Potty Choosing

          First I want to say that I don’t wish to offend anyone by the forth coming rant…now that I said that, I am so tired of hearing about people’s potty training success!!!  I have tried to be understanding and smile politely, but now I am done!  The next time I hear that someone has potty trained their 18 month old I am going to scream at them, not because of their success, or even because they are happy about it, but because of how smug they are when they say it.  I can’t take it anymore…I am officially done hearing about it ever!!  Next…NO, I do not want your advice or your sympathy or your pathetic looks that I inevitably get when you find out that my 4 year old is not yet potty trained.  Because trust me when I say this, I have tried everything…YES I HAVE!!  Don’t sit at your computer right now shaking your head going “well you must not have tried this because you have a 4 year old that won’t use the toilet”…because I have tried it and I don’t want to hear about whatever miracle method worked for you!

            A few months back I was reading a status update on Facebook where an acquaintance of mine said that her 18 month old went into the potty all on her own and continued to do it all day long, and wondered if potty training is really that easy.  After I got done screaming at the top of my lungs and cried my eyes out I decided that I didn’t love parents who think that they somehow have something to do with it.  We don’t!  When our children are potty trained then we should pat them on the head and immediately go to our rooms, get down on our knees, and thank God for enlightening our children’s minds!  Because honestly, what do we really do?  We buy the stupid potty chair that sits in the corner of the bathroom for weeks…months…years collecting dust, and at this point is the bane of my existence and I really wish to take out and set fire to.  We have sticker charts laminated (yes, my closet is full of them); we keep jars of whatever in our homes to fill as they “succeed” on the toilet.  We spend all day ruining our backs sitting on the bathroom floor reading endless books praying for potty to come, yeah, did the “potty party”.  

My mother-in-law is consistently telling me that all I have to do is sit her down on the toilet and tell her what to do, because it is just that easy.  I want to say right now that I should be commended for not ringing her neck or even yelling at her…I just smiled and said “Well I am so happy that it was that easy for you.”.  Then she proceeded in telling us that we better talk to the doctor about this as there must be something wrong with her because she is not using the potty yet.  Then there was the inevitable day when her cousin who is 15 days older than her was trained, who is also autistic…yeah that was such a fun day for me hearing about my failure as a mother.  I finally got to the point where I told my husband that I didn’t ever want to talk about this subject again with her, as I couldn’t take anymore.

I have come to realize that “potty training” is a myth.  What is it that we all believe we are training?  There is no training going on there, there is only choosing.  The child is either going to choose to use the potty or not, so in my opinion it should be called “potty choosing”.  My daughter is lazy, and stubborn.  She is not going to respond to me telling her what to do; as a matter of fact she is going to do the opposite of what I tell her.  She is the most strong-willed child I have ever come across in my entire life, and I have 20 nieces and nephews.  She is going to have to choose to use the toilet, and she hasn’t made that choice yet.  She will decide at some point, and until then all I can do is pray for her to understand why it is a good thing.

So, in the end it comes down to whether or not they want to use it…it is their choice to make.  And good for you if your child chose to use it at 18 months or 2 years, but don’t somehow believe that you had something to do with it.  Give credit where credit is due, with God!  And again, I apologize if anyone was offended…I just really needed to rant about this.

Thanksgiving...How I hate thee!

I have been asked by no less than 10 people over the last 2 weeks what we are doing for Thanksgiving...to which I give my customary response of "we don't really do Thanksgiving, my husband works 8 hours at triple time pay and I don't mind as I hate Thanksgiving."  The response back is always the same..."how could you hate Thanksgiving?!"  I decided that this year was it, the year that I finally sit down and write about why I hate Thanksgiving so much, and especially about those people who ruined it for me, and yes, people ruined this holiday for me.  I wish it was like Memorial Day weekend where I usually spend it in the hospital and that is just bad luck, but it is not, people made Thanksgiving horrible for me.

First I have to say that I really have no memory of Thanksgiving before I was about 11 years old.  Please understand as well that I am the 7th child in a group of 7 children that my parents had, so every holiday was to be a day of gathering and feasting. 

When I was 11 we went to Lewiston to celebrate with my Grandmother...I sat at the kids table, which didn't even come to my knees when I stood next to it.  The first year we lived in Orange County I was 13, I was asked to decorate the table for dinner at my sister's house.  We had, in Young Womens, recently done this wooden turkey sucker holder...(as a side note here I don't like painted wooden objects, but they were all the rage in the L.D.S. population of Orange County at the time)...I, not being a "flowers are red and green" kind of person painted my turkey purple and orange.  I thought this thing filled with suckers would make a very unique center piece, with a purple table cloth and napkins...to which I was made fun of...really memorable for a girl of 13.  Then, I don't know how many years later, came what I call the year of the bananas...my sister had a soft spot in the middle of the highest traffic area of her mobile home...between the kitchen and dining room.  So, to remind everyone of this so that they didn't break her floor...never mind if someone hurt themselves...she put a bunch of bananas on this spot.  All day long anyone who came within 3 feet of those bananas got screeched at mercilessly.  One of my brother's was there with his family of 3 children, one of them being a toddler I believe, so trust me when I say that there was a lot of screaming that year, and the reason that particular Thanksgiving is emblazoned upon my memory.  Then shortly after this came the year one of my brother's came home from his mission and ate his dinner with no hands out of a dog bowl...gosh that was just so much fun!  Heavy sarcasm here!

I don't really remember much more until Angie and I were living in Las Vegas with my eldest brother Clyde and his family going to college there.  Craig and his family had come up for the weekend and when dinner time rolled around and food was being taken out of the oven and the table was being set, I ran to the bathroom (mind you it only takes me about 1 minute to pee) and when I came back in the prayer had already been said, even though Angie asked them to wait a second because I ran to pee.  She tells me the response was "it doesn't matter"...this is when I knew that I was never going to be considered family.  The following year Angie and I were alone in Vegas as we had become the "most hated creatures in Bikini Bottom".  We couldn't afford turkey and all that jazz, so we went to a movie instead...we saw that live-action piece-o-crap version of "The Cat in the Hat", and had day old Chinese food from the Panda express next to the Theater in the Palms.  We came home, ate crackers, watched Christmas movies, and cried.  The following year Angie and I, still being the most hated creatures in Bikini Bottom, and not having a car to drive, stayed at home trying desperately to deny the existence of this particular holiday, as by this point I had truly come to loathe Thanksgiving.  2 of my brother's across town were to come and pick up our car and bring it to my dad to be fixed...only at my father's insistence.   When they did come I might as well have been handing my keys over to 2 complete strangers as they refused to even speak or look at me...I spent the rest of the day cleaning my toilet with my tears.  I found out later on that my other 2 brothers were also there across town enjoying a large Thanksgiving feast...these 2 claimed to not be involved in the whole "everyone needs to hate Cristy and Angie thing", and that they still cared about me...apparently they couldn't even stop by to say hello.  That was the day I stopped celebrating Thanksgiving...as it has only provided me with pain and suffering!

So there it is, the reason I hate Thanksgiving, the reason I don't answer the phone this day, and the reason I spend it praying nothing bad will happen.  Thank you to all of my siblings for ruining this holiday for me.  Every time one of them calls and asks if I would like to come and spend Thanksgiving with them I smile and say "no thank you".  Finally after all these years I am saying it to the internet void...NO, you stupid-asses!!!  I HATE this holiday because of your selfishness and stupidity, and I don't EVER want to spend this holiday with any of you EVER again!!!!  So yeah, I hate Thanksgiving...the most positive thing that has ever come of this day is my husband's $60 an hour that he gets paid to work it.  It is possible to hate Thanksgiving, and it is ok when someone does.  I am trying to make it better for my children's sake, and hopefully the turkey waffles this morning is a start in that direction.   So here's to turkey waffles and $60 an hour!

I'm done with this week...can we skip next week?

So my husband and I have stress...lots of stress!  We have a very dear friend who is always very helpful when we need him, and he called the other night and asked my husband if he could come and help his dad with a computer problem.  We came to discover that the server in his dental office crashed...which soon came to mean that the motherboard failed.  Well, a new server had to be obtained, as all the other computers in his office (there are 8) are utter crap running on at most 1/2 Gig of RAM.  Not one of them in the office could even handle having the patient files put on them.  My husband, after staying there until midnight and staying up at home, finally got one to at least see the patient files and schedule for Thursday morning.  He spent all day there on Thursday, until he went to work, and we spent all day there yesterday (thankfully he doesn't see patients on Friday).  Matt went to Costco and bought a new server computer Thursday afternoon, and we were there until midnight that night too.  We managed to get one of the programs working on all 8 computers by yesterday afternoon.  We thought we were getting to the end of this nightmare...then we had to call the stupid company that provides the software for the x-rays (he does digital x-rays).  This is also the same company that he pays every month to keep his computers up to date (yeah, I know, they aren't doing their job)...these idiots don't have any idea what they are doing!!  The whole point of having computers and digital x-rays in all the operating rooms is so the dentist can see the x-rays while working on the patient...they can't get the stupid program that they designed to communicate with the sever in order to see the x-rays.  So the Dr. can view the patient file, but not the x-ray!  The stupid person on the phone wouldn't admit that may be she didn't really know what to do...they aren't open on the weekend...Monday is coming and so are the patients!!!  My husband still has to go back today before work to get things ready to talk to them again on Monday...and we haven't slept for days!  Our children are angry and upset as they are really missing us...this is insane, and I am done with this week!!

