It has begun

DS2 spent most of the afternoon pantless. He had several false starts, saying he needed to pee and then standing there or sitting there, swapping positions, saying "It not pwaytime!" when his brother came near (which is what I say when he stops paying attention) but finally after 2.5 hours he did actually pee in the potty. I of course was in another room & had regarded his "I have to pee" statement as yet another false alarm. Then I heard him doing & rushed in to find he was standing up & mostly getting it in the potty. When he was done he smiles, looks at me and announces matter of factly "I big now." Barely pauses long enough for me to cheer and hug him & asks for cookie & then goes on with his day. It was funny the way he said "I big now". It had a tone like "Well, that's it for the diapers. I'm just going to use the potty now. " If only it could be that easy. He did use the potty later as well, so I am hoping that at least his total resistance to the idea has faded. Ds1 started PT last January & pretty much had it down by June, but we had some physical problems that carried it out to October before everything finally worked.

DS1 was quite upset that his brother got the last cookie, especially as I had refused to give it to him 20 minutes earlier on the grounds dinner was only an hour away. he pointed out that he had pooped in the potty earlier & got nothing and peed in the potty 4-5 times & got nothing. And that just isn't fair. He is 15 months older than his brother. Because of the problems we had, his own reward/encouragement program only ended 2 months ago. It's still fresh in his mind. He was ok with it stopping, but he's not so ok with his brother getting something. I can't tell if he really understands why DS2 gets a reward. That it is encouragement at the start & at some point no one gets anything anymore. So th rest of the evening was spent in attention getting & sibling rivalry. DS1 is eager to help DS2 learn, he just doesn't like that DS2 gets rewarded & he doesn't. Not everything is equal. 2 of everything is just not possible. I have the feeling my life is going to be difficult the next few months.

brothers

Right now DS1 is 'reading' to DS2. They are both sitting in my recliner with a big book of Thomas Stories & DS1 is telling DS2 who the trains are & what they are doing. DS2 & I checked out some Thomas DVDs from the library earlier & he had to take them with us to pick up DS1 from school. "I show him." he kept saying. "I show my brother." And when DS1 got in the car he started waving them around "WOOK!!! WOOK!!! Thomas VDs!"

case to convert former PC 80GB hard drive to EHD - $40
new 120GB for additional back up - $99
multi USB hub - $25
saving 98% of your data when your system crashes - priceless

Outlook's archive function - useless

The little demon is 3

Where has the time gone? Three years ago right now I was semi-conscious from blood loss, laying in my hospital bed, trying to nurse and wondering what this kid's name would be. He wouldn't have a name for 48 hours. but despite being unable to raise my head without getting dizzy & being sore as hell in the nether regions, I was feeling pretty triumphant. I had had my unmedicated VBAC just like I had planned. DS1s birth went out of my control a week before he was born. I'd thought I'd been fairly laid back about my birthing plans with DS1 so I was surprised at how vehement I was about have the VBAC and not using meds. But I did it. I also managed to nurse him for a year. Physical problems had forced me to supplement DS1 at a month old & by 4 months he had weaned. He was such a solid little thing. 9lbs, 2ozs. Almost 2lbs heavier than his brother a birth. Due to the physical problems DS1 wouldn't weigh 9lbs until he was 8 weeks old. He was quite the little butterball as a baby. Now he is built more like a linebacker.

He still has zero interest in the potty, but he is really doing well at picking up after himself and his speech is clearer, with a larger vocabulary & sentence structure. He is getting better with his fine motor skills & his temper seems to be easing up. His tantrums are lessening in intensity & duration. he is really growing in the area of imaginary play. DS1 had a number of imaginary friends by now but DS2 doesn't appear to. He is however always making up games & things to do. He's a stubborn little cuss too.

