~kicks the dirt~

DOOOODE.

there are just too many places to update these days...

all is well, very well.

I will post soon. yes yes yes.

Am I a bad mom, or did our parents flat out lie to us?

This was the first xmas the kids were all given money and allowed to shop for us (in a controlled gift buying program at school) without us knowing what they were picking.

It was awesome - they were SO STOKED to give us what ~they~ picked out for us. They could barely keep it a secret. They all gave us their presents, proud as proud could be.

And it all sucked.

Of course we oo'ed and ah'ed. We hugged and kissed. They beamed. And now I have to wear a shirt covered with pictures of large diamonds, with the letters M-O-M blazened across the front.

I'm going to find the people who stock the xmas gift program at their school and I'm going to kick their asses. Then I'm going to take their jobs and stock their store with stuff that could be considered at least somewhat cool. Oh - and after their asses are sufficiently kicked, I'm going to make them wear diamond tshirts.

Back to the whole potty training thing ...

Thanksgiving weekend being a nice, long weekend, I decided to start poking the sleeping bear that I like to call "training Karl to use a potty." Simple.

Alright. So the girls were easy to train. And Karl shows no interest. But I've got a plan ...

~ Immediately following the week he'll spend away at his grandparents' house, I'm doing this thing. ALL diapers will be thrown out in a big ceremony. The changing table will be turned into a toy shelf. The underwear purchased as one of his xmas presents will be displayed. The waterproof mattress pad will be put on the bed. Another pad will be ready in waiting. The washer and dryer will be put on stand by. I will expect plenty of wet and dirty clothes. I will plan on many trips to the potty. No pullups will be used at night because of my opinion of their tendency to put a wrench, at times, into training, especially night time.

Back to thanksgiving's long weekend. I took Karl to the potty maybe 50 times. He'd comply and sit or stand, sometimes even "pushing out" a little fart, but nothing else was ever created. Okay, at least the boy is allowing me to get him to sit and/or stand at the toilet.

When he would ~try~, I'd smother him with praise and adoration. But at the end of each 'visit', he'd look at me and tell me he was done.

Okay. So he tried. I'll take that over nothing.

At the end of the weekend, he just finished another round of "trying" but telling me there wasn't any pee waiting to come out. Again, I broke out into applause.

As I'm grabbing a diaper to put him back into, I say, in passing, "Yeah Karl, just think, when you actually PEE ~IN THE~ POTTY, I'm going to give you ice cream."

"ICE CREAM?" he questions, suddenly very interested.

"Yup. Ice cream. How awesome is that?"

"Okay. I'll go potty". And still pantless, he sits back down on the potty he just, moments ago, was sitting on.

And he pees.

"Ice cream now? WOOHOO!!!"


That proves a few things...
He knows damn well how to pee on that potty.
I'm a dumbass.

Am I missing anything?

haircuts

I am TERRIBLE at getting my kids their haircuts. I put it off and off and off until they all have long straggly strings of hair. Although I'll shave Karl's hair into a mohawk on occaision, I do nothing with the girl's hair. I just took them all three today and it literally has almost been a year since their last haircut.

What about you? How do you work haircuts for your children?

I'm not changing your diaper when you're a teen.

I potty trained both girls successfully when they turned 2. Wasn't that hard, I just felt like I was an awesome mom. ~wink~

And then came Karl.

The boy is almost 3 (two years, ten months) and he has ZERO interest in the potty.

I've tried to reason.
I've tried to bribe.
I've tried to bribe excessively.
I've tried to just sitting him on the potty 100 times a day.
I've tried to humilate him. (that sounds way worse written out)

He doesn't care. Not at all.

Me: "big boys wear pullups and big boys get to wear underwear! Babies wear diapers. Are you a baby or a big boy?"

Karl: "I'm a big boy!"

Me: "great! Then let's put on your pull ups."

Karl: "NOOOOOO! I wear DIAPERS!"

dude.