Some unnamed child is suddenly refusing to go to the potty most of the time.  We’ve had a couple quote unquote accidents today.  I say it like that because there’s no cleanup other than a change of clothes, so I haven’t complained too much, but it is a little frustrating after no accidents and no diapers in a few weeks.    If I’m very attentive, I can catch the -I need to go- signals.  I ask him and he yells no.  If I’m seeing the signals bigtime, I make him go anyhow.  And let me tell you, I’ve drug him kicking and screaming today.  He gets mad and stomps up on the stool, cutting me the evil eye (pictured yesterday, 4th down).  I just try to keep a very flat tone in my voice, matter of fact if you will.  I really wanna say, just get up there and stop being a little shit about it.  But alas, I just bribe.  With M&Ms.  Yep.  I told him no more M&Ms if I have to drag him to the throne, but if he tells me he needs to go, he gets them.  He flew through his second potty chart in four days last week, so I never printed up another one.  I decided we’d bring that back (we’ve now gone exactly a week without it), and see if the extra motivation helped.  If I have to drag him, he still gets the positive reinforcement of a sticker when he goes, but no M&Ms.  And believe me, the M&Ms are way more important to him!  He comes from a long line of sweet tooths.  I explained my strategy no less than four times to make sure we were clear on what equaled M&Ms and what didn’t, so we’ll see.

I’ve been cleaning and straightening up like crazy, as my mother will visiting tomorrow.   And this weekend.  I must say, her impending visit has done wonders for the house.  I cleared off one counter that has continuously been piled with stuff since the day we moved in.  The kitchen looks bigger and brighter now!  I was shocked at the difference.  I still have a good bit left on my to do list though.

5 Comments

Every now and then, I like to give hubby a weekend project to keep him on his toes. Nah, I’m just kidding, but my little Saturday morning project turned into an enormous, time consuming, life sucking, entire weekend project. It all started out as a table for the aquaplay set to cut down on the mess. He was soaked and had to be bathed after playing the first night. I couldn’t see us having to give him a bath every time he played with it. So I suggested we use an old kitchen table in the storage building and cut the legs off. After getting a better visual of the size (which was much smaller than I remembered), we decided it needed a piece of plywood on top… Then that the plywood should be cut to the layout of the canal system. After hacking the legs off the old kitchen table, we decided it wasn’t really usable after all! So that will now be our outdoor art table for the super messy stuff (as well as a good place to do sensory play when we get into homeschooling).

Gotta love this guy, he’s so patient with my hairbrained ideas!

Oh well, at least he had help right? (See the shortened table with the legs laying underneath?!)

The handymen at work (I just realized, despite looking pretty lifelike, that is indeed a KIDS Craftsman saw in his hand! Just as an FYI!)

8000 screws later

Oh why must we overdo everything. It weighs approximately 9000 pounds, but at least it is functional

Here’s what I accomplished. Yay me. Luckily I had hubby to remind me of my ABC’s. No kidding…I was standing off to the side where I couldn’t see the letters on the opposite side of the box, basically where this picture was taken from (between the I and the O in the picture). I asked him what letter I was on, as I flipped through the remaining foam pieces. “L” he replied, “so you need M next.” Thanks dear.

If you’re smirking to yourself thinking, ‘what the heck is she gonna do with that hunk of wood in the winter?’ I’ve got that covered too! We painted the top green (and will paint the bottom structure and legs brown). When cold weather arrives and the Aquaplay can’t be left outside, I’ll take it off and paint a road system on the table with parking lots and buildings and stuff! I love doing stuff like that anyway.

3 Comments

Told you, trademark look

I’m so cute, you almost wouldn’t have guessed that mom digitally (and physically) removed a HUGE booger from my nose after this picture was taken!

Awe, poor baby, mommy said no, now he must scowl.

And pout.

What was I upset about again, I can’t remember now.

I just like this one.

Check out his ‘boat’ in the lower right corner.  Like it?  You can find them here.  A cute alternative to Crocs.

Dumping cold water on his head

3 Comments

If you are a parent, you know exactly what I’m talking about.  Those moments when you just have to turn away, because you know you shouldn’t be laughing, but you can’t help it.

Today we were exiting K-mart (I know we have an exciting life).  As I put my purse in the front and turned my attention to the back seat to get Caleb buckled in, I saw him out of the corner of my eye.  A guy who was probably in his late 60’s, early 70’s.  One of those guys who has obviously tried to stay fit later in life.  His skin was leathery brown and weathered looking, and he was wearing a pair of shorts and a plaid button up shirt.  Oh yeah, and black socks with tennis shoes.  Anyway, he came out of the store with his shirt already unbuttoned, and as he prepared for the hot walk where ever he was going, he slid his shirt most of the way off.  Caleb looked up as he passed in front of our car and said “Mommy that man has boobs.”  I just stared at the carseat buckle and shook my head, trying not to giggle.  “He does Mommy.  He has big boobs just like you!”  At that point I shut the car door and clapped my hand over my mouth.

