Potty Training, the Sequel

After the year long fiasco that was potty training Alex, I've taken a completely different approach with Max.  That is to say, I'm not "potty training" so much as I'm "potty suggesting".  We started in December and though he seemed to understand the concept immediately, and was even successful a few times in depositing both poop and pee into the toilet, resulting in much celebrating, rewards and a few end-zone dances from his parents, he just wasn't interested.  So, we didn't push it.  Before bath time I'd sit him on the potty and he'd pee, John would do the same occasionally, but still, he wasn't showing any interest in doing it on a full time basis.

A couple of weeks ago however, John started getting sick of poopy diapers and told Max that every time he pooped in his diaper he'd have a toy taken away.  If Max pooped in the toilet he could have a toy back.  This seemed to work wonders, after the first couple of days he had a whole collection of "poop toys" up on the top shelf of John's DVD case, then all of a sudden it seemed to click with him, he not only earned all the toys back, he's earned a couple of trips to the store for new "poop toys".  Now Max is essentially "poop trained".  He tells us when he has to poop and he hasn't had a poop accident in about a week.

Peeing, that's another story.  Max either doesn't recognize the feeling of needing to pee, or simply doesn't care about it.  Making it even more interesting is that he absolutely REFUSES to wear anything but a diaper.  He won't wear pull ups, detests training pants and breaks down in a puddle of tears when presented with a pair of Toy Story Underoos.  And don't you DARE call him a Big Boy!  He is a LITTLE BOY! And becomes very distraught if you suggest otherwise.  Max has no interest in being a big boy.  He very much enjoys being the baby of the family, and apparently intends to milk this position as long as he can. 

The biggest difference between potty training Alex and potty training Max is me.  I'm just not stressed out about it at all.  I worried and wrung my hands and fretted about the possibility that I'd have to send Alex off to college with a case of adult diapers, yet he was potty trained LONG before he even started his first year of preschool.  Max isn't doing 2 years of preschool, meaning he's not starting until NEXT fall and I'm confident he'll be potty trained with plenty of time to spare. 

I hope anyway!

Operation Spoil Grandkids

Since Mark is on leave from work for his cancer surgery, they have some time on their hands.  Mark, being a truck driver by trade, was getting antsy and Mom was missing the kids so they drove up to visit for a few days.  This was Mom's fourth trip here since we moved, but Mark's first.

First of all, Mark is doing AWESOME!  He's recovering perfectly from his esophagectomy, we visited, ate a lot of good food, went bowling and the boys generally wore their grandparents out.  When Mom and Mark left last night (they drive home this morning), they made sure to leave the boys completely spoiled rotten.

 

 
 
 

It's been just over a week since I cast off the chains of my craptastic job and ran into the sunset screaming FREEDOM!!! 

It feels like we're living in some sort of dreamland where the floors are always vaccummed, dishes are always done, the boys and I go to playdates and activities in the mornings, I don't pass out on the couch by 6PM and I actually see John EVERY SINGLE DAY!  We're practically glowing we're so happy.  John and I keep looking at each other with big goofy grins and saying "this is the life!".

Of course, we haven't yet experienced the financial sting of the loss of my miniscule, yet essential, contribution to our bank account.  I got my last two paychecks from The Place That Shall Not Be Named as well as a payout for a freelance gig, so though we're not rolling in the dough, we're not hurting. Yet. Things will get interesting in about two weeks when we're subsisting on nothing but tap water and stale cheerios fished from between the couch cushions.

I'm toying with the idea of starting a new blog.  I want to keep Dillier.net as a place where I talk about my family, the boys, a place family and friends who live far away can stay up to date on the goings on around here.  But, I have a lot I want to write about on a personal level and it doesn't really fit here.  Though Dillier.net is technically MY blog (John has his own, The Dillier Man Blog), I'd really like to have it be more about my FAMILY instead of ME.  Also, I feel a responsibility to the name itself.  I'm sure all the other Dilliers in the world don't want their name associated with my opining and ranting and soul searching.  So...if I do start a new one, I'll link to it here. 

Embracing Vulnerability

Have you seen this video?  You should watch it.  Go ahead.  It's long, but worth it:

 

I quit my job on Tuesday, it was a decision John and I made together and had been talking about for months.  We're not sure how it will work out financially, I am earning a little bit of money freelancing, but not nearly enough to make up for the paycheck I walked away from.  But to put it simply, that job was toxic.  It was bad for me, and bad for our family.  This family works better with Mommy home.  I'm happier, John's happier and the boys are happier.  When I told the kids I wouldn't be going to work anymore they both cheered and danced around.  So did I.

