Progress, progress

So things here in potty land are progressing. The number of times that Nathan goes in the potty is slowly, ever so slowly, starting to edge out the number of times he goes on the floor. Of course, it helped that I finally realized that the kid literally pees like every 10 minutes. I'm so not kidding. So by putting him on the potty every 10-15 minutes, the success rate has increased. I must admit, I am wondering how the heck we'll do this when we actually try to venture out into the world with him in undies. You can't even drive most places around here in less than 10 minutes. Will I need to put a potty in the car?

In other news, I have finally gotten my a*$& back into the gym after about three months off. It started simply enough - our membership at the gym near our old house expired and we thought it made more sense to just go sign up at a gym closer to the new house. And somehow, that task was just SO cumbersome that we kept not doing it. Naturally, time passed and it the excuses got easier and easier - oh, we're moving, and that's enough of a workout. Oh, it's Thanksgiving, who has the time? Oh, I'm pregnant, I really should take it easy anyway.

Well, ha ha on me, because now enough time has passed that I'm out of shape again and getting back into shape at around 5 months pregnant is not going to be an easy task. But hey, we did sign up at the new gym, and I did go 3 whole times this week. And it only sucked a little bit. Now I just need to keep going. And wait for my tummy to finally get big enough so that I'm unmistakably pregnant, instead of this in-between stage, where I get this look from strangers that is clearly scrutinizing in nature - is she or isn't she? Did she just REALLY enjoy her Christmas and is this her New Year's resolution, losing the weight? (In which case, she'll be like half the people in the gym, who will disappear again by February.) Or wait, is that tummy just round enough to mean there's a baby in there?

Don't get me wrong, I get these looks on a regular basis, but the gym is worse. Let's face it - other women at any given gym are checking out the other chicks and evaluating their bodies. Are they more fit? Less fit? More toned? Flabby? The women are checking out the other women far, far more than the men are, trust me. So I feel like wearing a sign around my neck that says "Yes, I'm pregnant!" so that I'll get that sweet look people give you when you are all babyliciousness, instead of the slyly patronizing look you get when people think you're just a little bit chubby.

(And yes, this is my New Year's resolution. But no, I won't be gone by February. You'll still find my chubby little babylicious tushy at the gym. So there.)

And the score is...

Day 3 of potty training, and the current score is 2 times of actually making it to the bathroom and going tinkle in the potty (well, all over the potty, but at this point I'm not going to be picky) to 1 million times of going in the undies, on the floor, in the highchair, you name it. Hmmm. Not the best ratio, I realize. But I'm choosing to be pleased with the 2 times we've sat him down on the potty and had success. One of those times, he even TOLD us he had to go. So this is progress from yesterday and if we can keep it up, tomorrow should be even better, and so on and so on.

Here's the potential snag - when I put him down for his nap just now, he felt a little warm to me, and I checked his temp. Somewhere around 99.0, which isn't technically a fever, but if it's on the rise, then something's up. And if he's sick, then potty training seems kind of a lot to ask from him. But I'm a big believer in consistency and sticking to something once you start. So I'm not sure how we'll proceed if he does get sick. Stay tuned.

In other news, I tried to do a quick-and-dirty cleaning of the house this morning (pun intended). If nothing else, the floor definitely needed mopping and the bathrooms needed cleaning, what with all the piddling going on. So I whipped through as much as I could, but the rest of the house still needs to be vacuumed, etc., etc. And when I went downstairs to grab a drink in between putting Nathan down for his nap and dealing with Sabrina and her own petty refusals to go down for her quiet time, the lunch dishes were still sitting on the kitchen table and everything was still out. John had disappeared downstairs to watch TV once the kids were supposedly put down. I know he saw the dishes, he had lunch with us, he knew they were there. Why couldn't he have cleaned up the food and put the dishes in the dishwasher? I get so tired of being the one who is constantly cleaning up around here. John can just hang out in all the mess and be just fine. And I can do that too, to an extent. Then I get tired of the mess and just have to clean it up. However, this time, instead of dealing with the dishes myself, I simply had to walk away and tell myself they'll be there later on. At some point, even I need a break.

Right?

Tinkle, Tinkle, Little Star

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm curious - how many of you parents out there actually stay up until midnight any more? I think we've only done it once since Sabrina was born 4 years ago, and I'm not even positive about that...I'm wondering if my memory is making it up so that I won't feel like such a dork, because I can't stay up past 10pm these days. Last night, we didn't even bother with the pretense. John made a rather fabulous fondue dinner for us after we put the kids down, then we cleaned up and went upstairs and climbed into bed. Why bother pretending? We were both asleep by 10 and although we both woke up briefly to the sounds of happy revelers at midnight, it didn't last...and neither did we.

