Diet Aid

  
I've been trying to lose weight and therefore, I've been sewing a lot. 

How does that work, you ask?  Well, I like to sew a lot.  When I'm going about business as usual, I am often tempted to stop for a little snack.  But when I'm sewing I get so caught up in it, I forget. I lose all desire to eat. (I also lose all desire to sleep, bathe, and leave the house, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

Along with some other tactics, it seems to be working.  I'm down at least 6 lbs in the last month.

And I've gotten some good sewing done.  I just finished this dress and wore it to church Sunday:

Now the trick is to finish my sewing projects fast enough that they're not too big by the time I finish them.  And if that's my biggest problem, I'll take it!

 

C'mon Scott, Your Baby Sister Can Do It!

Scott and Kate are quite the contrasting pair.  Scott being very reluctant to do new things by himself, and Kate being QUITE the opposite.  Kate seems to be quickly overtaking Scott in many areas. Yesterday was an interesting day of firsts in our house.

First of all Kate, my little pantry bandit, came wandering up to me drinking a contraband juice box.  Apparently she can unwrap the straw and poke it into the hole now herself.  Scott couldn't do that until, like, last month.  (Anyone have any tips on how to keep a toddler out of a pantry with double doors but the kind that latch up at the top?  All the lock type things I find for child-proofing won't fit around full size door knobs, but the regular knob ones are worthless since these knobs are just for pulling, not turning.  The rope set up we've tried fails on so many levels.  It's hideous AND cumbersome.  So cumbersome that I never remembered to re-weave the intricate knot around the knobs and therefore just stopped using it.)

Second of all, Scott learned to pedal a tricycle.  Yes, he is in Kindergarten.  He's been a bit of a late bloomer in this department.  Up until yesterday, he just didn't care to do it enough to bother.  Every time I would coax him onto a tricycle, he would try for a second and then give up because it wasn't instantly easy.  But Claire and the neighbors were having bicycle races up and down the street and he figured out he would never keep up on his scooter.  Yay for peer pressure!!!  So he was determined to head down the path towards mastering the bicycle.  He did great on the tricycle, so we tried putting him on his bicycle with training wheels, but that resulted in a freak out of epic proportions because it was "TOO HARD!!!"  Oh well, at least my 5 year old can finally pedal a tricycle a mere month or so after my 2 year old figured it out!

I Want the Drought to End Too, BUT...

  
Dear People Who Are Members of My Church (Maybe not ALL, but certainly MOST of them),

I have a small issue I would like to address.  It has bothered me for many years, but ever since Mother Nature decided to stop making rain clouds in Texas and it became the land of searing heat this year, it's started coming up a lot more.

It's about your prayers.  Don't get me wrong, I want the drought to end.  I'm glad you're praying for it to end and I am too.  It's the wording I have issue with.  Do you really have to ask for "moisture"?  And when we DO get a little sprinkle, do you have to say thank you for "moisture" too? 

I believe the word "rain" is the appropriate choice here.  We want RAIN.  Or we're thankful we got RAIN.  Why not just say that?  For some reason though, you seem to think that when you're praying you ought to say "moisture."  I have some guesses about why you might feel compelled to say this:

1)  "Moisture" sounds more formal -- No, it doesn't.  Moisture sounds disgusting.  It brings to mind sweat, used sponges, or worse, some sort of feminine issue.  More formal would be something like "waters sent forth from heaven above."  Maybe a bit overkill, but better than saying "moisture."

2)  "Moisture" is more generic and all encompassing and we'll take anything we can get -- While I appreciate the sentiment, there are two problems with this.  First of all, this is Texas.  If you're hoping that we'll get snow instead of rain, you're kidding yourself.  Maybe you grew up in Utah where it actually snows and picked up the habit there?  Well, that brings me to my second point.  You might have learned this in like, elementary school.  We have a word for generic wet stuff falling from the sky: precipitation.  I know it's kinda long, but say it with me now:  Pre-cip-i-ta-tion.  And if you forget the correct generic word, do you honestly think it will hurt to just say "rain"?  I mean, I'm pretty sure if you say "rain" the Lord isn't going to think, "Oh, I was going to send some snow, sleet, and hail, but since they only asked for rain, I guess they're out of luck."

