A Little Potty Humor

Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I told Zachary that I would take him to Inflatable Wonderland when he was potty-trained. (I am sure he was just barely 3 at the time, but as you can see, I was already to the point of throwing bribes to the wind.) Though he had been to other "jumpy jumpy" places around town, as we like to call them for the sake of simplicity, Inflatable Wonderland was going to be that special place that would only be entered upon his successful completion of this very important developmental milestone. It didn't work very well as an incentive, however. Instead of enticing Zachary to actually do SOMETHING to BECOME potty-trained, he simply reminded me, every time we passed it in the mall, that someday he would go there when he was potty-trained. And, each time, approximately 5 seconds later, his mind would already be on something OTHER than being potty-trained. Eventually, as the months came and went with very little progress in that department, I decided in MY mind that we would probably NEVER be going to Inflatable Wonderland. "Woe is me," I'd think to myself. "I guess I'll have the first child to enter college in a Pull-Up."

Then comes the end of my long, sad story. Miracles do happen! Just recently, Zachary, literally, woke up one day COMPLETELY POTTY-TRAINED!!! After all those months and years of madness spent trying to get him to this same end, he did exactly what his pediatrician told me he'd do: He did it when HE was ready!

I am still counting the days since this miracle took place, but now I'm sure that it's the real deal. Zachary is 100% potty-trained! Not one single accident since Day 1, and we're well into the double digits. So, amid my joyous dancing and singing of the Hallelujah Chorus, one of the first things Zachary said to me was, "Now we can go to the jumpy jumpy place at the mall because I'm potty-trained!" Of course, he didn't forget. And I assured him that, YES, we would be going there very soon.

There was just one little dilemma: I didn't know what to do about Ashley. I wanted this trip to Inflatable Wonderland to be a really special reward for Zachary, but how could I leave her out? After all, she has been way ahead of him in terms of potty-training progress until, well, April 14th, to be exact. (Which, by the way, will probably now remain burned in my memory as one of the best days of my life...the day I became a believer.) Ashley is not far behind. I just didn't think it would be right to let her come, too, on the account of being almost potty-trained. However, with her birthday coming up, I thought Zachary might not mind too much if his sister got to join him for that reason. Of course, I hadn't said anything about this to Zachary. But somehow he just knew...

Last week, Grandma came over after work to go out for ice cream with us. One of the first things she said to Zachary was, "Zachary, I heard you're potty-trained! Are you going to go to the jumpy jumpy place at the mall now?!?" Ashley was standing there in the living room with us and her face lit up with excitement. "I want to go to the jumpy jumpy place at the mall!!!" Zachary turned to her and said, in complete seriousness, "No, Ashley. You have to stay with Grandma, because you're not potty-trained. Only I get to go to the jumpy jumpy place at the mall because I am potty-trained." And as if to add insult to injury, Zachary added, "Happy birthday to you, Ashley!"

Ouch!

"Easter Beagle Eggs"

It was fun getting ready for Easter today. For some reason, Zachary and Ashley weren't interested in watching, "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" this year as they have every year (and not necessarily only at Easter time) since Zachary was about a year old. Instead they watched "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown"...TWICE. Crazy kids... After dinner, we dyed eggs..."Easter Beagle Eggs" as they have come to be affectionately termed. But have no fear, we didn't waffle them. We didn't toast them. We didn't fry them, and we didn't turn them into egg soup. We BOILED them!!! ;)

Easter Egg Hunt

Today, I took Zachary and Ashley to our neighborhood-sponsored Easter Egg Hunt...which wasn't actually in our neighborhood, but whatever. This is the first egg hunt they've been to that wasn't really Mom-sponsored, and they had a great time! Ashley loved the Easter Bunny the most (she wanted to know where he was at all times), and she was a pro at raking in the eggs. Zachary wasn't as interested in the bunny, neither was he as hard-pressed to gather up as many eggs as he could find, which is OK. I just didn't want him to be upset after they let the other kids back out for another run at 'em. Both Zachary and Ashley were so cute to watch, though I spent more of my time with Ashley, since the egg hunt for the under-3 crowd was in a different spot than the rest. Zachary was just excited to be with so many other kids and on a playground at the same time. Fun!

Go Fish!

I've never been a huge fan of Goldfish, but my kids seem to like them. Then we discovered new Flavor-Blasted Goldfish, and boy are those tasty! So, the last time I saw them on sale at Target, I decided we should try out several of the different flavors. My pantry is stocked with 3 packages, only one of which was opened. The other day, Ashley brought me an unopened (green) package of Ranch-flavored Goldfish and wanted some for a snack. Not wanting to have 3 opened packages at one time, I went in search of the already-opened package which was nowhere to be found.

Me: "Chris, did you finish off the Mozzarella Goldfish?"
Chris: "No. Did YOU finish off the Mozzarella Goldfish?!"
Me: "No. I just wondered why they're missing all of a sudden if nobody has eaten them."

Ashley was sitting at the table when Chris, strangely inspired, opened the trash can and pulled out the half-full (golden-colored) package of Mozzarella Goldfish.

Chris: "You mean THESE?!"
Ashley: "NOOOOOO! I WANT GREEN!"

Hmmmm....I just WONDER how THOSE got THERE!?

That's Some Powerful Juice!

Did you know that one of the amazing yet lesser known benefits of drinking Sunny Delight is that it helps you swim and surf? No? Neither did I! That is, until tonight. Zachary brought this to my attention. Wow!

"What I Meant to Say..."

Last night, during Family Home Evening, Chris read the kids a story about a little boy who was going off to school for the first time and was so excited about learning. Just as the boy in the story was asked to do by his teacher, Chris asked Zachary to say his name and something about himself. Zachary said, "My name's Zachary, and I like blocks and shapes. I like circles, I like triangles, and I EVEN LOVE SQUIRRELS!" Ooops, I think that came out a little wrong! And I think Zachary knew it, because he was laughing as hard as the rest of us.

Not Quite the "Trip" I Wanted to Take

I was so annoyed today when I went to turn on General Conference and found that absolutely NOTHING was playing on the channel we were supposed to be tuning into. For as long as we've lived in this house, we have always watched Conference on cable channel 77 at home in our living room. However, even as good as it got, we often experienced problems here or there. For example, we'd catch the morning session, but in the afternoon, this no-name channel would air a baseball game instead. That was pretty annoying in and of itself, but today I was REALLY ticked off. The screen was SOLID BLUE and they couldn't air Conference?! Come on! So, not having a lot of other last-minute options, I was grateful that we do have internet and can tune in online. The problem with that was that I couldn't actually watch it without the audio totally breaking up. So, we (or rather I--Chris was laying on the floor, sick, and probably didn't catch much besides his zzZZ's) listened while watching something crazy like sound waves dancing on the computer screen in front of me. Colorful stars and bands of "sound" moving in time with the speakers' words and voice inflections or something crazy like that. After awhile, I couldn't handle any more of it, so I got on Facebook and tried to work Sudoku puzzles in the meantime. Yeah, that was a little distracting, but so was the crappy mood I was in already. And so here lies the end of my rant.