Girlymama

Ten Commandments*

I think everyone should have to follow these. Along with the real ones, of course.

1. Thou must not goith off to bed with dirty dishes in the sink or cluttered counters.
2. Thou must taketh off thy shoes when thou enters my dwelling.
3. Thou must not come in the door and dump thy crap all over the table or kitchen counter. Unless thou wishest to see my head explode.
4. Thou must not wake up Mommy between 2am and 5am. (See old proverb: Do not poke a sleeping dragon.)
5. Thou must not drive down the road/highway with thy blinker on. When thou hast no intention of turning in any direction anytime soon.
6. Thou must never return a phone call with an email or text message. ‘Tis very rude.
7. Thou must use spell check when available. A blog is not a text message.
8. Thou must not click “reply all” to an email unless it is absolutely, completely and utterly necessary.
9. Thou must not flip through the tv channels for more than 5 minutes. After that, for Pete’s sake, thou must pick something already!!
10. When I am drinking Diet Coke or coffee with Splenda, thou must not 1)say “Thou wilst get cancer.” 2) tell me reasons why it is so very very bad for thou. 3) Roll thy eyes. ‘Tis not thy business what I drink.

From DCRmom. If you play, leave a comment!

*Can you tell I just finished reading Deuteronomy?

That was quick, huh?

There is a reason that the book says that you must “eliminate distractions. Remove all toys and games from the training area. Ignore the telephone… Arrange to have brothers or sisters, as well as other adults, out of the house.”

As soon as I’m distracted (phone rings, Ellie insists on attention, someone tries to talk to me), Gracie has an accident.  And when Ellie uses the potty so easily and Gracie can’t figure out how, Gracie is getting frustrated and crying. I need to do this when I’m alone with her. So maybe we can work on this Wednesday, when Husband has the day off.

She’s still trying, saying “Ut-oh! Gotta go!” And running off to the potty, so I’m certainly not going to discourage that, but we’re stopping the method for today.  Oh well. I made it a whole 2 1/2 hours. And I could go for a beer at 10:45am.

Today for our anniversary we went out to dinner. Just us. So fun. We really need to do that more often. But, when it comes down to it, life gets in the way. I know it shouldn’t, should be a priority, blah blah. But frankly $10/hour babysitting cuts into the date budget quite a bit.

Husband’s parents offered to babysit so we could go out. We decided to go to Outback, after realizing we hadn’t gone there in about 3 years. Husband was craving manly beef and I wanted a Blooming Onion. Because the last time I went to Chili’s they were out. (Out!! Of onion-thingys! Why not run out of water or something less vital to your menu??)

So, I discovered that one of the benefits of being married to someone for 7 whole years is:
the ability to polish off more than half a blooming onion in front of them while not feeling the least bit ashamed. Not that I did that. I just had a salad. Ahem.

Tomorrow is the day! The potty training of Miss Gracie will begin at daybreak.

I was not planning on this. Clearly I have enough going on in my life to keep me busy. But, after yesterday’s breakthrough, Gracie has been sitting on the potty all by herself. We’ll just walk by the bathroom and there she is! So she is clearly, clearly ready to train, despite my plans to train her in 3 weeks, and I would be a fool to let another window pass me by. I’m not feeling particularly ready for this, as my energy levels are still a bit low and my patience units are astonishingly sparse. But, here we go! The Lord will provide!
After many failed attempts, I trained Ellie using this book: Potty Training in Less Than a Day. What a title, right? I scoffed. I mocked. Then I got desperate and tried it. And it worked. In three hours, Ellie was going to the bathroom all by herself and had no accidents for 5 days. Seriously. So that’s what I’ll be using with Gracie, hopefully with the same success rate.

Stay tuned for some comical posts, I’m sure 🙂

Gracie just pooped in the potty! First time she has ever done anything on the potty… ever!!! Got on the potty all by herself and just went. We walked in and there she was sitting there. Then she said: “I going poop on the potty! I have to go, so I go on the potty.”  As if this happened every day and was in no way unusual.

She’s just training herself apparently!

Ellie, however, just threw a huge fit because Gracie was getting so much attention and even got an M&M for her achievement. She was crying, saying things like “I go on the potty too!” and it ended with her running into her room crying and slamming the door. Then Gracie went to go into the room and Ellie shoved her out and slammed the door again in her face. Hum. Teenage angst coming a bit early around here, isn’t it?

Is where I’m posting tonight. How can 4 people have so many dirty clothes after just 1 week? And I think that we brought approximately 3 tons of sand home in our van. No matter how diligent you are at the beach about rinsing off when you come home, sand hides everywhere. Even things that never went to the beach are sandy. Hum. Maybe little sand faires come every night to sprinkle sand on sleeping vacationers.

And I was so excited when I got home because my sheets arrived in the mail. I got a super deal at Amazon – $160 sheets for $28.99. Oh yes, these are really nice sheets. I am now kicking myself saying: “Self! Why did thee not buy two? Or three?” I never think to do that. I also need to learn this trick when I find that amazingly awesome pair of jeans.

Anywho, I’m feeling great – Lyme’s treatment is working super. No more whining about aches and pains for awhile, folks. Sorry about that. I’m sure it was riviting reading. 🙂 But its nice to be back to full speed, although I do miss nice ladies from church delivering yummy meals to my front door.

Now its another bonkers week, with in-laws leaving for India on Tuesday, me adn girls going out to Ohio for a long visit on Friday and Husband heading off to Harvard on Saturday.  And I’m trying to launch my web store by August.  Did I mention that I am now starting this business by myself? And have a new name, business card and web address that will shortly be opening and I will actually be selling stuff? After an entire year of just talking about it? Eeekk! Hijinks to follow, I’m sure!

Well, I’m off to perm my mother-in-law’s hair! (Didn’t see that one coming did you?)  Totally adorable vacation pictures to follow soon! Including one of the amazing house we stayed in. (Wow. Did I say wow? This was the porch furniture. drool…….)

We are having a great time here at the beach. The house is totally beautiful and the kids are having a blast. We spent today at the beach, then tonight we went to the boardwalk and ate things like funnel cake and water ice before taking the girls on some rides. They loved it, but having only ever been to amusement parks like Disneyland, they could not understand that we have only so many tickets so we’re not able to ride the rides all night 🙂

We’re all very relaxed and enjoying days full of eating and laying around. Lots of card playing, reading and ice cream! I love the beach!

I was tagged by LifeLemons, so here goes folks:

You must reveal nine things about yourself and one must be a lie…. Humm. In honor of me going on vacation, I will do travel-themed factoids.

1. I have only had food poisoning once while traveling. After eating at a Pizza Hut in Shanghai.

2. I’ve had many, many marriage proposals while traveling.

3. I’ve had my hands and feet decorated with henna in Pakistan. It looked kinda like this.

4. Besides toilets and the great outdoors, I’ve also mastered a squatty potty, even using a bathroom that was a hole in the floor of a moving train.

5. I’ve illegally entered a country.

6. I have eaten snake, turtle, jelly fish and dog. All in the same meal.

7. I had my butt pinched so often while shopping in a bazaar that my mother-in-law had to walk right behind me.

8. I’ve never gotten sick on an airplane.

9. I’ve swam in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.

Okay, now it is your turn to figure out my lie, good luck!

My medication for Lymes has a warning to stay out of direct sunlight.

When I’m going to the BEACH for a WEEK!!!  Boo-hoo!!

Some pictures from the wedding!

me and my girls:

me and my man:

teaching their one-year-old cousin some good habits: