Once Upon Ben's Potty

This is the kind of post I won't be cross-posting to my community-based blog Red Pens in Wausau, which is hosted at Citizen Wausau. My audience there is not composed of mommy bloggers or my family, so they probably don't want to hear a blow-by-blow of my haphazard potty training adventures with Benji Boy.

But you do. :)

It all started last week Wednesday evening while Chris was at class. I was home alone with the kids, and Ben was tearing around the house (as usual), finding mischief where he could. At one point, he asked me if he could sit on the potty.

I said, "Sure! I'll blow bubbles in your face while you sit!"

He sat there for what felt like an hour, but was probably only 20 minutes. He produced nothing, but while he sat, I talked to him about how Anna has to wear a diaper because she's a baby, but Ben is a big boy, and he has a choice. He can go pee pee on the potty instead of wearing a diaper, and then he'll get to wear big boy underpants just like Daddy. It's the time-honored method of gentle pressure.

After he got off of the potty, we went into the bedroom to get a diaper on, but at the last moment, he squirmed and got down and said, "No boop-boop [diaper]!" And he ran around the house without the protective covering of a diaper.

Over the next two hours, we went into the bathroom periodically to sit on the potty and blow bubbles. I brought out a wooden dining room chair to put in the living room so he could watch TV without making me almost have a heart attack in fear that he would go pee-pee on my couches. No pee-pee was made anywhere. Not on the floor, not in the potty. He waited until he had a diaper on and was in his jammies. That's okay.

The next day, I made a big production of buying a Bob the Builder foam toilet insert so he would have a more comfortable perch on the seat. He was so excited about that; we spent at least three total hours on Thursday in the bathroom. When I tired of blowing bubbles, I squirted foam shaving cream into his hands, on his bare legs, etc. (followed immediately by bathtime). Still, no pee-pee was made. That's okay.

Friday evening, the no-diaper tradition was carried out at Ben's request. Sunday as well, though I was smart today. In addition to the foam toilet seat in the bathroom, I brought his little potty into the living room and sat him in front of videos he hasn't seen in a while. I even served him lunch on the potty. Still, no pee-pee was made.

I'll be patient. It's not like I'm actively trying to potty train the kid. I was waiting until he was more verbal, more aware. I know some children are potty trained sooner, but Ben never seemed interested, and every time I would cajole him or ask him about the potty, he would freak out and run away in terror, sometimes running into the bathroom to slam the lid down to make his position on the matter quite clear.

Now that I'm no longer working, maybe the extra home time will induce a potty-training-perfect boredom, and the potty play will be the most fun thing EVER.

We watch "Once Upon a Potty" at least once a day, and we sing and dance along to the accompanying song. Thank you, youtube.

I recently made the new rule that I will not blow bubbles again until *after* he has put his pee-pee in the potty. I don't know if that will help, but I know I am very sick of blowing so many bubbles. Besides, it covers the bathroom in a fine film of soap, and that's just icky.

What's your potty training story? Are you scared of it (like I am)?

Nana Update: After her consultation with the surgeon in Madison last Wednesday, she has good news to report. The surgeon doesn't think that she'll necessarily need another surgery. He says that the muscle isn't completely severed. If it was, her eyeball would have flipped all the way back, with nothing to hold it steady while she looks forward. He suspects that with healing, her eye will recuperate and either heal itself back together or it will accommodate the weakness. She'll be reevaluated in six weeks with an MRI in Madison. Until then, she has no restrictions, and she reports that her vision is getting better every day. We think we got our miracle!

Why Helmets Are Necessary

A quick post so I don't have to twit/plurk the story.

Last night after my mom, Ben, Anna and I got back from Walmart, we all piled on our bikes to drive to the ice cream parlor a mile away. Just as we were pulling out of the parking lot to head back, my mother lost her balance and fell down on her face.

She was wearing sunglasses and no helmet. The sunglasses shattered on impact, scoring her face and eye area with slashes. She stayed face down, holding her face, the blood dripping through her hands. 911 was called. Paramedics arrived, and I rode in the ambulance on the way to the ER.

