Happy 4th of July!

Nicky and I will be gallivanting down to South Florida for the weekend to visit his Grammie in her new house and see his Aunt Liz and Aunt Jodi. We can't wait! We're planning to see fireworks too.

Hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July weekend.

In which I bitch about being poor and it being my own damn fault.

While I've been overwhelmed with the expectation that my next post would be a play by play of our fab Disney trip, the world has continued spinning. Go figure.

School and work are all-consuming and the tiny amount of time I have carved out to be with Nicky is too sacred to spend on the computer.

But it's about time I get back to updating here anyway.

Right now I'm all stressed out over money. Who isn't these days right?

Well I have the one side of me that's all feeling like a horrible, lousy provider because I just cannot swing the $ to refill Nicky's (or mine and Tom's for that matter) prescriptions until tomorrow. So he went without his asthma meds tonight. I have the other side that says I'm being too hard on myself, I'm doing the best I can with what we've got and things will improve in September. And heck, if I hadn't been such a massive pain in the ass with his doctors he'd have never even been diagnosed with asthma, so surely that counts for something and dammit he's not going to die from missing one day of his inhaler that he didn't even have until a month ago.

Right?

Ack, I still feel horrible.

The negative thoughts that overwhelm me when my finances are in the toilet are just crushing. We overextended ourselves with that trip by about 1500 and now we're struggling to make it until September. Then I can replenish the savings account and we'll pay off the car. And that's it. No more big trips or purchases for a good long time.

Well, maybe one. We're looking at replacing the carpet in the living room and two bedrooms with wood laminate flooring. It was recommended that we get rid of the carpets for Nicky's and my allergies, so that will actually be tax deductible according to our allergist. He has to write it up officially or something, and then we can claim it as a deduction next year. And I think even having it installed is only going to be about $2500. We have a tiny house.

We're actually not replacing the carpet in the den/guest room. We have plans to renovate that room that would mean ripping it all out again later anyway, so we'll just wait till we're ready to tackle that sometime in the future.

I can't be the only person with these negative thoughts. In fact, I'm sure I'm not. I get so down on myself, especially when it's a financial thing. I KNOW I can do better. I know I should have reigned us in more on that trip or have forgone it altogether. But it's too late now, and I need to stop mentally flaying myself about it already.

But it's hard when now I'm looking at possibly having to take Nicky out of school for two months because I just can't afford it. Dammit.

We Done Did Disney

Our Disney trip is finally done and boy are my feet tired. I'll get up the energy for a play by play soon. But I did finally get the photos uploaded along with one adorable movie of Nicky meeting Handy Manny.

Nicky had a wonderful, magical time. He met Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Handy Manny. I took photos, his Grandma took photos, and his Nana took photos. I'll share some of theirs as soon as I get them. In the meantime, feast your eyes on this cutie...

Meeting Mickey and Minnie:


Meeting Goofy:


And my favorite, Meeting Manny:


And with all the long car rides, waiting in lines, riding buses and boats with no potties, walking all over the parks, sleeping in a hotel bed, totally screwing up his schedule and diet...we had zero accidents. This boy is done with diapers for good. And I couldn't be any prouder of him. He was a really good boy the entire trip. Very few meltdowns and each was pretty easy to get him out of (and could totally be chalked up to over-stimulation of an exhausted, sugared up boy).

Oh, and meet his new best friend:


More photos over here.

Three Dry Nights

That's now three dry nights, the last two in underwear. I think my boy is DONE with diapers!

So what are we gonna do now?

We're going to Disney World!

Really! We're going this Thursday after work, staying at the Fort Wilderness Lodge and then we have park hopper tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We went ahead and got the meal plan too so we don't have to worry about food much. And we already made reservations for dinners too.

I'm so excited!

Nicky's Nana is coming with us and his Grandma and Grandpa are going to meet us there Thursday and go with us Friday. I can't wait to see the new Animal Kingdom. And of course I can't wait to see Nicky when he first sees the Magic Kingdom. He's already getting excited about it.

