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My life: potty training and knitting

If it seems like all I have been blogging about is potty training and knitting, well that is pretty much the two most exciting things in my life right now.

On the potty training front we had a banner day. Evan did not have any accidents and we actually went somewhere. We ventured out to a church play date at a park. I am not sure if I had the right park (there are two with similar names) since no one showed up besides us.

(begin tangent) I am getting fed up with the crappy parks here. I know more people have big yards and stuff than in California, but that is no excuse. The majority of them have super ancient equipment that none of my kids can really play on and often have a high potential for danger. The standard equipment is an super high and steep metal slide, a merry go round and teeter totters. I really miss the updated and clean parks that we had in California. When we went today there was a guy peeing in the brush near the kid's play ground. At the park closest to my house we discovered lots of broken glass bottles. If the city would bother to put better equipment in the parks and clean them now and then I bet more people would use them. (end tangent)

They quickly grew tired of the three lame pieces of equipment and I decided to make an impromptu zoo visit. We have fun and Evan was even persuaded to use the public restrooms. We did not stay too long since it is super hot here and they were getting very red in the faces.

Now for knitting content.

Tama's Etsy store is one of my favorite places to get yarn. I like her a lot and she has great stuff there, she really know her fiber.

Here is a picture of the completed scarf that I made from some of her hand spun yarn. It has such amazing texture. I think that I made the scarf a tad bit wide so it ended up on the short side, but it is long enough to wear. It kind of reminds me of a waterfall.


Here is some awesome yarn that I got in the mail. She dyed it up just for me! The colors remind me of pink flamingos. I am going to make some awesome socks out of it.



I have not forgotten about house pictures. I plan on taking some more in the next few days as I clean and tidy up various parts of the house.

Sunday Cuteness

Sorry there are no pictures this week. Evan is generally half n*ked all the time, so any pictures I would have taken would have not been fit for public viewing where there are creepy people with creepy thoughts about cute and innocent little boys.

Harry is such a cute and helpful little guy. He lives to help me and gets so excited when I let him do things like help unload the laundry and do the dishes. When he helps with the dishes I will put the silver ware basket (minus the small knives) up on the counter and he will stand on the step stool and put them all in the proper place. I have been doing a lot less bending down lately since Harry is more than happy to pick up stuff off the floor and put it where I ask him to. I want to bottle him up and have him be this helpful forever.

Another cute thing about Harry is his love of broccoli, or "trees". We have stir fry now and then for dinner. I think that my boys are Asian kids in American kid's bodies because they gobble it up with none of the reluctance that is normally seen when new and different things are served. Harry especially loves to have me pile the "trees" on to his plate. Evan has caught on to his excitement and we let him have a few small trees (he can't have too many since the vitamin K in the broccoli will counteract his blood thinning medication). I am thinking about seeing if they like "trees" raw too. If I make it a regular part of Evan;s diet then his medication dose can be adjusted accordingly. I just never thought he would be consistent with it, so it was easier to just avoid them all together.

Evan did awesome in church today. He stayed dry and went potty in the Ultra Scary Public Bathroom With a Big Potty for the very first time. I bought some waterproof trainers for him awhile back when I started flirting with the idea of thinking about potty training so we did not have to worry about him making a big mess if he did have an accident. I learned my lesson about that long before I had kids. When I was living in San Diego I taught the Sunbeams for awhile and one of the kids had a big accident (he must have been saving it for a long time) and I felt for the parents when they had to clean it up. I did not want to have to go through anything like that.

Don't eat these spiders!

Even though this spider is brown, I recommend that you avoid eating it. I caught this guy after Evan and Harry discovered it while playing down stairs. It is huge! I had a hard time not freaking out as I was catching it but I was also too freaked out to kill it (Yeah I know I am a weirdo). I was obviously not too freaked out to take a picture of it for blogging purposes, I have my priorities.

Any way, we have had a bunch of these guys getting into our basement and I am really wanting to do something about it. Spiders really creep me out unless they are in a container and not running loose in my home waiting to eat my children. Any suggestions?

We had good news on the potty training front. Evan had only one accident all day and I let him go on his own with no reminders. He showed great initiative and even went downstairs to go potty in his favorite of the three potties that we bought (I used the cat box rule: one for every cat plus one and applied it to our family). The lone accident happened while he was napping and he wet the bed. I may put some training undies on him for nap time. Now I just have to get him to use the big potty and use underwear properly and we will be half way there. He still is using diapers at night and needs them.

Poor Thomas

I think that Evan has caught on to the idea that when his bladder feels a certain way it is time to go to the potty. He went pee all on his own today with out any promptings from me. He would get very frustrated when I would strongly encourage him to sit on the potty. I even got brave enough to put him in undies so that he could enjoy some outside time. He has not realized that underwear is not a diaper and Thomas the Train got pooped on. The only good part about the whole incident was that I did not have to clean it up. My husband came home early from work and ended up with poop duty. We may be able to leave the house with him in underwear before too long.

Added in: I am not so glad any more that my husband cleaned up the poopy underwear. I found the underwear sitting in the boy's bathroom and crusty streaks on the toilet. I ended up doing some cleaning myself.

A craptastic day

There is mixed news on the potty training front. Harry was a wash and did not hit get anything in the potty at all today. He also apparently is full of crap and decided to show me that every time I turned my back to do a quick chore. Luckily I had the foresight to cut back on the normally high amount of fiber in their diets so the result was not too horribly awful. Harry actually enjoyed cleaning up his accidents and that is when I decided to throw in the towel. I am going to let him decide if he wants a diaper or not but the first accident will see his bum covered right quick.

Evan was great today and only had one accident. I try and get the boys to sit on the potty every so often and that is when Evan would do his thing. Harry has the bladder capacity of a gnat, so I would have had to keep him constantly on the potty. I was loosing hope that Evan would show any initiative to sit on the potty on his own when right before dinner he went with out prompting from me. Awesome! I hope this trend keeps up. He still asks if he can have a diaper, but he also asked if he could put on underwear and play outside. I am hoping that the coolness of Thomas and Lightening McQueen undies wins out. He sure does like the jelly beans he gets.

S.O.S

I am in potty training hell.

Earlier this spring I decided that it was time for Evan to be out of diapers. He is a bit of a lazy kid and was quite content to have me wipe his bum so long as I did it the second that he wanted me to. I figured that Harry was starting to get old enough to potty train too. A plan was hatched in my mind that after the move I would have a go at it.

Today was the first day and I am not sure that the carpet will be the same. Harry only managed to hit the pot twice and that was because I insisted that he sit on the potty for awhile, not due to any decision on his part. Evan had a much better average but again because I had him sit for a good long while on the potty. One of the times was more of a miss than a hit thanks to his inability to keep his hands of his new favorite toy. Evan also decided to leave a dump right by the potty while he was supposed to be napping. All in all it was a super thrilling day. I am starting wonder if there is a person that I could hire to do this dirty work for me. Maybe tomorrow will be better.