3)  "Moisture" includes humidity and dew -- This is probably the least objectionable reason for saying "moisture." HOWEVER, I hate to break it to you but I don't really think raising the humidity around here is going to stop the drought.  It WILL make us all even more miserably uncomfortably hot and sweaty (moist?), and it may be a little better for the plants, but it's just not going to cut it.

4)  You say "moisture" just to annoy uptight people like me -- By all means, carry on then.  You're doing a great job.

All that being said, keep on praying for rain, or precipitation, or dews from heaven distilling, or... *gulp*... moisture, or whatever.  Just keep praying for something to end this drought.

Sincerely,
G
 
 

A Casual User

  
Kate is a casual potty user.

We tried potty training Kate earlier this week.  Originally I wasn't planning on it until she was much older, but it seemed like Kate had other plans.  So we gave it a go.

I don't know what we were thinking.  She didn't seem to mind when her underwear got wet.  (I think underwear is like an accessory to her, "YES!  We get to go try on another pair of underwear!")  She refused to go on the potty if I suggested it.  It was pretty miserable.

After two days of (confession!) me being in tears by late afternoon, we gave up.  Of course I'm wondering what I did wrong, but I think I have settled on not shouldering the blame too much myself.  Maybe she just isn't ready.  Maybe I'm just not ready for what it would take.  She's younger than Claire and Scott were when we potty trained them even though she's showing more signs of readiness than they did.  She talks, but nothing like Claire could at this age so I think there are some communication issues going on too.  I think we just need a little more time.

I've never been so happy to put a diaper on a child!  For now Kate seems to be content continuing to just use the potty when it's her idea and she's in the mood.  So most mornings when she wakes up and almost every night before bed, she gets the brilliant idea to use the potty.  Before I know it, she has stripped her diaper off herself and done her business.  Then she gets a few M&M's as reward and then we put her diaper back on.  And as long as I never suggest she use the potty, everything's good.  For now, this halfway state seems to be working.

  

When You're So Excited You Put Underwear on Over Your Clothes

We went back to school shopping the other day and while we were there I decided it was time to let Kate pick out some big girl underwear.  We went to the underwear aisle and I laid out all of her choices and told her to pick one.  She pointed at one.  Then another.  Then another.  So I tried to explain to her to pick just one and put it in the cart.  She picked one up, put it in the cart, then came back for another package and tried to put it in the cart too.

Obviously this was not working.  So I went ahead and narrowed it down to just three choices for her.  And told her to put just ONE in the cart.  So she proceeded to stack all three packages on top of each other and try to carry them all to the cart in one trip.  Ha!  Nice try Kate.

I know she's barely two, but I KNOW she understood me.  She was just trying to be tricky.  But finally I convinced her that she had to put all but one back and that did it.  She loves cleaning things up so we put all the others back on the rack and ended up with Hello Kitty panties.  Of course.

We proceeded to the checkout and as I thought we were about done checking out I looked over and realized that somehow Kate had gotten the package of underwear out of the cart and had opened it.  She had pulled three of the six pairs out of the package and was carefully unrolling them.  I quickly grabbed the package while she screamed in protest, had the checkout clerk scan it, then quickly gave it back to Kate.

By the time we got the car loaded and I was ready to put Kate in the car, she had managed to put her legs through the leg holes of two pairs of underwear. I went ahead and buckled her into her car seat still clutching her beloved package of underwear.  When we got home, she had four pairs of underwear put on as far as she could get them while still sitting buckled in her carseat.

Later when M came home, I told Kate to show him her beloved new underwear.  It took us all a moment to locate them.  She had taken Claire's new school backpack and had loaded it up with all six pairs of her new underwear and had been toting it all around the living room all evening.

I'm thinking she likes the underwear...