Besides some deep lacerations on her nose and her cheek that needed stitches, the major damage was to her right eye. The conjunctiva (the thin, transparent tissue that covers the eye) was slashed from side to side, and it quickly became apparent that she had severed one of the muscles that connect to her eyeball.

She came home with me at 1 in the morning after 4 hours of grueling eye exams and cat scans. She goes back to the hospital campus after noon today for eye surgery to reattach what needs to be reattached.

She's not in a lot of pain, but she feels humiliated and embarrassed by her klutziness. We love her dearly. Accidents can't be planned, and they can happen to anyone.

Bucking for Sainthood

I hereby nominate my mother for sainthood. I know we're not Catholic, and she's not dead, but the scope of her kindness should override those pesky issues.

After a late afternoon call to playfully ask if she was coming down here last night instead of this morning, she pulled in at 7 pm, rescuing me from a very tiring, upsetting day with the children. We went shopping for bedsheets (400 threadcount queen set for 30 bucks), and we were home by 8:15. Put Ben in bed, fed Anna. At 9, I handed Anna to my mother and went to bed.

Bleary eyed and half asleep, I stumbled to the bathroom at 10:30. I angrily asked Chris why Nana was sleeping with Anna on the couch. He should be the one tending her. Let Nana sleep! He calmly told me to go back to bed, that Nana was going to take Anna for the night.

I forgave him around 1 am. By 2 am, when Nana carried Anna in for her *only* night feeding, I was humbled with gratitude and relief. By 5:30 when the alarm went off? I was jubilant.

The past couple months have been so difficult. Since Anna started getting ear infections in April, she's been less willing to sleep on her own in the crib. Trying to claim any sleep I can, I just pulled her into bed with us. Instead of sleeping soundly nestled against mommy, she wanted to nurse all night long. I'd doze on and off throughout the night and wake up exhausted, counting the hours until I could nap with the kids.

Yesterday morning, I woke up so tired, I felt like vomiting. So to sleep in my own bed without having to accommodate a sprawled baby? HAPPINESS. JOY. BLISS.

Seriously. Give the woman a prize, something other than my undying love and affection. She should get a trophy.

Blessing the Nana

I know I blog about my mom a lot. I can't help it. She's a big part of our lives, and she's my best friend.

This summer she's dedicated herself to coming down every single Wednesday for 10 weeks to watch BenAnna so I can go to work without having to pay for daycare. It's such a relief, and such a blessing.

That's on top of countless other ways she blesses us. She cooks meals for us, takes us grocery shopping, loves our children immeasurably. I'm left with an overwhelming drive to bless her back.

Last weekend, we went up north to spend Memorial Day with my parents. After the house survived a very close lightning strike, we found an easy opportunity to bless them. Chris was able to step right in and figure out the computer mess.

We woke up the next morning and, with their permission, cleaned out their garage, which hadn't been cleaned for over 10 years. It was hard, dirty labor, but we weren't upset about that. It just felt so good to help them. Okay. I'll be honest. It was VERY dirty work, and I swore a few times... like when I found a dead mouse.

This past week, Chris was busy getting their new Mac Mini set up and working. That's right. My parents have given in to the dark side and have purchased the beautiful, dual-boot Mac Mini. The best of both worlds. We're thrilled because it means that we can remote into their machine if it breaks.

We went up there again on Saturday to set it up. While Chris was putting together the finishing touches on their new system, my mom asked me to go through the piles of paper and things that had been stashed in the desk. It was enough to fill a laundry basket. Lots when into the burnables bag, but I organized the rest into a filing system.

If you were following me on Twitter, you'll have a hint at the other Bless Nana Project I've been working on. My mom is the area president for her Aglow women's group. It's a Christian organization for women that meets every month with various speakers. She recently found herself without a publicity person, and I offered to fill in, eventually taking on the job permanently.

I designed a logo and put together a couple templates for the monthly poster and the postcards. That was fun. The upsettedness (it's a word) happened when I tried to do a mail merge in Microsoft Word.

I've never been a fan of Word. I find the invisible, automatic formatting to be clumsy and counter-intuitive. That's fancy talk for: I can't use it. Chris finally saved the day, and the merge eventually happened. Over a hundred postcards later, she's set for June. The good news is, once the dang template is set up, I shouldn't have any problem next month.

So that's the fun that happens when I get to do stuff for my mom. Highs and lows. Compliments from my mom about my technical writing capabilities (that made my whole week, by the way). A new computer. An organized garage that's almost clean enough for Ben to play in. Heck yeah!

Not Without Some Help

Note: I posted my recipe for Quick Tuna Salad at Skinny Meals today. Now back to your regular scheduled programming.

When the WIC receptionist told me I had to bring my kids with me to the appointment this morning, I kind of laughed to myself. After that "interesting" afternoon when I tried to take my kids with me to the Y to workout, I know now that I am just not cut out for single parenting... or dealing my children when I'm by myself in public.

So I avoid it. Like the plague.

Luckily, since it's bitterly cold here in Wisconsin, Chris needed to drive to work, not walk. So I didn't have a car, and that gave me the perfect excuse to ask my mother if she could plan the swing-through-town-and-kiss-the-babies visit for during my appointment so she could take us there.

And I'm so glad she was able to come with me. Everything was okay until we were in the office with the nutrition counselor. Ben grew quite bored with her plastic fruits and veggies, and I only had three matchbox cars for him to play with from his diaper bag. Apparently, that wasn't enough entertainment. I had to move my chair in front of the door so he wouldn't get out. He was fussing, and I was ignoring him, trying to listen to the nice lady tell me ways I could get Ben to eat more.

When he was "this close" to a full-blown meltdown, Nana offered to take him out to the lobby and let him play. I happily finished my appointment with a sleeping Anna in my arms.

Little did I know that Ben ran around the entire family services building a few times while I was busy. Up and down stairs, the elevator, in and out of as many rooms as had open doors, etc. Ran Nana into the ground. She even lost him once.

Some days, it's really obvious when Ben needs a morning nap AND an afternoon nap. I had hoped to just give Ben an afternoon nap today... but the stinker woke up at 5:30. So by 9 am when the appointment started, he was already overtired and not ready to be a good boy.

In other news, we had to go to the next size in diapers for Anna. This really isn't momentous news or really worth blogging about... unless you consider the size. Folks, her chubby little butt requires size four diapers now. She's three months old. My nephew Gage is over a year old, and he wears size four diapers and weighs more than ten pounds more than she does.

I'm having a hard time understanding this. Ben's size five diapers are kind of loose on him... and I was considering going back to size fours for him. But it's just too weird to have them both wear the same size. Sure, it's very convenient, but geez. My little girl has a big butt already.

Anna and Nana Sitting in a Tree

We came back from spa week at the Minocqua homestead yesterday. My mom said she must not have done a very good job, since I lost another three pounds while I was up there (even with the turtle cheesecake dessert that Chris and I shared on our date night). That brings the total loss to 12.5 pounds. Awesome. I haven't been in the 220s since before I was married.

Tuesday morning when Nana arrived to pick up me and the kids, Anna was calmly swinging in the kitchen. Nana bent down to smile and her and say hello, and Anna just stared at her intently for five seconds. Then my precious daughter let loose a scream so loud and so soul scratching, you would think someone had just chopped off her finger with a rusty dull knife.

I rescued Anna from Nana's evil smile and we nursed for a little bit, and then Anna was okay with sitting on Nana's lap.

Such a rough start to our holiday. By the next day, Nana got her to giggle for the first time. Whenever Anna would see Nana's face, she would light up and grin and coo. Two peas in a pod, they were. Content to just sit there and study each other.

This picture does not show my mother at her best appearance, since it was before six in the morning, and she hadn't even brushed her teeth yet, let alone showered and dressed and put on lipstick. But I love how happy she looks holding my dear little Anna.

I didn't have the coziest of grandmothers. My mom's mom was very kind and homey, but she wasn't overly demonstrative or, well, any fun. My dad's mom was ... let's just say she also wasn't overly demonstrative and certainly wasn't homey or fun. I saw both of them a lot in my youth, but I never had warm, effusive relationships with them. (I should note that Anna looks a lot like my maternal grandmother. My siblings always refer to how she looks like a little Lempi, my mom's mom.)

