Great Way to Spend NY's Eve

Why face the cold weather and drunk drivers and dumb parties and crowded bars when I can spend New Year's Eve at home with my precious little guys?

So here was my exciting evening: I made them dinner, gave them baths, we read stories and I showed them how to do somersaults on the floor. I sure love L&L! They are the best part of 2008 for me. Happy New Year to you all!

Potty Training Boot Camp

A couple of weeks ago the company I work for announced that, as their Christmas gift to us this year, they were giving us half of last week and all of this week off.

"Oh no!" I shouted when I read the email. "I'll be with my kids for 11 days in a row!" My cubemates howled with laughter. But it's true, I have not spent this much time with L&L since my maternity leave. It's wonderful and daunting all at the same time. I can honestly say I'm glad I'm not a sahm! But it's been great to get this extra time with my guys.

One goal I had for this week is to get Lk potty trained. I know he's ready as he has been giving me indications that he is. I thought I would start with him and once Lm sees what is going on, I could work with him in a couple of months. However, we have had an inauspicious beginning, my friends.

Having NO CLUE how to even go about this, I have tried a number of things. First, I read Lk a book called "Potty Time," and have played the Elmo Potty Time DVD over and over for both boys. (They love watching the video, but not using the potty!) Next I brought out the small potty and talked to Lk about it, then I peed on the regular toilet and had him watch me to get the idea. Then I got him some underwear with little tractors printed on them.

All leading up to the big moment of placing him on the potty and taking away his diaper from now until eternity (eternity lasting maybe 4 hours, as he went through EVERY PAIR of his new underwear in that time without landing a single drop in the pot). At first it was a battle just to get him to sit on the pot, but he finally got that down. Victory came once that day (Saturday) when he peed in the toilet. I lauded him and clapped with glee! Naturally I had visions that we were closing in on success.

But Sunday--no dice. After several loads of laundry and remaking his crib, I was weary and battle-worn, so I decided to let him wear his diaper and take him to the toilet every half hour to try. He only peed once in the toilet. Monday, as he was sitting on the pot, he kept pointing at things around the room for me to look at, so I thought maybe he had stage fright and needed a little privacy to do his business. "Mommy will come back in one minute. You keep trying," I told him and stepped out for 45 seconds.

Then I heard, "Oh no! Mommy! Oh NO!" I raced back in, and Lk was standing in the middle of the room, his pants and socks soaked entirely, and a big puddle on the floor.

I don't want to say I gave up after that, but it did knock the wind out of my sails a bit. Since then, I have suggested to him that we go potty, and he seems all eager to run into the bathroom, but once on the toilet, he just wants to chat.

Everyone I have asked says they either don't remember training their kids or else blithely state that their kid was trained in like 48 hours. Except for my sister, but she has no advice either since her daughter is about on par with my Lk! Now the clock is ticking and I have only 5 more days to get him going...

Christmas Day

This year my parents hosted Christmas Day and had 15 people over. My little guys had plenty of cousins and people to play with. Lm took Grandma's collander and decided to wear it as a hat throughout the day...

I see London, I see France...

Here is Lm sharing his tractor with my cousin's wife. She and my cousin have been trying to adopt a child and have not had an easy road. They would make a great home and great parents for any child so I hope they get their dream soon.

Neither of my guys took naps during the day as there was too much excitement. So Lm fell asleep in his high chair as I was preparing his evening meal. I just put him to bed at 6pm and he slept right through the night.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas Day too!

Christmas Eve

Like last year, this year we celebrated Christmas Eve with my parents in their living room, just the 5 of us. In the spirit of the TRUE meaning of Christmas, (hee-hee) we spoiled L&L with a ton of presents and stuffed ourselves with fudge, little smokies, cookies, and rum.

This year there was no Baby Jesus Breakfast after the midnight mass, the first cancellation of it in over 20 years, so I did not see the point of staying up that late and went the following morning instead.

The boys were in heaven with all the toys! I got them this little John Deere "radio" with 6 "channels" to play different music according to the animals.

And some musical items for my mom who loves music...

Dad is hard to buy for. One year he wanted nothing but a bug deflector for his pickup truck. This year I got him a shirt, dress socks, and a shop vac.

My big purchase for L&L was an Elmo Live doll. It' s really cool, because they love Elmo and this one talks to them and moves around and is adorable. Wouldn't you know, though, the most expensive toy is the one they have played with the least!

But here is Lk dancing with Elmo...

The toys that won the day were the John Deere tractor replicas that my mom bought for them. They have not let these tractors out of their sight. Lm cried when I gave him a bath and wouldn't let him have his tractor in the water.

