart little cookie. She's turning into a woman. We went to Target for a few things last night and got her a pair of neutral sandals. She wanted to try on all the shoes. She's also related to her Grandma Char!
• I'm very happy that it's a rainy day. I was looking for a guilt-free reason to stay inside all day.
• I have no more bullet-able information.

Ahhh, summer food.

Look! My son is smiling! At the camera! We set up a little tent in the backyard and the kids have had a blast playing in it.

flickr Just Got Way More Addicting....

Check it out. For you computer illiterate people, click on "check it out"...it's a link.

Summer + Blog = Not So Much

• We've spent every possible minute either in the backyard, at various awesome parks or at the pool.
• We were at a park last night and were using the Port-a-Potty. I was holding the door open for Nolan so I could supervise what his little hands touched and to ventilate so he didn't asphyxiate. I bent down to help Avrie get a rock out of her shoe and when I look up Nolan has grabbed both sides of the urinal and has his head all the way inside. And they were out of anti-bacterial gel. Go figure.
• At 4:30 this morning I hear "Mommy" yelled 4-5 times. I rush in and Nolan says "Mom, where's my butterfly"? He had been having a dream. The cool caterpillar has been in his cocoon for a while now.
• I hate juice boxes. Really. Until a kid is old enough...in my experience, 4 years...they squeeze it EVERY TIME.
• I took Avrie to our chiro on Friday afternoon and he did an allergy workup for chemicals and foods. The only thing that showed up was dairy, raw and pasteurized. It is a sensitivity and not a full-blown allergy. So we are eliminating dairy and restoring her digestive tract with probiotics and we'll see what happens. This may or may not be what is causing her eczema. Which looks almost gone at times and horrid at others. I also treated her for 48 hours with sulphur...so who knows if that has helped reduce the eczema as well. I really have no idea. Easy, portable snacks of cheese and yogurt have gone down the tubes. I feel like she's getting way too many carbs now. Although last night she ate a whole forest of broccoli.
• Baby Boy must be going through a growth spurt. I got 8 hours of sleep Sunday night, had a 2 hour nap in the afternoon and still needed coffee at 9 PM to get me through until bedtime. I got 8 hours last night and I'm exhausted now at 8:45. Baby-growing is hard work.

35W Bridge Progress

After supper last night we went down to see the bridge construction. The sun was setting right in front of us so it was hard to get a decent picture. It's crazy...I can't even begin to imagine what all goes into making a bridge. We got to watch a boat go through the dam...the kids thought that was pretty cool.

Checking it out.

We come to see a huge bridge being built and my kids are more interested in the drain. Typical!

There's just something about pictures of the back of their heads.

Stopped at a local family-run place for ice cream on the way home.

Imp.

Gotta catch the drips.

%$@&

I'm standing firm on the fact that the pediatrician was downright rude, inconsiderate, etc. But it looks like we've got eczema. Full-blown case of it. Strangely, only on the right side of her body. I'm really hoping it's a reaction to a bug bite, chlorine or something outside. I just don't know if I can deal with food allergies again. I've eliminated all sugar and refined carbs to keep from feeding it. I'm hoping it resolves itself as suddenly as it appeared. So, needless to say, I'm a little down in the dumps. Upside is...it doesn't bother her. At all. Not even the slightest.

Elbow pit, right side.

Feel Better About Yourself:

It's been building up since last Thursday.

Nature: Life's Teacher

Evan captured this handsome fellow for Nolan. He was beyond thrilled with it. His favorite birthday present was a bug house from Klara, the little girl we watch. It sleeps with him, goes to the store, park, meeting, funerals, etc. Most often I manage to get him to leave it in the car. Where it bakes his bugs. So we're learning about living and dying around here these days. It was fun telling him yesterday about how his caterpillar was going to turn into a butterfly. If only he can leave the house alone long enough! He's also learned that rocks don't work well in a bug house. Especially with a little sister who thinks it's a rattle. This butterfly will have light brown wings with cream edging and blue spots. If it manages to live.

Parks: Perfect Photo Shoots

There are many, many more pictures of Avrie in the following posts. I'm not playing favorites. I simply have a son who ignores me as much as possible when I have the camera.

We're being lazy today. We had an insanely long and busy weekend with no naps and short nights. We're ready for a lazy day. I took Avrie to the doctor this morning for a persistent ugly rash and I have never felt so undermined and disrespected in my life. She completely disregarded my thoughts and feelings and, I feel, wrongly diagnosed it. She called it eczema. It looks nothing like any eczema I've ever seen. Oh, and she was obese. I'm sorry, I'm being size-ist. But I find it hard to take medical advice from someone who is at least 100 pounds overweight. And she felt the need to discipline my kids. How in the world is that her place? And they didn't need discipline...exam tables are for sitting on. There wasn't a sign that said "do not let your children sit on exam table".

We stopped at the park on the way home and I had fun with tunnel shots:

Sunday Supper Party

Megan, Weird-o, Avrie, Charlie, Ava

Megan, Nolan, Avrie, Charlie, Ava

Mom & Avrie

I have no idea.

Saturday Birthday Party

It was a pirate party. Avrie thought she was hot stuff with all her jewels.

And then a candy bracelet came along.

These things really keep them busy! This picture is awesome at showing Nolan's pigment issues on his face.

Frosting. Yum.

No nap. Greatly needed one!

Go Figure

I've had a long, long day with the kids. They've been at each other all day long. I get them both in bed by 8:30 and decide to treat myself to a hot bath and a book. I make myself a nice bowl of ice cream topped with walnuts and the rest of the caramel sauce from Nolan's birthday cake. I step into the steamy tub as I take my first wonderful bite. OF MOLD. No matter how tiny of a bite...it's a HUGE bite with mold. I had just dumped the caramel sauce in the same bowl as the leftover cream cheese frosting. I think it was a tiny bit of frosting that I happened to scoop up that was the offender.

Now I'm waiting for my husband to get home. Might as well just go to bed. Although I read recently on Yahoo that getting more than 6-ish hours of sleep is bad for your health.

Oh, and both gunnysack race videos should be up and running now.

Update: Meatloaf Recipe on Foodblog

I stole this photo from David Lebovitz. This is my idea of a perfect meal. Doesn't it look fantastic? Our supper is a little strange tonight. We're out of most everything to make a balanced meal. I found some leftover meatloaf in the freezer that I thawed and will fry in a pan and top with pepperjack cheese and wrap in a tortilla. It's the meatloaf recipe out of The Garden of Eatin'. It's very heavy on the veggies. On the side we'll have Trader Joe's curried rice. Dessert is chilled mango soup. Indigestion anyone? Yes, I realize I didn't post this on my food blog.

My Zip Got Zapped

• I wish Starbucks delivered.
• My wart is back. Solutions anyone?
• I got FRIED at the park on Monday. While attempting to take a picture I was reminded of the women in National Geographic. Some kids had hidden stacks of Playboy...we had Grandma and Grandpa's National Geographic collection. I feel like the tribal women whose ta-ta's hung to their knees. Needless to say those pictures got deleted awfully fast. I look like a lobster. Lets leave it at that.
• I recently scored two brand new bottles of girly stuff at Unique: Arbonne 4.3 oz herbal foot cream for $2.40 ($16). Aveda Smoothing Scrub for $1.80 ($22).
• Avrie has this really weird bump on her arm. It's actually three...two are clustered together and the other is a an inch away. It feels like a tiny grain of rice under her skin. It doesn't seem to bother her but it doesn't seem to be going away. Any ideas? You may be able to see it in the picture above if you click on it to make it bigger.
• Another weird skin thing with her....on Saturday I put a sticker on her arm from the birthday party. It was there for 2 hours at the most. A red circle developed where it was and it's still there. An allergic reaction to the glue in the sticker??
• Bloglines hasn't been updating lately. Argh.
• The kids found an empty SunnyD bottle at the park. The ingredients are: water, high fructose corn syrup and 2% or less of each of the following: concentrated juices (orange, tangerine, apple, lime, grapefruit). Citric acid, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), beta-carotene, thiamin hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), natural flavors, food starch-modified, canola oil, cellulose gum, xanthan gum, sodium hexametaphosphate, sodium benzoate to protect flavor, yellow #5, yellow #6. Are there seriously people who think this is good for their children?? "Oh, but it has real JUICE in it". "And CORN syrup? That must count as a vegetable". I'm continually blown away by what people "feed" their families.
• I may look huge. Surprise, I'm PREGNANT. Telling a pregnant women with severe body image issues that she's "HUGE" isn't exactly the best thing.
• I am so excited about my summer reading stash on hold at the library. I'm in love with libraries.
• My kids have a severe case of the grouchies today. Anyone want them?