I've known a lot of people who swoon over the mention of their grandparents. "Oh how wonderful!" "My grandma was my best friend." "My grandpa always took me fishing." etc.

I've seen my mom be Super Nana to my nieces and nephews, but watching her with Anna, I really get a sense for how important Nana will be in her life. Their connection is beautiful. I can totally imagine how Anna will reminisce about her early years with Nana.

Ben loves her dearly as well... but it's different. Ben is all energy and movement and squirming to explore and play. He's always been like that. Maybe it's just her current developmental stage, but Anna seems to be more interesting in communicating. When she's awake, she's always cooing and grunting and looking into your eyes to see your reactions.

We're heading off to do some cardio at the Y after we do a quick T-Tapp workout to get our engines running. We'll be exhausted, but it'll be so worth it. Combined, we've lost about 25 pounds.

When we had our date night, we didn't worry much about calories. It was our "cheat meal" to just sit and enjoy food and enjoy each other. Instead of going with the high-fat, high-calorie stuff that we would have chosen before, we went with what sounded the most interesting, something we hadn't tried before. We each tried a Greek dish. I had dolmades, and Chris had pastichio. We probably won't order them again, but we expanded our knowledge of food, that's for sure. We both fell in love with hummus on warm pita bread with cucumbers, tomato and lettuce drizzled in a dill vinegarette. It's a new way of eating for us, and we're loving it.

Wow, That's Old

Today is my mother's birthday, so I figured I'd write a post all about her in honor of her awesomeness.

I hope I'm half as interesting and half as kind as she is. That would be a great accomplishment.

When she's not busy being Super Wife to my father, she's being Super Woman of Christ to the women of the northwoods. She has a sincere desire to teach women about the values of friendships with other women, and how those relationships can help even the bleakest of lives shine. She does this by example, and she does it with grace and humility.

Though she doesn't have a full-time, paying job, she is busier than I ever was when I worked outside the home. How she finds time to be Super Nana is beyond me. Clever scheduling, I guess. Planning and preparing and oiling the wheels of her Women's Aglow group is very time consuming, but soul enriching.

Super Nana! She jokes that grandchildren are the rewards for difficult teenagers, and goodness knows she had a pack of those. I'm glad she feels rewarded by our children, and I know my brothers and my sisters try to bless her as often as we can. She's given her heart completely over to us, and even as adults, she's still a backbone of strength and generosity of spirit to us.

I love how she cares for my children. She knows all of Ben's little quirks and eccentricities, and she delights in him as we do. She's always patient with him, and she loves cultivating a life-long relationship with him. I can see it in her eyes and the way she interacts with him. She's there for the long haul. I appreciate every thing she does for them, and every minute she spends with them. I never had close, cozy relationships with my grandparents, and I am blessed by watching my children be blessed by time with their Nana.


And how she cares for me. I think now that I'm a stay-at-home mom, I feel more connected to her than ever. She was a SAHM for most of my life, and that's the only way I remember her. When I'm baking cookies with Ben or even folding laundry, I feel her hands on mine as I do the same time-honored tasks women have done throughout history. She's taught me the dignity and grace and power there is in being a SAHM. She's one of my bestest friends, and I know I could call her and vent and whine and cry and laugh anytime, and she'd be right there in the moment with me.

She's the one who taught me that silliness is a perfectly reasonable trait in a parent. When I'm dancing behind the cart in the grocery store, shaking my butt and singing along with the store music, I'm just doing what my mom always did. Even the dullest tasks can be made interesting and fun if you inject a little joy into them.

We are all her legacy. My brother's determination and confidence, my other brother's love of books and sensitivity that he swaddles in burly machismo, my sister's irony-filled enthusiasm for life and mama bear tendencies, and me. There's not much about me that isn't an offshoot of her. Can you tell I'm one of her biggest fans?

I think her grandchildren are her greatest joy. Over the Christmas break, she was busy with snowmobiling and sledding with the ones that could spend their Christmas vacation with her. During summer visits, she loves to go go-cart riding, miniature golfing, swimming at the beach, and four-wheeling all over Upper Michigan. I'm not sure if the eldest has taught her how to snowboard yet, but it still might happen. She refuses to be the kind of grandmother that just greets the kids at the door with an apron and a plate of cookies (though the cookies are always available). She's a Nana of Action and Adventure, and she whispers to each one, "If things ever get bad at home, if your parents are ever mean to you, just give me a call and you can come stay at Nana's house for a while, and you can tell me all your secrets and dreams."