 

The amazing five

I love five years old. I love it more than I've loved any other age.  And yes, I do say this every month and year that goes by that I love THIS age so much more than the others.  The thing with five though, at least five for us since Alex didn't go to school this year, is that this year feels almost like a bonus.  We've been awarded this amazing gift of keeping our son for ourselves for an extra year and that extra year was one in which he was more mature, more curious, more thoughtful, more disciplined, more brilliant, more amazing than he's ever been before. 

He seems to be in this beautiful sweet spot between being my baby and being his own boy.  John and I are still the coolest people he knows and he'd rather be with us than anyone else in the world.  Max is still more his playmate than annoying little brother (though Max does a good job of being that often enough already).  He comes and snuggles in bed with us when he wakes up in the morning, he gets excited by EVERYTHING ("Hey buddy lets go to the grocery store to pick up toilet paper" Alex: "YAY! I LOVE TOILET PAPER!") and it seems he is absorbing every single thing he encounters.  He's currently obsessed with an old show called Beakman's World.  It's a kids show from the 90's about science concepts and Alex is absolutely fascinated by it.  He wants to try out all of the experiments and sometimes will completely freak me out when out of the blue he'll be swinging a basket of cars around and explain to me that they don't fall out when the basket goes upside down because of centrifugal force.  He's really smarter than a five year old should be in my opinion and I worry a bit how Kindergarten will keep up with his seemingly insatiable appetite for knowledge.  Likely it won't and it will be up to me to feed that information-hungry monster with experiments and projects and learning expeditions.  He is curious about the world.  Like me.  And I envision he and I spending time together at the library and museums finding answers to all of our questions.

Part of what makes five so thrilling is that I know that everything that makes me so happy about this age; adoring his mother, the sweet innocence and wonder...it is temporary.  Sooner than I'd like he'll become a surly teenager who is embarassed by me and doesn't want to do anything but play video games and try to get access to porn.  Eventually he won't need me at all and he'll be his own person, out in the world and I'll be lucky to get a phone call occasionally.  He'll do things I don't agree with, he'll be friends with people I hate, he'll tell me he hates me... and I know, without a shadow of a doubt that despite anything he does or says I will continue to fall more in love with him, exponentially more, every day that goes by.  Things will happen that I can't save him from; he'll have his heart broken, he'll suffer disappointments, he'll make mistakes and I'll be powerless to stop his hurting.  I suspect we'll both long for the days when a cuddle and a kiss solved all the world's problems.

But for now, he's five.  He's five and he's mine and I am going to soak up every last second of this dazzling, magnificent, almost painfully perfect time that I can.

Home has a clubhouse and a pool

After months of pestering John about wanting to move into a bigger place, I have finally let it go.  I have finally come around to accept John's logic that moving this spring when our lease is up is a bad idea, and that we should stay here for at least another year.  I'm not exactly HAPPY about this decision, I'm still feeling cramped in our tiny little place, but I am finally acting like a grown up about it and accepting the fact that now is just not the time to spend more money on a bigger place just because I WANT a bigger place.  Now is the time to focus on NEEDS, and no matter how hard I argue my case, I simply can not make a believable arguement that we NEED a bigger place.

It's not that we can't afford a higher rent.  We can. John's been regularly earning extra bonuses at work and I've recently gone back to a full time schedule at my job and I'm also doing some freelance writing on the side earning us some extra money.  John's arguement is that we finally, after a year and a half, have an opportunitiy to really get a grip on our financial situation and turn it around and start getting out of debt, if we spend this extra money on rent, we will never get out of debt.  Not only is his logic annoyingly sound, it is also a bit of a slap upside the head.  Like, "Dummy, that's why our old life imploded in the first place, let's not make that same stupid mistake again mmmkay?"

If that weren't enough, there is a bigger, more important reason to stay put.  School.  This Fall we will have a Kindergartener, and we happen to live within the bounderies of an excellent public school.  Now, most schools in the areas I've looked to moving are good, but this school is REALLY good.  When I do any kind of research, whether it be test scores or parent reviews, I feel like I must be monumentally selfish (and stupid) to move my kids out of this school's bounderies just so I can have a third bedroom and a garage. 

Another of John's arguements against moving is that he doesn't want to lock me into my current job forever.  We both really want to get back to having me home more.  Right now I am home by lunchtime, but the tradeoff is I have to be to work at 4 in the morning.  I'm exahusted.  And, as I mentioned I'm also trying to start a freelance writing career, so I'm essentially working 2 jobs PLUS being a mom and I'm getting little to no sleep, causing me to kind of suck at all three jobs.  My ultimate goal is to quit my day job and spend that time writing.  That way I'll have a more flexible working schedule.  If we can pay off our debts that goal may just be attainable.

So, we will stay.  And I'll try to stop whining about our tiny little place.  I asked John the other day "Doesn't this apartment feel too small to you?" and he responded "No, it feels like home".  I'm lucky to have my little apartment.  I'm even luckier to have my little family.  Where they are is home, whether that is this apartment or a big house or in our minivan down by the river.