All his gifts arrived today, which is luck not planning. As predicted 3 days after buying a LeakLess on eBay for $7.99 plus shipping, the KB Toys in town stocked them for $3.53. But they also stocked The King, which I was not going to pay $19.99 plus shipping for so I'm ok with that. The movie moment sets I got on ebay are still nowhere to be found so Im ok with paying a few extra bucks for them. None of the stores around had any of the Take Along Thomas stuff, except some trains I'd never heard of. I was hoping to get the Sodor Engine Wash, which they'd had 2 weeks ago everywhere. Shoulda bought it then. Finally found a crane set at Target & some additional track & a Percy. Plus we have the wooden Tonka tow truck we bought so we'd be sure to have at least something for him to open. The cake is cooling. It's a bundt cake because that is what he asked for. Chocolate, with chocolate icing & Cars candies. We're having pizza tonight at his request as well.

one word

This Moment: exasperated (with the boys)
Your Shoes: slippers
Craving: silence
The State of Your Home: cleanish
Annoyed By: sons
Noise In the Background: sons
Really Want To: organize
Thinking about: shopping
Smelling: coffee
Favorite Product In Office Supply Aisle: notebooks
Don't Ever Want To: camp
Your Eye Color: greenish
The Weather: cold
Have Never Tried: bungee-ing
Think Everyone Should Try: sushi
Last Vacation Destination: Flordia
The Last Thing You Had to Drink: coffee
Your Bad Habit: coffee
What You're Going To Do Now: laundry

birthday present woes

I really thought that by now the stores would have restocked the Cars die cast cars. But no place around here has anything but Mater & Ramone & stock. WM is totally bare of cars stuff. I tried calling my folks to see if they could check around their part of FL for some of the ones I am looking for. They are still on their cruise. So I called my brother & he's going to check around his area for the King & Chick Hicks. We have/had a Chick Hicks. It's gone missing and DS1 still wants his own so I may as well look for it at the same time. DS2 just wants Cars for his b-day. It's Friday. I ended up out on eBay but as much as I want to make the kid happy I am NOT paying $19.99 plus $6 shipping for a King car. Not happening. I did find a few resonably priced ones from the same seller so I was able to get a shipping discount. I got the set of Luigi, Guido & a tractor (DS2 *loves* Guido) and I got the set of Filmore & Sarge and a Leak-less, all for only slightly more than I would have paid in WM if they were in stock. I now fully expect WM to get a HUGE Cars shipment in tonight.

Can I just say those people are eBay are loonies? Mater is not and never has been *RARE* or HARD TO FIND. I can go get 15 of them right now in our KB toys. Maybe I should & sell them for $14.99 a pop. Never believe the advertising on eBay. Always Google online & see if you can find the item & how much it is selling for. There are movies on there, listed as Rare & HTF, listed at $50 & up and you can get them at WM online for $20. Do your research. Thus ends the PSA...

Good day for pretend play

This morning the boys decided to go on a 'fan-teek misry' which I believe, given the song DS1 was attempting to sing is actually an 'antique mystery', like in the movie El Dorado. They found a map (the torn cover of a giant coloring book) & then began working out which way to go. Apparently the signs pointed outside. DS1 put his shoes on & then tried to put DS2s shoes on, which was the sweetest thing I have seen them do in a long time. We all bundled up in coats because 'it bery breezy outside' (meaning both cold and windy) and DS1 led us off on the fanteek misry. This involved roaming all over the yard, into the tall grass, over by the truck trailer and then in the maze of pines, all the while singing the first 2 lines of the song from El Dorado. :) After wandering in the pines for a bit it was decided that it was 'too winny' and we should have the misry inside with some hot chocolate. DS2 insisted he get cold hot chocolate and a jelly (actually peanut butter) sandwich. I made everyone lunch and they settled down to watch El Dorado during quiet time. I wish it was not so windy outside. The cold would be ok because they keep moving but the wind just bites right through, so they go in & out every 5 minutes & ask for hot chocolate every time they come in. I'd sort of like to take them out to the fire restuarant for dinner tonight but as DH & I went out for Thai, and paid for babysitting, I suspect he won't be into the idea.

Basically I am just not in the mood to cook because the little demons have been so anti-dinner lately. They refused the chicken Thursday night. Then last night I went to Arbys before taking them to the gym (they do PNO once a month) & while they moaned & complained the whole way there about how hungry they were & when are they going to get to eat and kept going on about wanting the chicken - they didn't eat a damn thing out of their Kids meals. I found this both frustrating & gratifying. frustrating because I had spent $8 on chicken strips, fruit & juice and they only thing they did was drink the juice. Gratifying because it means it isn't just *my* cooking they are refusing. DS2 will eat the rice & spicy sauce at the fire restaurant. DS1 might eat the rice, or he might not. He might eat the shrimp, the steak or the chicken, or he might not. Odds are if promised ice cream he will eat something though. I'll give DH another half hour before I call him. He was supposed to be gone 'about 2 hours at most', 3 hours ago. He's driving around testing signal strength in various areas relating to some new towers they put up this week. DS2 asked me where he was and I said he was working and DS2 says "NO! Sadaday Daddy tay HOME!" I told hi he;d have to take that up with his father.

