Potty Training 101

You know there are just some things that no one ever discusses with you.  When you 12 or 15 and are dreaming about some day becoming a mom... there are just things no one discusses with you. No one says to the cute kid of then that some day she'll have places on her body she wont recognize or some day she'll wonder where her twenties went or that being a mother is code for being on call 100 hours a day for any possible reason or cause. It means neglecting your schedule for someone's sniffles or blisters or fever. It means an endless cycle of dishes and laundry that some how seem to mate and produce more dishes and laundry every load. It means sleep is for yester-years because there is no sleeping after you have children. No one tells the dreamy eyed unsuspecting teenager that she'll be peed on, puked on, farted on, perhaps pooped on, jumped on and any other number of painful or gross things... and that my friends is where this late night rambling leads to.  Not one person ever told me about the amount of bottom problems these children have.  Problems, if you will, that they themselves can not handle on their own, that is of course for you to handle, you being the parent.

For example, someone--who will remain nameless-- wet his bed again last night.  Hmm, on soccer nights when we drink 2 full water bottles, we apparently lose the ability to get up and go to the bathroom! (oops, did that give it away?) So four of the five Hobbs were awake at 1:20am dealing with wet sheets for the afflicted bed. Which resulted in him sleeping on a sleeping bag on his bed--thrilled him, whatever. And the other one thinking it was time to get up and play. But since he's also potty training these days, he needed to go take a turn on the potty.  Did I mention that? No?

Well he'll be 4 in December and I'm hoping we're successful in our attempts before then. We shall see. He's been doing a good job about it. I'd say where in the 60-40% standing lately. Here's a Mark funny for you though, we were at soccer and he said he needed to go, and the only thing available is a port-a-potty. Jamie opened the door... and Mark says "well. uhhhh. I think I wait until we go home."  Smart kid, huh?

If I were to put together a Potty Training 101 list... here would be some of the things I'd say.  Even though, I probably wouldn't say them because who talks about this stuff in person right? right.

1. All the crazy people who say "oh, he should be potty trained by now" should be smacked. Seriously. Just smack them. Or don't really, but just walk on past them.  I'm learning that much like the nursing or bottles controversy  people have high standards and lots of opinions about potty training. But I'm learning that there is no special time or magic number. They will "be potty trained" when they are good and ready.  I decided Matthew was "old enough" and I battled him tooth and  nail about it. I have not pushed the issue with Mark even though MANY people have flapped their mouths about it and he's finally interested in training and we're moving forward. He's been in pull ups for a week now and he's pretty proud of himself. I do believe any earlier for him would have been a waste (or torture) of my time.  Don't let anyone pressure you into training. IT IS NOT WORTH BATTLING. A friend of mine has a child same age as Micah who's potty trained already. I sometimes think she's a fairy tale walking around in a real person's body, but that's fantastic for her. In the end though... if my kids are out of diapers before they go to college, I'll be glad with that.

2. Accidents happen. Spare yourself the Elmo video. The "Accidents Happen" song will be in your head the rest of your ever lovin' life! But. It is the truth. Accidents Happen. And there is nothing you can do about it. (Micah peed on the couch tonight... awesome. thank you.)  Try to not raise your voice. That's equally pointless and in fact makes the situation worse. (Sadly this is from trial and error again... it's that learning curve. The poor defenseless first borns get all that trial and error stuff).  Mark has started hanging his head in shame when he's not made it to the potty fast enough. Oh my heart can't stand it. I'm trying to take the shame out of it and just make the rewards great for the good stuff. High fives, stickers, candy... whatever it takes to make him feel good. But without the shame involved!

3. .... well... I can't think of a three... so I guess I only have two bullet points for this lesson. Ha ha! Oh well. I'm in a season of washing sheets constantly, but there is probably light down this tunnel at some point. Potty Training is just one of those stages moms have to go through. At some point all these people will be in underwear and I'm sure I'll wonder where the diaper days went. Not today, but maybe some day.

I will praise the Lord.

Let All Things Praise the Lord

150 Praise the Lord!

Praise God in His sanctuary;
Praise Him in His mighty firmament!

² Praise Him for His mighty acts;
Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!

³ Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;
Praise Him with the lute and harp!
⁴ Praise Him with the timbrel and dance;
Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes!
⁵ Praise Him with loud cymbals;
Praise Him with clashing cymbals!

⁶ Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

try it 'new noodle' Tuesday

1 pound of ground turkey meat

3 cans tomatoes, petite diced
1 cup of finely chopped up carrots
1 zucchini finely chopped 

(you could peal the zucchini if you didn't want the green to show up, 
and it would look just like the noodles)

These are some of the components in my spaghetti sauce today... I started it early in the morning and by the time you serve the sauce, those veggies have cooked down down down and no one is the wiser as to what is all in it. 

So then Matthew had the choice of what noodle we put made spaghetti with. He chose a rigatoni noodle, which is like a fat tube kind. He said "I've tried normal spaghetti and spiral kind, I guess I'll try this tube noodle." He made a face at the spaghetti at the start of that conversation, but in the end I think he was satisfied with being the sole decision maker about the noodle choice. I didn't think to snap a picture of the noodle, but look at his nearly empty plate after picking out all those fat tube noodles and eating them up! 

