Big Little Changes

Friday at work I finally had enough.

Friday @ 1pm:
Me: "Hello. Do you have any appointments available right now?"
Receptionist: "How fast can you get here?"
Me: "15 minutes."
Receptionist: "How about 1:30?"
Me: "I'll be there!"

I did a quick search on the internet and printed out this image, jumped in the car and about an hour later I came back to work.

Here's the before and after:


I didn't even tell Tom I was doing it! I expected a huge reaction when I got home.

It was less than satisfying since he didn't really notice at first.

But to be fair, Tom had just had the lovely experience of having the girls removing their diapers and decorating their cribs and bodies with the results. This was the fourth time. Luckily so far it's only been Gabi who has been playing with the poo. Lily has been limited to puddles fortunately. But still, this is a giant mess. Twice the cribs, twice the bodies, twice the mess to clean up.

Because as we all should recall, we've been here before.

(In searching for that post I found I have way too many posts about poop on this blog by the way.)

The thing that finally worked for Nick though was moving him out of his crib. We had been hoping to put that off for a while with the girls, but now that we're having so much trouble with this we figured it was time to bite the bullet and do something about it.

Voila. Our Friday night (Lily's on the left):


We also figured it's time to try pushing this potty training a bit more. It is SO MUCH WORK with two though! They have to be naked apparently in order to sit on the potty, which takes time, then they have to sit on the potty of their choice (two little potties and the big potty... so many options. Gabi is a big fan of the big potty.) then they give up and have to be redressed, just to find out that no, they want to try again! Gahh!

But Lily did have the first pee pee in the potty a few weeks ago and then again on Saturday. Saturday she got a sticker for it and she was so proud! We made a big deal about it and she loved it. Then Sunday Gabi did the first poop in the potty! Again lots was made of this and she got a bite of brownie for it. (Stickers for pee, chocolate for poop. These girls LOVE chocolate!) Nothing since, but that's mostly because it's so much work. We might keep doing this a little at a time and then just go for it one day like we did with Nicky. With him, Tom and I got the flu and were just too exhausted to change him. So we just put the potty in the livingroom, had him naked and told him to go potty when he had to while I laid on the sofa. Hey, it worked. He was also three though and had been doing a little here and there. We'll see how it goes with the girls.

I think that's all the big news around here this weekend! New hair, new beds, and potty training. That's probably enough. Soon Nick will be starting first grade (September 4th) and we'll have to talk about that!

Where did June and July go?

Just going to jump right in here. No amazingly insightful things to say about taking an unplanned two month hiatus from blogging. Just been busy. And the more time since the last post, the more heavy the first post after such a break seemed to be, the more stuff there was to try to smoosh in there. It just turned into this weight on my shoulder that was easier to ignore than face.

So let's just jump in here with updates:

First, Nicky does NOT have sleep apnea. Shocked, but happy to not have to do the surgery. Shocked but kind of bummed to not have a possible 'quick fix' for his ADHD. Aw well.We'll see how this school year goes.

Second, we took everyone to the Dentist. Well, Tom went on his own and will be having a wisdom tooth extracted next week, and I am going in about two weeks (I haven't gone since about 2002, so that'll be fun). But we took all three kids at one time this week. Nicky does have one cavity, but he did great for his first visit. The girls both did wonderfully and have no cavities. They really did a whole cleaning on them too which I wasn't sure if they'd do on 2 year olds. I sat with Lily and Tom watched over Gabi while Nicky went between the two. This dentist has the chairs in more of a cubical kind of office instead of separate rooms so it worked out fine that way. They were asking Lily what flavor toothpaste she'd like. The hygenist said "cookie dough, chocolate..." and that's as far as she got in her list because Lily said "Chocolate?!" She KNOWS that word! She did just fine for the cleaning. Gabi also chose the chocolate. No surprise there! Nicky went for orange. He must take after me. I think we're missing the chocolate gene. We like it fine, but can take it or leave it.

Let's see, what else. I went to New York City for the BlogHer conference. Totally huge trip, exhausting and fun. I got to meet several of the bloggers I've been reading for years and it was so great to see them in person. Everyone was super nice too. I danced from 10-1am Friday and Saturday night, which was so much fun! I haven't really danced since college and I'd forgotten how much I love it. It took some guts to go out there and dance by myself, but I did it! And I'm so glad I did! I have a ton of stuff from BlogHer that I honestly haven't had a minute to look at yet. Hopefully I'll get around to it at some point soon.

My impression of NYC was that it smelled really bad. I know that's like the dumbest thing to have to say as my first impression, but we walked from Penn Station to our hotel (about 1 & 1/2 miles) with our luggage and that was really what stuck with me as we walked. Well, that and it's really ... vertical. There's so many buildings, so high, so close together that it's very close feeling and vertical. I guess I'm used to being able to see farther and used to having more horizontal space. It was interesting. But stinky. Maybe it was just because it was August? It wasn't crazy hot or anything though. There really wasn't much breeze though. I'm not sure if that's normal because of so many buildings or not. I spent some time trying to identify the smell, it was kind of a garbage/dirty diaper-ish smell. Not so much "pee" as "bathroom trashcan meets diaper pail." New Orleans was more of a pee kind of smell. I guess all cities have their own thing. :)

Maybe I'm just a small town kind of girl. But it really was something to be in NYC. I am not saying it was awful or anything. Just an observation about that particular experience. I think I would like to visit again with Tom so that we could really see the city more. Other than walking from Penn Station to the hotel and taking a morning stroll for breakfast Saturday, I really only walked between my hotel and the conference hotel, probably about 25 yards of sidewalk. I'd love to really see some of the history and sites the city has next time. And probably not in August. :)

Now that I've probably ticked off a bunch of New Yorkers (it's ok, Virginia Beach probably smells like salty rotting fish and Gainesville probably smelled like swamp to other folks),  I better get myself off to bed. First hurdle down! I sat, I typed, I posted. Now I just need to work on photos, movies, and more posts. Yeah, that's all.

That was one of the only things I really wanted out of BlogHer that I didn't find, an app or service that would make getting photos and movies off my phone and onto my blog (and preferably into photobucket) faster, easier, and more convenient. Surely there is an app for that!