We arrived home shortly there after, I mean after all, it couldn’t take more than ten minutes to drive from one city limits sign through town and past the other.  We had picked up a sand toy that was on clearance at Kmart.  Caleb was campaigning to go out on the porch to play in his sandbox.  Every time I said naptime, he said sandbox.  After about two cycles, I nipped it quickly and told him it was naptime, we would play after his nap and no more talking back.

“Ooooooookaaaaaay,” he replied.  Then I heard him mutter, “Can I talk front?”

3 Comments

I feel like such a huge dork. I don’t have a huge number of blogs I check in on daily, there are several, but not an overwhelming number I suppose. Anyway, I confess, I have always clicked on them from my blog shelf one by one. I am trying to figure out the RSS mess. I feel so behind for not using it, so tell me, what do you use? My internet searches tell me that a lot of readers have a similar feel to Microsoft Outlook, which I absolutely despise.

Right now I’m using a Firefox add-on called Sage. When I added myself, it only showed up with excerpts of my posts, despite me having “show entire post” checked under my options in wordpress. Anyway, I changed the address on my rss feed button up there on the navigation bar and now the entire post appears in Sage. I consider myself reasonably tech savvy, but I admit, I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to RSS. I at least have my blogs that I check daily on there, so you people stop reading and go post something so I can see if it updates correctly! :)

2 Comments

…that beyond a shadow of a doubt, you have indeed moved to a small town. Some things, you just know.

I had to take out the city name of course, since I’m putting this on the big old scary internet.  And also, I took it with my cell phone.  I thought it might look a bit weird if an officer was looking out the window, and I was standing there taking pictures of their, um, squad cars.  One more thing, all that brick over there behind him?  Yeah that’s the tobacco company.  The smell of fresh ‘backer almost knocked me down when I got out of the car.  And no I wasn’t going in the police station, they just happen to share the parking lot with the library.  And city hall.  And maybe a few people that make the cancer sticks across the street.

3 Comments

We waited ALL day for the UPS man. Every time a cat walked by in the grass we ran to the door to see if he was here yet! It was a long wait! Look at the clock in the first picture, almost 6pm!!

He ripped wrapping paper to shreds and exclaimed, “It’s just what I wanted!!”

I managed to get him to look at me for seven tenths of a second with a smile. The rest of the time, he was oblivious to my presence.

I put a pair of wet underwear in the dirty clothes tonight. And not for the reason you’d think. He drenched himself from the waist down in a matter of minutes. But he did let me know when he needed to come in to go potty. I’m taking the plunge tonight and switching to underwear. We haven’t used a diaper in over a week. Can I just tell you how weird that feels? I suddenly feel like my little boy grew up in the last two weeks!

3 Comments

So have you ever found yourself singing along to a song as loudly as you could and realized that the sentence made no sense.  You shrug your shoulders and keep belting out your melody, proving beyond all doubt that you will be keeping your daytime job.  Every now and then a search online turns up a website for misheard lyrics and you smack your head, “Ooooh that’s what he’s saying, I feel like an idiot!”

Well tonight we were watching monster jam videos.  As you may or may not know, there are two monster trucks that look like dogs.  Aptly named Monster Mutt, one is brown, and one is a dalmatian (the brown one can be seen here this past January).  They are complete with big floppy ears, a tail and a tongue that the driver can control.  At the beginning of the freestyle, they throw a huge rawhide way up in the air to start Monster Mutt’s performance.  Anyway, someone had uploaded a video on youtube with Monster Mutt to the tune of the infamous “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

A few hours later, Caleb can racing in here.  “Mom, Mom!  Can you turn on who let da dogs house, Poot, poot, poot-poot?!”

2 Comments

…as I sit here at my table under the umbrella and cool breeze from the fan. Being a toddler is, afterall, a lot of work.

Yeah I know, the concrete could really use a paint job!  Just ignore that!

I think this is a trademark expression. I know I have taken this ’same’ picture several times over the past year or so

1 Comment

wynnie

Jul 24

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, camera practice, ode to my canon rebel, photography

I thought you guys might enjoy something different, a chance of pace. Way back in December, I took some photos of Wynnie for my best friend (Amber, you might have ‘met’ her in the comments here). If you have ever been skeptical that dogs can smile, Miss Wynnie removes all doubt. In fact, she has a variety of expressions, and I speak from experience when I say this dog can hug. Seriously, she wraps her front legs tightly around your neck, and she…well…hugs you! I just has a brain fart (kind of like Val’s blog fart) today and decided that I should rummage through these pictures and go play in Adobe Lightroom. I got so carried away, I completely lost track of time and got Caleb up from his nap 30 minutes late!

Many of my favorites were in this tone, where I dialed down the saturation and ‘warmed’ up the picture.

Use the force, I can. Get the treat, I will.

She has a scowl to go with that smile!

Caleb woke up from his nap while I was still busy taking pictures. He absolutely adores this dog!

I missed the focus in this picture, but it still cracks me up!

For the last two, I turned to some artistic tools in a Photoshop knockoff program and added some grain to the photos.

4 Comments

Next Page »