I decided to potty train Lk over this holiday break, because the company I work for gave us time off from Christmas Eve at noon until Mon the 5th, which is unprecedented for them and any other place I've ever worked. So I bought Lk 3 pairs of these expensive underpants with tractors all over them in an attempt to get him excited about wearing them instead of diapers. He basicallly looked at these, threw them, and moved on to his next present...

I guess tractor underwear does not measure up to a "real" tractor...

Lm was interested in the vacuum I got for my dad...

Lm loved his Elmo phone from last year so much that my mom got him another one, a "spare" for car rides and when his other one goes missing...

Lk at one point just laid down in the middle of all the carnage and thought he was in heaven...

I hope you all had as wonderful a Christmas as we did!

Poor Santa!

This morning we braved the bad weather to get the boys off to see Santa. They were all excited in the car and while waiting in line. Lk wanted to wear his Santa hat the entire time and Lm went right up to Santa when he saw him coming through the door.

Alas, once they actually got to Santa's lap, Lk burst into tears. I wasn't too surprised since he did that with the Easter bunny too.

Lm of course had to cry sympathy tears for his brother...

Still we had a great time and while in line I ran into a childhood friend I had not seen since the third grade! Vicki and I were best friends through grade school until her family moved. She's got a little girl now and lives in a town about 15 minutes away from me, so we're planning to get our kids together really soon. Over the past 2-3 years I have connected with more childhood friends. One is Heather, of course; we went to junior high and high school, then lost touch until last year. Also Mary and I had lost touch about 10 years ago and reconnected after her mom died. And now Vicki! It's great there are other moms out there who did not have kids until they were in their 30s like me, so we can do playdates with them.

Hopefully my boys will not need too much therapy one day to talk about the traumatic event this morning. Maybe they will write a memoir about how rough they had it as kids, and one of these would make a nice cover for the book jacket...

Is there a curse over me?

Driving home from work last night on the packed and icy interstate, my car sputtered and the Check Engine light started flashing and it smelled like smoke. Great. I took the first exit and had to drive 40 mph on icy back roads all the way to the mechanic in the small town near where I live. Only took me 1 1/2 hours with NO HEAT ON the entire way in below zero weather; every time I tried to turn on the heat, the light really started to flash and my car threatened to die.

Any moment I thought the thing would just die and I'd be out there on the shoulderless road where the cell service is down, in the total darkness. But I did make it to the mechanic and my dad picked me up there so I could leave the car with him until God knows when. The mechanic was still there, and I poured out my woes to him. The poor guy is probably used to seeing people come in all distressed that their cars are not working--his job is half therapist / half mechanic.

Anyhoo, he diagnosed the problem this morning and hopes what he is trying will fix it, something about an ignition coil. Which will cost $200 to fix, and he's not even sure that is the only thing wrong until he tests it after the part is installed.

Thankfully I had some Captain Morgan at home.

New Park & "Daddy" request

Saturday was a warm day so I took the boys to the local park, which has crappy, old equipment, so I usually just suck it up and drive the 15 miles to the better park. But I saw an article in the paper that there was some great new equipment recently installed at the local one, so I took my guys to check it out.

It was a mild disappointment, as it was basically the same as the swingset I have in the backyard, but at least it was a change of pace. Here's Lky going down the slide. He reminded me of Hannibal Lecter with his hood strapped across his mouth.

I couldn't get a good picture of Lm going down the slide as he barrelled down it like a speeding bullet. That kid has no fear!

Next I drove them to the "old" part of the park and they rode the horsies.

Later, Lm was so tired but he kept escaping from his enclosed bed, so I had to take the mattress out for his nap so that he couldn't get out. Poor guy sacked out on the carpet instead.

When he awakes in the morning or from his naps, Lk sometimes with either sit and talk to his stuffed animals or when he's totally ready to get up he starts calling for me, "Mommy, mommy!" So yesterday I was quite shocked to hear him calling out "Daddy! Daddy!" when he woke up.

I just went in and smiled and greeted him like I normally do. But I had to wonder where he heard the D word as I have never said it around him. I know at daycare the dads sometimes pick up their kids and I'm sure he's heard the word then. Also on his Elmo potty training video, it's Elmo's dad that helps him through it so possibly he heard it there.

I always want my kids to feel like they can talk about not having a dad with me, at the same time I don't want to make a big deal out of it or make them think they are missing out. Sort of like, they will (probably) never have a sister and may wonder why, and I'll try to focus on the family they do have.