The best part? 

ALL FIVE HOBBS ATE THIS MEAL. I even made it easy with no green beans tonight which is normally what I serve with spaghetti and makes everyone cry. Grapes and spaghetti with new fat noodles was a success tonight! Even if I had to spoon feed Mark. ... Micah ate it with his fingers making a grand mess of the new noodles all over his tray. Mark wasn't as thrilled and was unwilling to eat himself but tolerated me stabbing the bites and forcing them in. So whatever works right? 

WHEW!

desk-less but ready for movin!

After about four weeks, I can not believe we are READY to move Jamie's desk to his new office this week! Friend and hard worker,  J, was able to finish today! I am so amazed at his work. He did a fantastic job. Today he installed the AC unit and showed Jamie how to use it. He did a couple of touch ups to things and cleaned up and left shop! Eeeee! I'm so excited.  Here's little tour of Jamie's new (currently deskless) office. 

 the old space (this side will be a closet now)

 same corner, gutted

new window carved out of opposite wall, 

window will be facing driveway 

 dry wall around window, waiting to be cut out.

these four pics show the closet transformation! 

 And here's the closet after the shelves were built... 

And then after the stuff was organized in those shelves! 

(the two boxes in front are for the AC that is now installed, 

so those aren't there anymore!)

inside and outside view of new window space! 

 in addition to the office side, 

here's a peak across the hallway to the other side...

 I also got new (more!) shelves in my "pantry/storage room"

 Here's the new curtain now hung in the 

open doorway to the storage room

The newly painted hallway 

(Jamie and I did this space ourselves, 

he roller-ed, I did the cut in/trim work)

Here's Matthew enjoying the new "shoe bench" J built us! 

I love it so much!

 J also took out an old window box unit that was just stuck in a hole in the wall and sealed the hole. I plan on doing something neat with the "picture frame" now but haven't decided what yet. Possibly a verse or maybe "Hobbs established" type something. Still thinking on that. 

 So here's the outside view now from the driveway, you can see 

the picture frame on the right side and the new window on the left.

And, here's the office interior, finished, waiting on the desk...   

the fish tank stand (fish tank currently on the back deck, fish to come later)

 

  corner where Jamie's desk will go, next to Asian table

 And there is the wall unit for the AC. It's hanging above the closet door. It's smaller than I thought in my head it might have been. It doesn't stick out of the wall as far as I expected. It's tasteful even though it's obviously there. Again, J did a fantastic job. Just fantastic. I'd be pleased to pass his name.

(and yes, that's Micah *in* the fish tank stand. Sure is.)

"Try it" yesterday

This was our produce order from last week.
See in the back there, next to the pineapple?
That's a butternut squash. 

 For dinner last night I made roasted veggies, here's a walk through of how it went... 

(and the results from last nights "Try it Tuesday" which was these veggies! 

I'd never attempted a squash of this size... by myself.... and I was quite proud of myself!

1 squash, 2 apples, 4 potatoes

seasoned and ready to go in oven

Mommy's plate: roasted veggies and chicken ceasar salad

Matthew stabbed a squash bite.
(His plate was sectioned : lettuce with ranch dressing on top,
carrots and ranch for dipping, the veggie mix and chicken separate)

Matthew trying the squash bite

Matthew not gagging on the squash bite! 

Mark trying the squash bite

Mark not thrilled but also not gagging!

And this is Micah *not* eating the squash bite.
He decided to squish all his squash. 

turn around

This past week I turned Micah's carseat around, so now we're all facing forwards. Here's a glimpse of that day, putting Micah in solo, picking up Mark from preschool and then collecting Matthew from the bus stop later on in the day!  Micah has really enjoyed being in the center and forwards now. Anyhow, the backseat is maxed out, wouldn't you say?

The best kind of help

If anyone locally wants the name of an honest hardworking and fantastically patient and kind handyman/contractor/painter/construction expert... let me know.  I would love to pass this name along. He's building Jamie an office currently and doing a marvelous job. He's built me custom shelves for storage which you can see in the pictures above. He enjoys Mark's endless questions "Mr. J, what are you doing now?"  and asks the boys if they'd like to help. He had Matthew holding tape measures and Mark painting and drilling and counting wood and so much!  I can not wait for our project to be completed, but in the mean time, it's been fun to have such a friendly guy on the scene.

Jam jam and more jam

 I've been on a jam kick lately.  A dear sweet friend and mentor in my life keeps giving me pears and I keep making jam.  My first batch yielded 4 jars. I felt like it was a lot of work for not a lot of jars, but it was my first ever attempt by myself. My second batch yielded 11 jars (it was a lot of pears)!  Then I did a batch of grape jam. I think that was 6 jars. And then today another 9 jars of pear jam!  Here's a few pictures of the process.

 boiling the pears and sugar

 the jars all filled

the jars, filled and turned upside down to set (process)

YUM! I'll turn them over in the morning 

and they'll be ready to shelf! 

Happy Jam!  What kind of jam do you like to make? 

My next endeavor will be strawberry jam, I've made that last year but not this year yet.