Her gaggle of grandchildren:

What That Sounds Like

What does an open, honest and relatively unemotional conversation about child sex abuse sound like between a mother and daughter? I found out yesterday morning.

My mother mentioned how a friend of mine from high school always looks so sad when she sees her around town. I told her that she's a sad person who had a rough childhood. There was rampant incest in her house that everyone knew about but nobody did anything about. Being in that family and surviving what she went through would make anybody sad.

So starts the conversation. You see, when I was a very young girl (toddler through kindergarten), my babysitter was the lady across the street. I was over there all the time when my mother was working or busy. It was the lady, her husband, her two sons and her daughter. The oldest boy was in high school during that time frame, and he was a sex predator.

"Stuff" happened that was very traumatic and disgusting and upsetting, and I've been through lots of therapy and some spiritual exercises to overcome and move beyond the past. I'm healed, I'm fine. I can talk about that stuff now without getting upset.

My mom and I mainly talked about what the warning signs are of children being sexualized too early. We talked about how it could have happened right under the neighbors' noses in their house without the parents really knowing (you turn a blind eye to ugly things you don't want to deal with). In a roundabout way, we talked about how it could have happened under my mother's nose without her knowing and how she's not to blame. [An eerily similar circumstance surrounds my sister's childhood, taking place in a different neighborhood with different people. Nobody realized or acknowledged that abuse at the time either.]

We talked for over an hour, dissecting the idea, analyzing it. She was sitting in the dining room, and I was in the living room nursing Anna. There was space between us physically, and also emotionally, which is probably why we could discuss an intense subject without getting upset and judgmental.

Ironically, earlier that day I had watched a TV show where they mentioned off-handedly that honesty is always best in families, and it's the only way to really have healthy relationships. At the time, I thought it would be nice to have honest relationships within my family where people actually talk about things rather than just tacitly accept and move on.

When everything that happened in my youth came out of hiding when I was in high school (and had a nervous breakdown), we never discussed it as a family. My mom and I talked a little bit about it during therapy sessions, but otherwise, we just chalked it up to history and moved on.

After having such a healthy discussion today with my mom, I have a new dream. I wish all of the adults in my family could sit down together and talk about these issues. I don't need sympathy or apologies for blind eyes. I want them to be educated about how stuff like that occurs, and how people can be open about these issues without dwelling on them. I want them to know the warning signs of child sexualization and child sex abuse, and I want them to learn some ways to keep the lines of communication open with children when it comes to difficult subjects.

Mother Blessings and Work Drama

On Monday, my mom sent me an email asking if lasagna was good for something for her to bring down for us. I said yes. Lasagna would be yummy, as would her American spaghetti and chicken and rice casserole. I was teasing, but she took me seriously.

I told Chris what she was bringing down, and he piped in, "and her beef stew?" I said I'd rather die than ask my mom to make a fourth meal for us. Knowing her, she'd bring down the ingredients and get it going in our slow cooker.

She really is such a blessing. Did I mention that she's buying me a winter jacket?

My mom is coming down early this morning. ("I plan on leaving extra early tomorrow. What is the earliest you'll let me in?" "We get up at 5:30.") She's bringing lots of food, and she's staying until early afternoon when she gets back on the road to travel to another house with grandchildren where she will fulfill more Nana duties.

Yesterday was odd for me. Chris forwarded an email he had received from work about a drastic, extensive re-organization that is taking place in my old department. Every single position is affected by the re-org. As I looked through the workflow charts, my mind boggled. I could feel my blood pressure rising and a panic attack coming on.

I was in a dither and very anxious for a whole thirty minutes until I told myself that it's not my problem anymore. It's nothing I have to be stressed over because I don't work there anymore. I paced back and forth with Anna for ten minutes, repeating aloud to myself, "I am a stay-at-home mom. I do not work at [Company Name] anymore."