Anyway, in the spirit of the new year and all that, we started potty training Nathan yesterday. He's almost 23 months, which is either very early or late in the whole potty training thing, depending on your point of view. Our pediatrician had us start potty training Sabrina when she was 18 months, and she was totally potty trained at age 2. So in light of that, we're late to the gate with Nathan. But of course, everyone tells me that boys do it later and I know some 3-year-olds who are struggling with it. So who knows?

Right now, it's a lot like having a puppy around - there are a lot of puddles on the floor. Not to mention the continuous laundering of little boy undies. And Nathan rather merrily will allow us to take him to the potty, take off the sodden undies, place him on the toilet, clean him up, put on new undies, and keep on going. I'm not sure the connection is really being made. Although he did poop in the potty this morning, he kind of started going in his undies before we made it to the bathroom and he finished up there. I keep reminding myself that the first few days of any new skill are the hardest...and that he'll catch on. We just have to be consistent. And in the meantime, the sight of my little guy toddling around in his tidy whiteys is pretty darn funny and totally worthwhile.

So we'll see. He may catch on to this quickly, or it might be hilariously slow. Not sure which way it will go yet. But hey, it's a new year, right? So I'm guessing he'll be potty trained sometime in 2009. (364 days to go.)

Hello (again) world!

Okay, so it has been way, way, WAY too long since my last post. I know you hate excuses as much as I do, so I won't blab on about just how crazy everything has been. Which, of course, is true, but nevertheless.

Here's a few things that have gone on since my last post:
1. We bought a house. And moved 3 days before Thanksgiving, which resulted in much insanity, but hey, we have a house! It's ours - well, it really belongs to the bank, but what else is new?? They of course are expecting money on a regular basis, which sure makes it feel like ours!
2. One of our beloved cats got out and was missing for 3 days. If you aren't a pet person, this won't mean much to you, but if you happen to love animals as much as I do, you'll understand that I was absolutely frantic. Our cats are indoor-only and we lived in a neighborhood that had a lot of wildlife, such as coyotes and foxes...need I say more? We were very, very lucky that a neighbor around the corner saw our cat in her backyard 3 days later and found one of our "Missing Cat" flyers and gave us a call. Our beloved Danger Kitty (yes, that's really her name) is back. Whew!
3. The economy has been rotten. News, right? Hardly, I know. But it has hit our home as much as any other, and one of my biggest freelance clients laid off all of their contractors, which included me. Not good. Not good at all.
4. Did I mention I was pregnant? Oh, yeah! I'm pregnant with Baby #3 and while I'm terribly excited, I had a rotten first trimester. Hard under most circumstances, nearly impossible with two small children under the age of 4 who don't even KNOW about the baby, much less care why Mommy is so sick and tired. Luckily, that stage has passed - the first trimester, that is, not my kids caring why I can't be 100% all the time - and I'm really starting to enjoy the pregnancy again.
5. Life in general - John traveling, me backing the car into the (closed) garage door, the stomach flu going through the house, etc., etc., etc.
6. Christmas! With family in town and trying to be a good little Santa with the economy in the toilet. Sound familiar?
7. Sabrina turned 4. So, so hard to believe my little girl is that big! She has been really insane lately, full of talking back and refusing to listen to directions or well, anything I have to say. I feel like I'm talking to this insolent teenager, only a miniature one. I'm truly afraid to think of what she'll be like when she is a real teenager. But in the meantime, I often feel like I'm floundering, trying to find an effective way to parent her that doesn't include yelling or going insane. (Both of which seem like reasonable options more often than I'd like to admit.)

Whew. So I'm sorry I've been MIA. I promise to do better. And hey, what is a better New Year's resolution than to say I'll be here on a daily basis, keeping you caught up on our little life of mayhem?? Okay. So I'll see you tomorrow! Happy New Year!

Underachiever

So I got a pedometer, after wanting one off and on for a long time. I actually got it as a reward through my gym, which I thought was fitting...plus, it was free, which is always a good thing!

Anyway, I strapped the thing on this morning, confident that I'd be happily surprised by my total by the end of the day. They say that you should aim for 10,000 steps a day. Surely with chasing after two small children and going up and down our stairs what feels like 10,000 times a day alone, I would come pretty close, I thought.

So it's now 3:40pm, which one could say is relatively near to the end of the day. I mean, obviously, it isn't midnight or anything, but the kids should be in bed in the next 4 hours and things will slow down considerably after that. And at this point, I have a grand total of (drum roll, please...) 2180 steps.

Not exactly the 10,000 I thought I'd easily rack up. I guess they intend for you to include a workout (most probably a walking one) and do things like park at the end of parking lots so you have farther to go, etc., etc. And I haven't worked out today because I'm fighting off a stomach bug that Sabrina brought home from preschool. So maybe if I had gone to the gym and left the little counter on, I'd be closer.

But still. An 8,000 deficit? Sheesh. Guess these flip flops ain't meant for walkin.'

The good news is, I'm just stubborn enough and competitive enough that I'm going to aim for that 10,000. And yes, I'll be going to the gym tomorrow. Does the elliptical machine count? We'll find out!

Unhooked...and unhappy

So I decided to cut back on my caffeine intake and switch over to decaf coffee. It's not like I drink a ton of the stuff, just two nice big mugs of the stuff in the morning and that's generally it. But I certainly do need my morning coffee, and John and the kids joke about Mommy needing her "go juice" when I'm grumpy in the morning. On a particularly bad morning, I might swing through the Starbucks drive-through and get me an extra boost of coffee. You gotta do what you gotta do.

But, well, we've decided to perhaps try to start for baby #3 (WOO HOO!), and I read recently that there is a new study out that says women who drink 200 milligrams of caffeine a day, the equivalent of 2 nice big mugs (ahem), have a 25% chance of miscarriage. And I'm one of those totally paranoid women when I'm pregnant. I spend the first trimester living very much in fear of something happening, even though I've now had two babies and no miscarriages. Even just writing this is making me tense, as if it's possible to jinx something that doesn't even exist yet.

In any case, it seems prudent to pull back on the whole coffee addiction thing, and even more prudent to do it now and let my body adjust, instead of waiting for the total exhaustion of early pregnancy to happen at exactly the same time.

So when we were at Wal-Mart this weekend (do we know how to party or what??), we got a little coffeepot and some decaf coffee for me, since John has no plans on giving up his caffeinated stuff in the mornings. And he very gallantly made my first pot of coffee this morning and presented me with a cup of the stuff with a flourish. And sure, yeah, it tasted basically the same and life went on as normal. But then when I was driving Sabrina to preschool, I realized that I felt as if I was walking chest-deep through water, all sluggish and slow and altered. This was no fun at all.

The feeling generally persisted all day, despite a couple of big tall glasses of decaf iced tea for lunch, which I was hoping might perk me up a bit. When I put the kids down for their afternoon nap, I crashed as well. This helped until the headache hit this afternoon.

So yeah, not loving this detox biz. I liked my caffeine, thank you very much. And I miss it quite a bit. But maybe tomorrow will be better. And maybe by the time the next baby is on board, I won't miss a beat when I get handed my morning cup of decaf. We'll just have to see.

The mom fog

Okay, here's a question for all you parents out there - do you remember your child(ren)'s infancy in detail? Can you remember specific days, detailed events, and concrete memories of individual things that happened? Or are you like me, where you look at pictures of your little ones and marvel at how small they were and find that you almost can't remember that time? I look at pictures of Sabrina and Nathan from even just a few months ago and can't get over how much they've changed...but I also can't remember life at that time in great detail.

Why is that? Does life provide a general fog over a time in your life when you are generally exhausted on a regular basis? Is it a psychological thing so that you won't remember just how hard each and every day of raising small children can be, thereby ensuring that the continuation of the species goes on? I don't know. But it frustrates me. I want to remember more, I want to look at pictures and have more than just a overall recollection of what was happening at the time of the photo. I want to remember exactly what it was like to have that baby at that exact point in time.

I want to remember other things as well, funny things that Sabrina says that I think I'll always remember but am realizing that over time, I may forget. Like the fact that she calls suitcases "zootcases," air conditioning is "hair conditioning," ping pong is "ding dong," my nipples (hey, I'm a nursing mom, what can I say) are "nibbles," and so on and so on.

Sigh. I always vow to slow down, cherish each moment, enjoy this oh-so-brief time in their lives. Maybe that will help the memories concrete themselves in my mind. But then I get caught up in the sometimes mind-numbing boredom of raising two small kids and the oh-so-very-down-to-earth things that go along with it, like reading the same dang book over and over and over and changing diapers and coaxing them both to eat carrots. It's hard sometimes to remember that yes, those times are to be cherished as well, instead of rushed through. It's hard to slow down at all sometimes. But I know I need to. For this stage, this too, will pass, and in only a couple of months, I'll be squinting at the pictures I took this week and thinking "Look how cute they are! How small! Boy, what was that like? I can't remember!!"