Me & a pan of hot oil.

It's never been a good idea, but it is slowly becoming more common as I expand my repetoir. Generally speaking, in this house, if the recipe calls for more than a tablespoon or so of oil in the pan, the recipe does not get made. This is not for reasons of health but for reasons of fear - fear of burns, fear of fire, fear of smoke alarms, fear of the greasy spattered mess to clean. But today I once again ventured into the fry arena. This time it was Rachel Ray's chicken tenders. i won, but it was a struggle. The problem again was equipment. To bread the chicken you need a plate of flour, a plate with eggs and a plate of breadcrumbs. 3 plates. and since the breading takes a bit of time for me I need a cooling rack to let them rest while I get 6 of them ready for the skillet. I lack contiguous counter space of suffient size. (say that 3 times fast) So here is my problem. There is no way to be food safe & bread chicken at the same time. You don't want to be spreading raw chicken all over your counters. (not to mention the counters have plates & things on them already) So I used very tiny plates and very very slowly breaded 6 pieces of chicken. They fried up well & then went into the oven to finish cooking. I'm not good with oil due to lack of experience so it got a little to hot & a couple pieces got browner than needed but nothing burned.

The boys wouldn't eat it. It's breaded fried chicken. The one thing in the whole of the vast world of food that the little demons can be counted on to eat and they wouldn't eat it. It is very very frustrating. I don't know that they actually disliked it so much as they just were not in the mood to eat. DS2 had 2 bites of chicken and a few more of spinach salad. DS1 ended up eating maybe 4 bites of chicken & 2 of salad. It had been 3 hours since they last ate, so they should have been hungry, but all they really wanted to do was goof off. Thats been the thing lately, goof off & not eat. I think we give them plenty of time. Really 30 minutes to eat 8 bites of chicken & some spinach salad is plenty. We gave them a 10 minute warning (at the end of the 30 minutes), which was when DS1 actually ate something, and when the time was up the food was removed. Suddenly drama about being SO HUNGRY!!! Oh but not for that chicken. I'm so tired of this.

I wonder if they will eat it on the pizza tomorrow?

an up and down sort of day

On the downside...overdrafts worth $450 were posted. DHs employer had some glitch or something with their payroll people & the direct deposits didn't go through so they had to cut everyone checks. The 15th was MKL day so the banks were closed. DH was out somewhere all day on the 16th, so it was the 17th before the check was deposited. After 2pm. GGGRRRR...On the 17th his truck payment, our auto insurance & the electric bill were all auto debited. And they posted before the check. Fortunately the overdraft protection just removed the money from savings with no fees but it's still irritating.

On the upside...my new EHD arrived. It's so *tiny*. Its a Western Digital Passport drive. 120GBs, USB powered. I can so easily take it & my laptop over to my recliner in the evenings. Woohoo!! even better news, my monitor shipped back to me today!!!! It'll probably be the end of next week before it gets here but it is fixed and on its way back!!!!

I'm working on a quick page pregnancy album. I haven't decided yet if it will cover 4 week or 6 week periods. I want it to be 12 pages. 6 weeks would give me 5 pages for specialty stuff like the nursery, the ultrasound, the name search etc. 4 weeks would only give me 2 pages. So the tags are all blank & I also haven't decided whether to fix the word art or leave it on separate .pngs. I like versatility but I also want this to be an instant album - all you have to think about really is what photo & your journaling.

I've been doing well with my scrapping. DSP has had some really fun challenges and DSD is rocking with them. Between the 2 sites I have about 18 challenges I want to try to do by the end of the month. But everything is on hold now that I have my EHD. I've been slowly tagging things, but I'v been waiting for the new drive to really get going. ACDSee is now copying all my digi stuff to the new drive(its been about an hour so far) & I am going to take the next 3 days to focus on tagging. Now that the drive can come with me to the recliner or the bedroom I have more time to work on it.

