I was talking pictures of every room in the house for our home inventory file and Paul thought he’d smile for the camera. We’ve been playing outside for hours every day this week, and we’re in today because of snow! Boo hoo, Chicago!
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“Take a picture of my train too, Mommy!”
Warning! This song really gets in your head. Nevertheless, Paul LOVES it! I’m putting it here for easy finding for future reference.
(1) While carrying the step stool across the bedroom, Paul tripped. His chin and neck landed on the stool’s corner. Ouchie!
(2) Paul decided to try to talk on the pay phone at the library, despite my calls to come back right now! When he reached for the receiver, it fell and hit him in the nose. Ouchie!
(3) Paul likes to sit on the rocking ottoman in his room and look out the window at the world. The other day, he fell off and the ottoman tipped on top of him, cutting his leg. Ouchie!
(4) I was a big meanie and before Paul’s bath, I took off the bandaid from ouchie number 3. This was, apparently, the biggest outchie of all. He cried like you couldn’t believe, yelling “Ouchie! Ouchie!”
Note: All of these ouchies were on the same day. It was just a bad day, I guess.
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Painted by Paul, February 2010
I am not a “post it on the fridge Mom,” probably because my mother never was. But this painting by my son has been in the place of honor for weeks. I love it.
Paul asked me to take a turn, so I added the red border around it. He did the rest. I love how the colors are washed out in the middle. I love the vibrancy of the purple and the green (it doesn’t show up well in the scan). I just love knowing how much fun Paul had in painting it. It is his masterpiece for age 2 and a half.
I have been painting the banister, trim, and risers for our front hall. I think it turned out pretty nice.
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Looking at it now, it doesn’t look like much. Why did it take me two months? We started the week after Christmas, sanding the current coat off. Then when Ryan went back to work, I spent two or three weeks painting coat after coat of pre-stain and stain and dark-colored poly. Then I took a week or two off. Then I cleaned and taped again and painted the risers, the trim, and all the spindles.
I worked when Paul was sleeping and he doesn’t nap anymore, so just at night. I discovered I could only paint for two hours at a time before I started feeling I was going crazy. Lots of bending over for this job.
At any rate, I can’t find a before picture to show you how much nicer our home looks. When we moved in, our wood floors were all light, pine colored wood. We wanted them dark mahogany so before we even moved in, we had the floors done. The banister remained the light colored pine, and it took us a year to get around to doing it! Here’s the newly finished floors, not finished banister (i.e., how it’s been for a year).
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Although it does look like an amateur did this, I do feel very good about how I did it all myself (mostly)! I really do want to do all the rest of the trim in the house because it gives ti a newly finished look and feel. I’m just not sure when I’ll have the energy to bend over so much again!
(1) When people ask me “How are you doing?” they are not hoping to hear potty training updates.
(2) I’ve become obsessive-compulsive about making sure the sippy cup lid matches the sippy cup.
(3) Cleaning toilets doesn’t bother me much anymore, but I still don’t like scrubbing the shower.
(4) Relief Society, while it is not my beloved primary, isn’t all that bad. In fact, I think I like being there each Sunday!
It’s hard to start something up again after such a long break. I have nine months of family pictures that need to be stored in this online journal. They are just sitting there on my hard drive, waiting to be put in chronological order. Plus, things have been happening! My baby is almost two and a half. He’s talking in complete sentences, most of the time. He says the most adorable things. He looks adorable, and he’s in this perfect in-between stage that makes staying home with him a delight.
True, Paul is a joy. The majority of the time, he is pleasant and laughing. Sometimes, he screams and throws a tantrum (especially on the increasingly frequent no nap days). It doesn’t bother me now, at this stage. I can understand what he says, and I know what he wants: I just can’t always give him what he wants. This is so much better than the 18-month-old stage, when he screamed and I had no idea why.
So, why am I visiting this neglected blog once again tonight? Well, Ryan is stuck in Manhattan for the second unplanned night, thanks to NYC’s huge snow storm (20.9 inches in Central Park in the last two days). Yesterday, his afternoon flight was canceled. He changed his flight to this afternoon. This morning, that was canceled. He changed his flight to tomorrow morning. Do you see a pattern here?
(To keep things in perspective, this is only the second time in his nine and a half years of 85% traveling that he has been literally unable to get a flight home from where he is. The other time was 9/11. He was in the air and the plane was landed in Ohio. He rented a car and drove back to Chicago.)
But this weekend’s snowstorm is only the icing on the “we’re sick of this” cake. Ryan had told his boss earlier in the week that he is actively looking for a job. No, he didn’t quit, but he was explaining that there was a reason he did not want to stay in NYC on Friday, as they wanted him to. At any rate, the fact that he’s stuck there, and has to return again on Monday, really and truly sucks. Sorry for the strong language. It does.
We’ve been pondering and searching for another job since we returned to the USA in August 2008. Ryan had some promising interviews that fall, but nothing panned out. (Maybe you recall, but that was the fall that the economy suddenly tanked.) In 2009, Ryan kept looking. Then, this month and last, he’s been working on it in all his free time. It definitely time. For example, Saturday, he was up before dawn, searching and applying for jobs until after 8 p.m. I only wish there was something I could do to help. There have been some leads, so we’re hopeful something will pan out soon. But we’d appreciate any extra prayers that you can send our way.
I have cleaned the bathrooms. I’ve vacuumed and swept the floors. Maybe getting the house ready will speed my husband home!
