potty training 101

yep, it's that time for us. the bit "PT." jack has been peeing on the old potty for awhile now, but only when we think to ask him to or he indicates an interest. we've been pretty non-committed. until this weekend, when we declared cold turkey PT. i had heard from many parents that this is the best way to do it; just put them in underwear and let them learn. so we stayed home all weekend to do it. we did well with the peeing; only 2 accidents on that. pooping, on the other hand... not a chance. 4 dirty pairs of underwear in two days obviously indicates an all-out refusal to consider using the potty for that purpose. we have both a little potty chair and of course, the toilet. he usually prefers the toilet, although the little potty is now taking on a new attractiveness for some reason. whatever- i don't care much what he uses as long as he's learning. but still, the pooping. i tried to convince him that he could ask for a diaper if he needed to poop, and we could just use them for that purpose until he's ready to take the next step. but he isn't interested. (not that it makes much of a difference if we're washing a diaper or underwear.) this morning he threw a fit about the underwear so we let him choose between undies and a diaper. he chose diaper. guess we'll just follow his lead and when he's really ready, we'll know. i imagine we'll go back and forth for quite some time. oh, the joy.

since we were home all weekend i used yesterday as my cooking day for our next meal exchange. i decided to try something new this time and made moroccan beef. i'm sure i commited a true crime in meal exchange land because i picked out a recipe we'd never tried before, and before making a trial run, i just went ahead and made all 8 meals. luckily, i liked the end product :) it's sort of like a stew, so i think i'll also provide bags of cous cous for everyone to serve under the beef mixture. i thought the recipe looked easy, but as always, i found that i was exhausted after spending most the day on my feet cooking 8 meals. no matter how easy, taking a recipe times 8 will always be time consuming.


We did a lot of laundry this weekend since, again, we were stuck at home! Our electric/gas bills have been phenomenal this year given the mild temperatures. We've not had to run the AC much, and I've tried to hang as many loads as posible on the line. Our last bill was about $85. Who can beat that for the summer?! I was slightly surprised this weekend to find that behind my clothesline, there slept a tiny bat:


I wouldn't say I'm afraid of bats, but he sure did give me scare. I guess the drain pipe and clothesline provided a nice dark spot for daytime sleeping. I wasn't too sad to see that he had moved on the next day.

Well, I'm at 34 weeks and 2 days. Minor point of panic: it was one week and 2 days from this point in my pregnancy that I delivered Jack. Agghhh! I would SO not be ready for that yet. You think these two are ready for another brother in the mix?