I've become my mother again

Tomorrow is Bunco night. The theme is the 80's. I can do the 80's. I am in fact embarrassed by the sheer number of clothing items I own that can be assembled for an 80's look. (and the thing is I purge my closet regularly, where do these wide belts come from and just *where* were those stirrup pants hiding anyway?). I have a few looks to choose from but I am thinking that the Flashdance thing is what I want to go for - leggings, a tank, scrunched up socks & a cut up, off the shoulder sweatshirt. I even have a sorority letter sweatshirt from 1987 to use.

Then it happened. I became my mother.

I got out the scissors, picked up the sweatshirt and said, out loud to myself, "Why are you ruining a perfectly good sweatshirt, cutting it up like that?" Which is exactly what my mom said 20+ years ago when I was getting ready to cut up a high school logo sweatshirt. Suddenly I was 18, in our kitchen, listening to Duran Duran, using my mom's "good scissors" & feeling guilty for cutting up a good shirt.

I did however continue to cut now as I did then.

What do you have faith in?

[i]"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase."
Martin Luther King, Jr.[/i]

I have faith in the existence of the Divine. A higher power does exist & its the same being no matter what you call him/her. I have faith that the majority of the people you meet are good & decent people just trying to get through their day as best they can - just like you. I have faith in myself, that in the end I can find some way to cope. These things keep me going every day.

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In other news I saved up $150 toward the Red Dwarf DVD collection that I want. It is anywhere from $180-250 depending on where you buy it. but I'm also saving toward a new EHD. I want a USB powered 2.5" one. Something little I can take with me into the bedroom. My current EHD must be plugged into the wall & is a big heavy sucker. I was thinking of getting a 250gb drive, so I'm looking at $200-250 for that. There have a been a lot of threads in various places about 'how many gigs of scrapping stuff do you have?' which has made me really look at how much I have. I got rid of a bunch of stuff a couple months ago. So I sat & added up the digi stuff, the photos, the PSP stuff, the music & the audiobooks. Really, a 250Gb EHD is overkill. My 80GB EHD is not quite half full with all the stuff I have & I move stuff off regularly. I also have the trial of ACDSee & am tagging things so the EHD is on my mind. So when I found a 120GB 2.5" USB powered EHD for $99 yesterday - I bought it. I was going to get the videos first but I have them in VHS & can watch them in the bedroom if I really need to. It should arrive by the end of the week.

I got some new products uploaded to 1hour scrap. A set of quick pages & some desktop wallpaper calendars. They should be available sometime this week. The wallpaper is available in the standard 1024x768 and I also did a set in the more widescreen 1280x800 size as well. I have a widescreen monitor & am always having to resize desktop wallpaper.

perfect

You know those commercials for facial cleanser on tv? The ones where the woman with the perfect complexion is in a perfectly white terry cloth robe, in her perfectly clean bathroom, with her hair perfectly held back from her face in a perfect knot or perfectly smoothed back by a headband, no random hairs sticking up in little tufts making her look like a guest alien on Star Trek. She has one of those beautiful bowl sinks that look gorgeous but takes up all your available counter space. It's perfectly clean, no water spots or toothpaste smears, & is on a smooth equally perfectly clean counter top. She gets the tube for cleanser from some unspecified location (can't tell where but there is no counter space for it so there must be a hanging shelf somewhere), washes her face and leans forward, cups her hands full of water & in one perfect motion, splashes the cleaners off of her face. No water splashes on the counter or gets in her hair or dribbles down her arms, soaking the robe. Then you see her with her hair down, dabbing at her face with a thick white towel.