I left my laptop alone for a while and stopped emailing back and forth with my old boss. I washed dishes and folded laundry. A few hours later when I picked the laptop back up, I looked at the org charts downloaded to my desktop and sighed. With relief, I think.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I think I'd been pretending that I'm just on maternity leave. Especially now that Anna's here, it's pretty easy to imagine that. In that skewed reality, the re-org would be traumatizing since I dislike change so much. In the actual reality of my life, the re-org is inconsequential. Sure, it will make my friends stressed out for a while, but it's really not my problem anymore.

My job is to nurture and care for my children. I don't proof pages anymore. I am a stay-at-home mom, and I'm not going back to work for years.

Hair Changes... and Nana's Coming to Town!

Got my hair chopped off last night. Feels better. Looks something like the following:



If I could find my digital camera battery recharger, I'd consider posting an actual picture of myself, it's that cute. But I can't. So pffbbbttt. :P

Although Chester was crazy busy at work all weekend because of the stupid time change, Ben and I had a wonderful time. He's such a goofball. I love him.

Instance of goofball-ness was actually from this morning:
I was making myself breakfast in the kitchen, and hubby was getting dressed. Ben, in the meantime, had taken a couple of paint-stirrer-sticks and was seeing what mischief he could get in. Enter the coffee. Chester had put his coffee/thermos/tall cup thing of coffee at the back of the end table against the wall where Ben can't reach it. Ben couldn't reach it with his own hands, but he discovered that if he used the sticks like tongs and pulled the coffee towards him, he could get at it. And of course it spilled everywhere. We didn't notice until Ben came to see me in the kitchen and I noticed his clothes were soaked.

So five minutes before we left for work, Ben needed a change of clothes and Chester had to take a towel to the spill in the living room. In reality, Ben needed a bath because he was sticky, but I figured they could wipe him down with a baby wipe at daycare. And they did.

Really, it's a cute story. Ben, at 14-months-old, figuring out how to use tools to get into mischief.

I'm excited I'm still pregnant. Even bought a couple maternity shirts at Kohls.

My mom is coming into town tomorrow for an overnight. She'll be picking up Ben from daycare in the morning and will stay with him at our house all day. She hasn't really gotten a chance to spend a chunk of time with him since he became so mobile. After work, she's treating us to our anniversary dinner (our 2-year is on Thursday). What a sweeatheart.

Tonight, we'll be cleaning like mad. Anything that we don't clean, she will, and I'd rather she just enjoyed herself with Ben instead of being The World's Biggest Blessing and mopping our floors or something. We're also hauling down our twin-size bed to put in the dining room. She has her own bed at our house, but it's upstairs. And since she's having full knee replacement surgery in April, she's not allowed to walk up and down stairs.

The Blessings of Nana

On Sunday afternoon just before two, Ben, Chester and I braved the Wisconsin November and ran some errands. First on the list was a haircut for Ben, then shopping for nice shirts to wear for our Christmas pictures.

I found the most flattering shirt I have ever had on my body. It took a lot of willpower not to buy more than one.

When we got home, we were talking about breaking down and ordering Applebees so we could have a nice steak dinner. I went to call from Chester's phone, and we realized it was dead (no battery charge). I went into the kitchen to find something for Ben's dinner, and when I opened up the fridge, I found two uncooked steaks, a bag of romaine lettuce, a box of butter, and a jug of my favorite orange juice. On the counter was a bag of red juicy grapes and four baking potatoes.

I yelled for Chris to call Nana, because it could only be my mother who would do such a thing. (And, really, she's the only other person with a key to our apartment).

Turns out that Nana had been trying to get in touch with us all day, but because our phone was dead, she was leaving messages that we didn't know we had. She figured she'd take the chance and drove an hour and fifteen minutes on the chance that we'd be home. She arrived at two in the afternoon, just minutes after we left. Just missed us.

It was sad that we didn't get to see her, but we did enjoy the dinner very much. After a week of living in our own personal Beanery, it was nice to have a normal meal that cost more than two bucks a person.

My mother is such a blessing. I hope she comes down again soon so she can see the Benjamin. Maybe we'll even know she's coming ahead of time so we can vacuum. :)