I called this post “silence” because that is how I feel about my daily life sometimes, and that is why this blog has been silent for so many months. Most days, I go see my friends or they come here for play dates. And this morning my friend was kind enough to step up as a last minute babysitter so I could still go spend my two hours volunteering at the library. How I love that time of talking to adults! Every morning and every evening, I also talk to Ryan. I do get much-needed socialization in person. In fact, it’s just the right amount of out of the house time: I’m naturally an introvert so it becomes exhausting to me. I think two book clubs and a few plays dates a week is enough for me.
But I also spend some time most days responding and discussing books with other readers online via my book blog. That life is a complete non-baby life, and it really helps save my sanity: I know I can finish the day with some thought that doesn’t revolve around best potty training methods. (I guess that’s why I haven’t been blogging on this site: blogging four or five times a week at my books site is time-consuming enough, and this site would only be about more potty training pleas for help).
But the bottom line is, at the end of the day, our home is silent. The floorboards creak, the furnace turns on, my son mumbles in his sleep. But the main sound is silence.
This is why I’m praying that my husband can come home, and stay home. I long for his snores once the silence of night sets in. The silence is getting a bit loud.
(1)
The other day, as I drove to deliver cookies to my friend for her birthday, I saw my reflection in the rearview mirror.
“Oh,” I said aloud. “I forgot to put on makeup this morning.”
Paul’s response: “Uh oh, Mommy! Go home and get makeup! Uh oh!”
(2)
As I lead Paul upstairs for bed, Paul likes to bid farewell to everything he says.
Paul: “Bye bye cars! Bye bye books! Bye bye fridge! Bye bye flowers! Bye bye stairs! Bye bye Jesus [in a picture]! “
(3)
If my prayer gets too long, Paul helps me out.
Paul: “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. AMEN! AMEN!”
(4)
Paul has a new favorite word. From the sample conversations below, see me if you can figure out what it is.
Mommy: “Do you want to sit on the toilet?”
Paul: “Icky toilet!”
Later: “Let’s change your diaper!”
Paul: “Icky poop!”
Later: “Daddy might come home tomorrow!”
Paul: “Icky Daddy!”
Later: “Do you want some goldfish for your snack?”
Paul: “Icky Goldfish!”
(5)
Paul is a very compassionate two-year-old. If I bump my arm against something (for example) and exclaim “ouch,” he runs to me and kisses it better. When he sees the picture in his book of Cookie Monster crying (because the onions made his eyes water), he gives him a hug and a kiss. Paul has compassion on everyone and everything. When his cars crash against each other, he kisses them better.
Given Paul’s interest in Baby Doll’s toilet training, I’m considering beginning his own toilet training come the first of February. But I’d love to know your ideas for helping it go well. No promises I’ll try your method, but please share away!
Of course, that would assume there are people still reading my bog after months of silence. If not, I understand. My life is only so interesting, as this post demonstrates.
My son has a doll. You met him in December in an adorable picture last month. I think it’s about time I share his story.
Baby Doll joined our family back in May. I attended a local garage sale with Paul in tow, and when Paul saw the doll on the edge of a display blanket, he immediately was taken in: “Baby! Baby!” One dollar later, and Baby Doll had joined our family. We took him home, changed his clothes (because the pink was a bit too girly for Baby Doll’s preferences), and Paul promptly forgot about him.
Throughout the summer, Baby Doll occasionally appeared. “Baby!” Paul would say, rocking the doll for a few minutes before dropping him on the floor.
In early November, something changed. Paul started walking around with Baby Doll. We had not at that point given the doll a name (after all, Paul mostly ignored it) but Paul had no problems calling it Baby Doll or Doll. “Doll” does rhyme with “Paul” so it probably seemed natural for Paul to have a little friend with a name almost like his own.
Around Thanksgiving, Paul made a new discovery: if he pulled off the clothes, Baby Doll did not have a diaper on! Oh no! He was very upset, and we had to add a diaper so he wouldn’t be so upset. I think Paul had entered a new stage of his own awareness at that point, so it seemed appropriate.
But a few weeks after that, Baby Doll entered yet another stage of life: toilet training. Paul occassionally sits on the toilet. Sometimes he’s excited to do so. Sometimes he is successful. Sometimes immediately after wetting his diaper he runs up to me saying “Toilet! Toilet!” But he has not been interested in being “toilet trained.”
Baby Doll, however, has been toilet training since December. Some days Doll forgets completely and stays in the toy chest. Other days, Baby Doll must sit on the toilet every five minutes all day long. Paul is the spearhead of this endeavor. Baby Doll is always successful, even sitting on every toilet in the house every five minutes for four hours at a time.
It’s a very rewarding thing to help Baby Doll. Paul loves to cheer “yeay!” when Baby Doll let the pee into the toilet. I always ask “do you want to sit on the toilet too, Paul?” The answer is normally “No.” But I’m feeling hopeful.
Paul likes to change Baby Doll’s clothes. This began when Baby Doll’s other clothes fell in the toilet and I had to go find the box of baby clothes to change him (because, of course, Paul was upset that baby doll had no clothes on). Paul gets upset when his little 3-year-old nursery friend comes to visit and takes off all of Baby Doll’s clothes (and diaper!!). He cries and wants Baby Doll back. Then, of course, he forgets about Baby Doll for days.
Paul realized a few weeks ago that Baby Doll has marker on his head. He doesn’t understand why we can’t wash it off, since all of our markers are washable.
Baby Doll doesn’t have a different name. As I said, “Doll” rhymes with “Paul.” Any name at this point would be bit affected, I think.
So, how do I take Baby Doll’s toilet training and make it Paul’s toilet training? I’m calling for success stories at my website. I’d love to hear your ideas!