Why can't I ever wash my face like that? Even considering that I have no bathrobe, & my sink is molded into my 15 year old bathroom counter, with water stains, and none of my towels are white (and many are not thick) and my hair does stick up around my headband so I do resemble an extra in the Star Wars canteena scene (especially once I get the cleanser on my face), you'd think after a couple decades practice I would be able to splash water on my face without it going all over the counter, the floor & myself. Really. Cup water, lean forward, bring hands to face at full horizontal position. But no.

why you can't buy just one

After we took DS1 to preschool yesterday morning, DS2 and I headed to the big city to do a little shopping. Specifically I was looking for a potty for DS2 that had a big enough opening to contain all his parts at once. i don't know if he just has chubby legs & a chubby butt or if DS1 is skinny in those areas but if DS2 sits on the potty no shield guard in the world is going to stop the spray. So we stopped at Target, Wal-Mart & Toys R Us. I found a potty that fits the bill but DS2 pitched such a fit at the very idea of buying that I left it there. He's really adamant right now that he will NOT be using the potty. He'll be 3 in 2 weeks and has only once managed to use it (and sprayed everywhere which is why I was shopping). I also casually checked out the Cars situation in each of the stores. None had been restocked since Dec 26 apparently. I did find a Fabulous Hudson Hornet, Boost, Snot Rod and Chick Hicks. I only came across one of each (but had I wanted a green Ramone all 3 stores were packed with them) DS2 was thrilled with the Chick Hicks and I thought DS1 would be delighted with the hot rods since he is always talking about them & their different attributes. Didn't work that way of course. DS1 wanted the Chick Hicks. Buying duplicates of the 'hot' cars is SOP in the house - we have 2 Maters, 2 Lightenings, 2 Sallys, but the rest I have been able to get away with just one each. Apparently Chick Hicks is a 'hot' item. Who knew? So after 3 hours of running non-stop interference in squabbles over sharing I loaded the boys up in the car and drove to the small city where I hit KB Toys and WalMart, both of which had no Chick Hicks, but several green Ramones and no idea when they might be getting any more Cars toys. So Chick Hicks is on a time share plan, with mommy setting a timer, until we can find a second one or the novelty wears off. I think that is starting. Ds2 seems to be reaching the "i want it just so my brother can't have it' phase & once there he usually loses interest in the item within 24 hours. Here is hoping.

DS2 ate all his dinner! All of it, even the veggies and had seconds on the meatloaf. I can't honestly recall the last time that child cleaned his plate. Usually it's a struggle to get a few bites of anything into him. I did make the meatloaf with more Pomagrante Chipotle sauce that usual and the kid loves spicy. He also finally figured out that veggie dunked in ketchup really only taste like ketchup,s o I suppose that helped. I hope that continues as well. the dinner struggle is getting really really old.

yeah warranty!!

My monitor is still under warranty!!!! I swung by DH's office & got a box for it. Now it is swathed in bubble wrap and packed in those air bag thingys Amazon has been using lately. I have several dozen of them. They are ALL in the box. No one is going to accuse me of shoddy packing! I'll ship it UPS tomorrow. They said if they cannot fix it then they will send me a new one. Given that the screen is all black with occasional green flashed (very Christmas light effect) I'm thinking I'll be getting a new one.

resolutions

My resolutions for 2007...out here for the whole world to see & reply when I screw up on them:)

1. Serve better & more interesting side dishes. I have a whole post around here somewhere about my food resolutions, but the side dish thing is the one I am really focused on.

2. Lose 20lbs. This involves exercising more & eating less & better. I already go to the gym 3x a week, but I am going to up the strength training & weights & increase cardio. I'm also going to try to get a 4th day in whenever possible (even if that means going on a weekend). eat less is pretty self explanitory.

3. Journal more - online, in my layouts, in the boys' books and in my 5 year journal. I was really good about that journal in 2004 & 2005, but 2006 has been very sporadic. I blame getting more sleep. I started it when I was sleepless & forgetful, now I am sleeping & remembering more events so I'm less inclined to write them down.

4. Stick to the budget. There is another post around here about the odd tendacy since about April for there to be a random, unexpected $500 cost every month. Auto repairs, medical expenses, power surge blowing out thing, etc. Plus we were randomly going over budget on stuff anyway, so the last few month have been hard financially. We revised the budget & are moving forward. The $500 expense thing appears to be continuing - our dryer is taking 2-3 tumbles to dry a load it used to do in 1. We cleaned out the vents, pulled it out from the wall & cleaned out the ducts in the wall. Nothing is helping. The dryer still works though & until it is actually defunct we are not getting a new one. But every time I do a load of wash (every day) I am reminded of our need to save money toward a new one.