Now I just need a map that shows every single restroom on it. We did have two accidents yesterday morning. One when he was too busy eating breakfast and just forgot. And one while he was playing in his room and forgot. But then we just changed and Nicky and I left the house around 12:30. We first stopped at a gas station because Nicky said he had to go potty. He didn't end up going though, but he tried. We went ahead and pumped gas there too (they were more expensive, but they had REALLY nice restrooms and so I threw business their way and told them why). Then we had lunch at Sonny's bbq and Nicky did go potty there.

Then we went for a haircut! We'd talked the night before about it, and he said he wanted to get one. I took him to the same place that did his first haircut. He let the lady do the trimmers around the sides to cut off a lot of the hair, but started getting squirmy when she was doing the scissors. And then just was not going to let her do the trimming around the ears and neck at all. So he's still a little woolly around the edges, but I'll do that in bits at home later. It looks very nice! (And it's not shaved.) I'll take a photo for you soon.

Then we went to the playground because the weather was still holding. It looked like rain, but it wasn't coming down yet, and he'd been cooped up indoors just about every day for 3 weeks with all the rain we've had, even at school where they usually get to go outside a lot.

It was hot, but the park has some shade from nice tall pines and Nicky had a ball running around with the other kids. We stayed for about 2 hours I think. We walked to the restrooms that were FAR away from the playground, but Nicky didn't go there. He did try though. We also found out they have a big pool with a huge waterslide. We watched through the fence and Nicky was very interested. I think we'll have fun at the pool Thursday night at the lodge. We really must get Nicky into swimming lessons this summer. It's definitely time!

So then we headed home and stopped at the grocery store on the way. Nicky tried twice to go potty there, but no go. He waited till we got home and then went in the little potty. He's doing so good! I'm so proud of him!

He started his new class today. He was the 5th kid there this morning and we met the other teacher. Nicky didn't cry at all, he looked happy when we left. He's growing up so fast.

Good thing he still enjoys being rocked to sleep at night. I'm not quite ready for him to be totally independent!

I think we're nearly there!

Nicky went all day Friday, his last day of school in the 2 year old class, in underwear. He went potty at school and at home, all by himself. Actually he greatly prefers taking care of all this himself, and at home he'll go in either the bathroom or his room (where the little potty is in his closet behind the bedroom door) and close the door to do his business.

He's very private about it, which is kind of funny since Tom and I haven't ever been the type to close the door unless we have company. In our second apartment we actually took the bathroom door in the master suite off the hinges and stored it because we just didn't need it.

Saturday Nicky woke up dry in his pullup and then wore underwear all day. We went to my weightwatchers meeting, to the bank, to pay a bill, had lunch at Applebees and then went to the grocery store before finally coming home around 2pm. We went in the potty at the meeting, but he didn't have to go. Then we went again at Applebees and he went in the big public potty! First time ever! And then we tried at the grocery store but he didn't have to go.

When we got home he continued staying dry and went poop a few times too. Sometimes he'd go in his room and then either come tell me he went or he'd empty the pot himself and then tell me. Sometimes he'd just go put his potty seat on the big potty and go there. I still have to remind him to wash his hands, but I think he's really getting this!

Tonight we went ahead and put him to bed with just underwear on. He starts his new class Monday. It's a multiage class of 3-5 year olds. I talked with the new teacher on Friday and she asked if I minded if she didn't use the pullup at naptime. (We've been sending him in underwear over a pullup since Monday.) I said sure. I really think he's ready and she's right that it might just confuse him to have it be ok to pee in the pullup sometimes and then sometimes go in the potty. If he ends up having trouble staying dry at naps or nighttime we'll use a pullup of course. But at school he's been waking up dry and some mornings he's dry. I plan to just go in and take him to the potty before I go to bed at night. That might be all he needs to make nighttimes successful. We'll see.

I'm so excited we soon won't have to buy diapers anymore! Our boy is growing up!