Nolan's Birthday Party

We had a lovely day on Saturday for Nolan's birthday party. It was the first day all week that it stopped raining! We were able to be outside all afternoon. I'm having issues with uploading some awesome videos of our gunnysack race. *It still won't work Wednesday morning...but you should be able to view one here and here (eventually). Here's a few pictures:

Cousin Tanner in the Cozy Coupe. No matter how old you are...these cars are still cool.

Nolan crawling into his gunnysack for the race.

A little munchkin.

He really was into his cards this much. He always opened them before the present!

These were....underwear. How exciting!

Don't we all feel like this when a crowd of people stare at us and sing a song that seems to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r? I hate being sung to. Loathe it.

No girlfriends! Whew! That there is a golden cake with buttercream frosting and mini peanut butter cups. It was so simple and easy to make and delicious.

This here is a walnut spice cake with cream cheese caramel frosting. The frosting was supposed to be all swirly and pretty but something happened and it pooled. The recipe was a mile long but I think it was worth it. It was way too rich for me but there wasn't any left at the end of the day.

Taking a few final swings at the pathetic homemade pinata. We did blindfold all the kids first. Nolan just got to finish it and he was having a hard time swinging blindly!

Avrie giving it a gentle little tap. Which is quite opposite of her personality!

Chirp, Chirp, Tweet

Almost 26 weeks. Like my Tink shirt? She makes me feel sassy.

Scored this ugly mushroom picture at our garage sale last weekend for a few coins. It was on the living room wall in my MIL's house growing up. I thought it was perfect for Avrie's slowly progressing room. I fancied it up yesterday...

Ta-Da! It's pretty cute now, huh?!

I am nesting. At the rate I'm going I surely must have a nest FULL of eggs. This closet is one of many that is a "catch-all". The drawers were full of unorganized medicine, junk, etc. I sorted through them all and labeled the outside. I threw out medication that had expired 6 years ago! I reluctantly let go of my last few Valium from 2001. I'm sure their potency was diminished by now. It was still hard to throw that 'peace & sanity-in-a-childproof-cap' in the garbage.

Loads better. I know every single thing that is in there now!

It wasn't even 9:30 this morning and I had already retouched all the walls in the living room. Filled in all the scuffs and scratches that were too stubborn to come off. It looks like we have a freshly painted room now! Evan is going to come home from work one night and not recognize his own home! Well, enough blubbering...I'm sure there is something to organize or repaint or Windex!

Happy Birthday Nolan!

This is Mommy the night before you were born. In your bedroom, which you didn't use until you were 18 months! But we had it ready anyway.

Two days old. You're still my #1 little boy.

One year old. Look at your baby blues!

Two years old. You are too adorable for your own good. You look like you're up to something.

Three years old. Driving your new tractor that Mommy and Daddy got you for your birthday. You still drive it almost every day. It's getting easier to share with Avrie now that the initial thrill has worn off. But it's still YOURS. That we know for sure.

Here you are. All grown up at FOUR years old. I can't believe it. You should still be my little baby. I tell you almost every day that you need to stop growing up. You're getting too big for your britches (literally!) and so big that you're breaking Mommy's heart. There are so many things you love right now: baby lamb is #1; playing in the dirt, learning about EVERYTHING under the sun and even about the sun itself; teaching Avrie big kid stuff; telling Mommy all your wisdom, which often blows me away. My world would be so dark without you in it. Happy Birthday Sweetiecheeks! I love you heaps and heaps.