Bye-Bye Diapers!

After a couple of my colleagues were discussing mothers of 3 year olds who had not yet potty-trained their children, I decided that in light of Spice's upcoming *ahem* 3rd birthday *ahem * that I had better get serious about this affair. So we started earnestly working on the potty visits two weeks ago. We had an ENTIRE weekend where we were basically at home, so it was a good time to start....or so I thought. Previous attempts to make this step toward big girldom were met with serious resistance so I wasn't entirely hopeful. However, it seems that the time was right...she didn't protest much at all, and although she had several accidents the first week we seem to be well on our way to the end of the diaper era. She's been accident-free this week and even took herself to the potty last night to poop! Whooo hooo! My baby is growing up....and yes, I'm a little sad about it.

A Recent Exchange....

Mom: (in response to the 100th misbehavior in the last 5 minutes) Spice, you are a train wreck!

Spice: Chooo! Chooo!

Paprika Rocks!

In May, Paprika and I will celebrate our 21st anniversary. It’s a special marker to me because it’s the ‘half-way point’ in our relationship. I was just a young thing of 21 when we married, you see. Through the years he has shown me in a myriad of ways how much he loves me. There have been big things….like the cruise for our 10th anniversary, the FLIP video camera he bought me for Christmas, or the total bathroom makeover he gave me for our 20th anniversary. But it’s been the little things, day by day, that continue to win my heart and cement our love for each other. I can’t tell you how many times he’s cleaned up bodily fluids of every variety after one of the girls became ill, had an accident, etc! He is almost always the one who gets up in the middle of the night when there’s a problem. But, I want to share a little incident that took place recently at the Taco Bueno because it perfectly depicts the kind of guy I married so many years ago. We ordered some cheesecake chimichangas, as we are wont to do because no meal is truly complete without a helping of cheesecake surrounded by fried dough. (If you haven’t experienced these little bits of heaven, then I pity you. They are, in a word, divine!) They have recently come out two new varieties of these tasty treats: cinnamon and raspberry. I chose to sample the cinnamon on this particular evening, while Paprika stuck with the original version. Well, when I took the first bite of my yummy dessert, I encountered a discouraging lack of cheesecake filling and an overabundance of cinnamon flavoring. Upon noticing this disturbing turn of events, Paprika immediately took my chimichanga and used it to scoop out part of the cheesecake filling from his own. He did this over and over, each time I took a bite until we finished our dessert. Flowers are nice. Candy is better. But, sharing your cheesecake chimichanga…now THAT’S true love.

Happy Birthday, Ms. Michaela!

Today is my best friend's birthday. Special days like this are bittersweet since she moved several thousand miles away to Alaska. Several thousand miles and a three-hour time difference combined with crazy busy schedules make it difficult to keep in touch as much as we'd like. Talking on the phone and exchanging occasional emails and text messages is not the same as having a girls' night out or getting our families together for an evening. And I won't even go into how great it would be if her teenage daughters were close by to babysit my preschool ones! However, there's one positive thing that such a distance forces upon a relationship. Deliberateness. There's a greater effort involved to maintain the closeness we've built up over 30 years of friendship. We aren't close because it's convenient, because staying in touch is very inconvenient most of the time. We remain a vital part of each other's lives because we both want that and make the effort necessary to do so. Distance also offers the opportunity for some creativity in making these special days as special as they would be in person. I miss you, my friend! Happy Birthday! And in case you didn't get the email, here's a birthday song just for you....

The Scariest Words of All

Sugar said something the other day that hit me like a punch in the gut. I know I'm not the first parent to hear these words or the first to feel their effect. In fact, I'm sure that I'll hear similar words from Sugar again and Spice is bound to weigh in at some point, too. I don't even remember what it was that I was doing, but here's what Sugar said as she joined me in my activity: "I'm doing exactly like you, Mommy!" Oh. My. That's sobering, to say the least. I sincerely hope that she doesn't do exactly like me. I pray that she's smarter than I've been. I pray that she's less selfish than I've been. I pray that she's more patient than I've been. I pray that she's less judgemental than I've been. I pray that she's kinder than I've been. Most of all, I pray that she trusts her Saviour more than I have and that her life is marked by a deep faith in God that guides her day by day. Of course, if she still wants to be a librarian when she grows up, that's okay. She's already got the look down.

It's ALL About the Glitter

Sugar LOOOOOVES glitter. Anything with glitter gets her immediate stamp of approval.

glitter nail polish

glitter crayons

glitter glue

What more could a girl ask for?

Death and Destruction

Spice struck twice during the holidays. The first victim was a Raggedy Ann doll that she received for Christmas last year. Who knew that the little bag of sand used to weight the doll's bottom so that it will sit up could be so easily removed by a two-year old?!? Apparently Spice discovered this. She performed some sort of surgery on poor Ms. Ann during the night and this is what we found on the morning of Christmas Eve:

Thankfully R. A. survived, although she does have a little soreness around her crude 'incision'. I feel sure that Spice dreamt about sleeping on the beach, what with that lovely pile of grit in her bed all night. She keeps talking about how she got her doll all dirty...it was an assadent!

Her next victim was not so fortunate. Alas, after several trips of an airborne nature, Mr. N. Cracker was, as you can see from his expression, profoundly injured and although we did everything we could with the resources at our disposal, we were unable to save him. He was buried quietly in the kitchen trash can with only immediate family in attendance. Spice did not attend the service.

We hope that Christmas 2009 will be celebrated without additional injury or death.