Sometimes you just gotta sleep.

I think this video speaks for itself...




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She ate the bunny!!

I cannot believe it. Finally. Poop on the potty!!

My mother in law bought Jorja two chocolate bunnies back before Easter, with the promise that she could have one when she pooped on the potty. *Pwew* Finally, she earned one. What's funny is that for days I have been camped out by the bathroom telling her "I know it's time, I know you have to go...just poop on the potty and you can have the bunny!" Nothing. Day after day, week after week, month after month. I had even put the bunny on display in the living room. She would ask for it, I would tell her to go poop on the potty. Nothing.

But today, while I was making dinner...she came into the kitchen naked saying "I can have my bunny now." I ran to the bathroom, and there it was. Beautiful, glorious poo. I quickly questioned Jonah to find out if it was actually her poo, and even checked for resipoo on Jorja's butt. I used all my mommy detective skills, and finally deduced, it was indeed Jorja's. I screamed! Jumped up and down, we giggled and cleaned up the mess. (She's not the best at keeping it in the potty) and then she got the prize (which she shared with her sisters) THE BUNNY!!




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Let's just recap today...

This is one of those days that I'm glad we did not schedule school. We would have failed. Big time.

Ever heard the saying "the S*** hit the fan"? Yeah, well, today it hit the floor.

Jonah and a friend are doing tennis camp this week. Today was their first day. I purposely left the morning open so we didn't have to stress about it. Camp started at 11:30, but we needed to run by the bank and get to the clubhouse early to finish registration. We were all up (and I was showered - insert Hallelujah Chorus here) by 7:30. We ate breakfast and I got a call from Jason asking where I was because a crew was headed here to install smoke detectors (read post below about in-laws house) and fix the doorbell (there goes the Hallelujah Chorus again).

Jason walked in...holy cow. He says "see my eye?" Uh, yeah. I see the big 'ol blister on your eye! Gross. So after I hung up from our insurance company upping the coverage on our homeowners' policy (again, notice post below), I called the eye doctor. No luck, they were booked. Jason called a doctor the first doctor recommended, got an appointment and said, "I have to go to the bathroom." That's where the fun really started.

Let me preface this by saying...if your husband comes out of the bathroom and asks "do we have a plunger?"...leave your home. Quickly. Do not return until a hazardous waste crew has cleared the scene. Ick, Ick, Ick.

Sooooo...Jason called the plumber because the water was not only overflowing in our toilet, but the toilet in the second bath, the bathtub...you get the picture. Just then, after hearing the bathroom was out of service, Jonah decided she had to pee "right now." Great. We still had over an hour until camp, the plumber was going to be another couple hours, and I had two electricians working. It was hitting the fan...hard...and it was splattering all over my day. I called my friend, she agreed to let us invade until camp time, we packed up, and headed out. The electricians were in charge until I got home. Thankfully, one is a good friend, and the other is just a nice guy.

After I dropped Jonah off at camp, I headed home. I, of course, forgot to go to the bank in all the mess, but I wanted to get home and get some cleaning done before the plumber got there. Oops, too late, he was there and the electricians showed them where to go. I unloaded the two little ones and made it half way from the car to where the plumbers were working and was greeted with "shame on you." Uh, oh. What did I do? I didn't #2 so bad it clogged the toilet and then try to unclog it with the toilet brush! Oh, but that pile of cotton and string on the ground...yeah, those were mine. Oops, again.

Hmm. Just because they say "flushable" on the box, does not mean you should actually flush them. Heck, I even bought the ones with flushable applicators and wrappers! Nope. Got the lecture...the same one apparently a lot of women get because this happens more than these guys care to think about. It was at least 2 dozen. They were fishing them out for about an hour. I just kept apologizing and asking if they needed water. That was an expensive lesson in "what not to flush".

So, both bathrooms were bleached today and as much as I wanted to say, "clean up your own doody", I dug in. *shudder* After all, it was my fault for believing a box of Tampax. That and being born female.

I have now cleaned up the feces of every being in this house. Wow. Does that earn me some kind of plaque?


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Elmo has hair!

At least...according to Jorja he does. I was giving her a stern reminder that we clean up our mess before getting any other toys out and she blurted out "Elmo has hair".

Yeah, looks that way...lecture over...

My In-laws house was struck by lightning...

And now stands as a shell of it's former self. The lightning caught the garage on fire and spread throughout the second floor.

My knees started to buckle when I heard the news. MIL and her dog got out safely, and really the damage is not as bad as I originally thought it would be. The upstairs and the garage were the worst. But the smoke and water damage is pretty nasty.

Friends, family and neighbors came out of the woodwork to help. It's amazing what a tragic event can do to bring people together.

There is a lot of work ahead of us, and there is quite a bit lost, but as MIL said "it's just stuff."

Edited to clear my husband and father-in-law of all culpability in the fire that was caused by LIGHTNING.

Who's idea was this anyway?

Wow, a chicken mummy...sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? In theory, it sits harmlessly on the counter for 4-6 weeks curing in salt and spices. In reality, it half-rots on my counter for less than a week and when you open the bag to change the salt it smells like someone took a dump on a clove. Ick.