The whole other issue I am having is that I have 1 phobia...dental offices.  Yeah...   Our family dentist has to prescribe me Valium just to get me in the office.  And here I am sitting in a dental office working on computers...greater love hath no Cristy than this...  Then there is the whole issue of my son deciding to cut 4 teeth overnight the other night (this is why we haven't slept).  He is the worst teether in the world!!  He teethes for about a month and then cuts them.  I am pretty sure he is going to be the death of me!!

So yeah...I am DONE with this week!! 

To tag Pooh, or not to tag Pooh?

So my Little Star has a Winnie the Pooh that we first bought for her before she was a year old...actually she picked him out at the Disney Store.  Since then he has been her best friend, he is her companion, and her need.  There has only been one night spent without Pooh, and that was because she was sick and threw up upon him and I had to take him to Grandma to wash at 10pm.  It was the WORST night we have ever had, I even gave her Tylenol to help her feel better but she was still up and completely distraut!  She can't sleep without him and when he isn't with her she is just not quite herself.

Ever since she was a baby she would turn stuffed toys over to make sure they had a butt-tag and then she would stroke and feel the butt-tag.  Some were found to be satisfactory, like Pooh's, and others were found to be lacking that special something (whatever it may be) and were then discarded, usually by means of chucking them out of her crib. 

Pooh's butt-tag is now non-existent, about a year ago there were nothing but strings left where the butt-tag used to be.  Now she strokes a special place on his butt, it must feel different to her, I can't feel it but what do I know?!  She even wanted Baby Bear to feel it when he was only 3 or 4 months old.

I have recently been faced with a "Pooh Dilemma"...my village was discussing this the other day, and we decided that Pooh is the perfect candidate for a butt-tag transplant.  Our dilemma is where to harvest the butt-tag from...I bought her a Pooh identical to the one she has and he was found to be not just unsatisfactory, but offensive!  I am left wondering if the butt-tag is acceptable where the Pooh is not.  Yet if we decide on a butt-tag transplant, will Pooh's butt reject the new tag?  Is there anti-rejection meds for that?  Not to mention the trauma of having to cut Pooh's butt open in order to insert the new tag.  We have already discarded the idea of cutting him open to add stuffing, given his limp condition, as we feel that type of trauma inflicted at such a young age would result in at least one year of therapy.  I believe the butt-tag transplant could be done within the 2 hour window of opportunity when she is at preschool, but would her world be turned upside down to come home to a new butt-tag on Pooh's butt?  I would ask her what she wants, but in order to even wash him I have to do it when she is at preschool.  Normally her default decision when it comes to Pooh is "Leave him alone, he is my Pooh!".  I would even consider surprising her for Christmas, but I would hate for a "Pooh trauma" to be associated with Christmas.

I am pretty sure that Pooh will accompany her to college as well as occasionally sneak his way into her backpack to find out what school is all about.  She has already been giving Baby Bear the rules about how to play with Pooh...for example "you don't bite Pooh!" as he goes to taste him.  She will let him sleep with Pooh during the day when he is upset, as Pooh is the ultimate comfort.

So there it is, my first real parental dilemma that has kept me up at night on occasion...all the other decisions may have been difficult, but have at least been made, this I have been agonizing over for a year now.  My mother's advice is simple:  "Leave it be, when she wants him fixed then she will ask.".  Which leads to a whole other dilemma...what if he falls apart before she asks and we can't repair him?  My mother-in-law's advice is just to throw him away as he is just so pitiful looking...completely unhelpful as I will not inflict that trauma upon her EVER!!  So here I am left to my own devices to decide this...may be I should pray about it...I wonder if God answers prayers about Pooh Bears?!  May be I should contact Disney and find out about how long (feasibly) a Pooh Bear should last, then may be my decision will be easier.  Then again they may just say something like "You're crazy lady, here's a coupon for a new one if you spend $50 or more.".  Oh well, onto another day of pushing off making this decision...everyone raise your glasses or water bottles...Here's to the challenges of parenting!