Trial run : April 14, 2008

I'm not sure I have time to keep this up, but I thought I'd give it a try, more as a personal form of record keeping because the kids keep saying and doing such funny things that I want to record them so we won't forget. But . . for those of you that live far away and have the time, or care to have a peek into our current living situation . . read on.





The current situation is as follows . . Maddie is 2 years and 10 months old and Keira is one year and 2 months. Clearly, I have my days cut out for me . . some of it being joyful and humorous, other moments account for periodic baldspots on my head where I've opted to tear my hair out to cope with my frustration. We moved to Utah about 6 months ago and have been living at my parents house in Kaysville
. . a pretty good arrangement but I never really intended to live in transition for this long. . and unfortunately, the summer portion of our lives is packed tightly in a storage 'vault', as I refer to it these days, and unaccessible . . aargh! We are waiting for our house to sell in Denver . . not a good plan given the current housing market . . but, thus is life, and we continue to hope it happens. Gregg is working for some orthopedic doctors at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital (TOSH) in Murray. He enjoys his job . . most of the time . . and has filled his last 6 months of extensive commute time listening to audio recordings of the complete Harry Potter collection . . he loves that . . and occasionally, I'm very jealous of that solitary time he has to enjoy such a frivolity . . Funny the things that become so desireable and luxurious when you're amidst the thralls of full time parenting. Anyway . . we anticipate living further south in that vicinity when and if we ever get to buy our own house so we can salvage some time, money, and gas, and get to spend even more time with 'our dad'. The girls anxiously anticipate his return home each night and Maddie immediately requests that he go and change his clothes so he can be 'a daddy'. Keira just runs with her arms flailing in the air (preferrably naked, her favorite state of existance, as she is escaping her nightly pj dressing and diaper change) and literally throws her body at him yelling, 'Daaaaaaa!'.


Anyway, I've decided to make an attempt at potty training Maddie as she approaches 3 years of life . . a new experience for both of us, unfortunately, I take it more seriously than she does. She insists she's a 'big girl' ( and don't try to claim she's anything else, she'll adamantly correct you . . 'I'm not hungry, I'm a BIG girl') . . with the occasional fallback that necessitates an infant positioned cradling and rocking as she temporarily assumes the roll of 'baby' . . but when she doesn't make it . . or rather, doesn't TRY to make it to the potty and I insist that if indeed, she is a 'big girl' she needs to TRY to act accordingly. After 2 failed incidents of even attempting to seek out me or a potty, until, of course, she was done and unpleasantly left residing in some very smelly messes yesterday . . . I was becoming frustrated. MJ's usual response to my scolding is to change the subject to happier topics and refuse to acknowledge that I am upset or that she is aware that anything has gone awry. In an attempt to keep her focused and try to have a logical conversation that hopefully might result in a lesson learned . . . Maddie looked back at me as I quizzed her on why she insisted on soiling her pants and said . . . "Mom-mom, you need to be more patient" . . . and once again . . . my own deep words of wisdom . . . that I was sure she never actually heard . . and obviously didn't understand . . when I initially directed them at her, now were not only appropriately directed back at me, but in a very timely, CALM manner . . . which I'm guessing is not the way she initially received the advice . . and with that simple sentence . . my 2 year old trumped the conversation, and somehow turned a hair pulling moment into a humorous instance of amazement and unprecedented love for the little 'stinkpot'!