Picture me, at the sink alternating between wiping chicken-juice soaked salt off into the sink and putting my head between my legs to breathe. Putting my head down also served to help me not pass out. That would have been bad...falling to the floor clutching a stinky chicken mummy. I eventually succeeded in getting the chicken into a new bag with fresh, dry salt, but it's not an experience I would call fun, by any means.

I will have to seriously evaluate all homeschool projects from now on.

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Touche

Well, I've been outwitted again...time to start brain games and brush up for the next face-of with one of my children..

Yesterday I told Jorja that she needed to poop on the potty, not in her pants because "big girls poop on the potty".

Her response: "Mommy! I'm not a big girl, I'm only two!"


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Actual conversation with Jonah...

Jonah (from back seat) : Mommy, do ants breathe?

Mommy (fiddling with DVD player and putting on lipgloss): I don't know, actually. We'll Google it.

Jonah: I bet Mrs. Veleber will know...

Mommy (dialing daddy): Just a minute...

Hey, do ants breathe...? Okay...

No, Jonah, Daddy says they don't breathe like us.

Jonah (excited to hear the news): So they can go into outer space with no helmet on!

Hmm. I never thought of it like that.

How much do you love your mummy?

My girls are pretty darn proud of theirs! Their chicken mummy, that is!!

First, we all put on rubber gloves to keep germs off our hands...no one wants salmonella!!

Then, we mixed up our salt mixture - salt, baking soda, baking powder and ground cloves to kill the inevitable smell.


Then we washed and dried the chicken before putting it in the bag of salt




And here is our famous soon-to-be mummy chicken. Looks fantastic doesn't it? What? You can't tell that's a chicken in there? Hmm. Too bad for you, because it smells much better than it looks!


The good news is that Jorja only ripped off her gloves, touched the chicken and "tasted" it once. There has been no #3 or puking, so I think we got lucky. Let's face it, if someone was going to have gastrointestinal issues, it would be Jorja.

Updating...

I decided to take a minute while Jonah is procrastinating her math work and update you on a few things.

Potty training is going well, except that weekends are really slowing us down. I feel like every Monday we start all over. Weekends are so busy and we want to "respect" others that we put pull-ups on Jorja to avoid accidents. By Sunday, she's back to square one. So heads up people...we love you, and apologize if our kid pees on your stuff, but she's coming over in panties...tarps might we wise if you see us coming.

Homeschool is going well, we do enjoy it, and I can see this school year going great, but summer is hard, there is just so much going on that we keep pushing a subject here or a subject there off a day and always end up with about a full day's worth of work by the end of the week. Poor Charlotte - we have really neglected her web.

Josie is getting better and better at walking. She can stand up from sitting with no help, and takes 5-6 steps at times before wabbling over. She is so cute, but still a little fussy from this cold/teething that's going on. We are slowly weaning her from the bottle to sippy's.

Pacifiers are gone!! A dinosaur came and ate them all up. No one seems to mind, which is a huge relief since I thought we would really suffer through the change. Both girls are still sleeping just fine without them - that is, if you can get them to sleep!! UGH!! Nap time is a tragedy around here. but that's a whole other post.

Mommy is still sick. I am blowing gobs of green and yellow out in quantities that are frankly quite alarming. I am using tons of saline spray - yes, Judy, I am!! :) And each time it's like someone said "I don't know" and got slimed. Who's with me, here!? Man, I miss good kids programming...

Jason got a PS3 for his birthday...yikes! is all I have to say about the cost of that thing. We really need some people over to play with it...preferably people with games since the system is so expensive we have no money left for additional games! Oh, and movies on Blu Ray. Casino Royale is bitchin' in HD!

Wow, imagine that...all this typing and spell checking and she still has not finished those last 4 problems...better do some laundry...

A Little Healthy Competition...

My sweet but extremely hard-headed 2 year old Jorja has been avoiding potty-training for over a year now. I've heard it all over..."she's ready". So we have given it a go a couple times, each time she is very excited the first day or two, and then the fun wears off and it's just easier to pee and poop on the floor. Anyone who knows me can tell you...I hate having clean spots in my dirty carpets! They are beige from age and when I have to scrub poop or pee out of them...the resulting white spot only highlights the fact that we desperately need new carpeting. That's not something I'm willing to do until there are no more babies in diapers slopping milk and goldfish crackers around. Not unless we go straight to brown, dingy carpeting.

And we just give in and put the diapers back on. Bad mommy!

Well, today I happened to see Josie making her poo face and a thought hit me...so I scooped her up mid-squeeze and rushed her into the bathroom. I stripped her down and set her on the potty. She looked befuddled at first, but then we picked up Jorja's new potty book and I started to read. Jorja slowly crept into the bathroom, took in the situation and asked "Why is Josie on my potty? That's my book" About that time Josie finished off a deuce and gave a little sprinkle. I celebrated like she had won the Pulitzer. I clapped, Josie clapped, Jonah clapped and we all congratulated. I even told Jorja that we might have to give Josie part of the chocolate bunny we have been saving since Easter in honor of Jorja's first successful in-bowl poop. (That one did not go over well)

She's been dry most of the day today - but no more poo. I wonder what tomorrow will produce.

A little healthy competition never hurt anyone? Right?