BURNS…

what are you doing silly monkey?
the fire burned my fingers and i just want to go home and get a band-aid.

(his fingers are fine.  his uncle joshua had just complained that he burned his finger from holding the lighter on so long, to light the sparklers.) (silly monkey is all about the drama.)  (even if he is holding sparklers.) (oh… and i gave him 2 band-aids.)

BRIDGE…

mommy, when i make myself a bridge, you have to go under me.
silly monkey, please do not put your feet on the wall.
but, i am a bridge and you have to go under me.
if you put your feet on the wall again, you will get a time out.
ok.  i won’t do it again.
thank you.

STAYCATION…

silly monkey and i have spent LOADS of quality time together over the past couple weeks.  mainly b/c i exercised my right to “uninterrupted time”, but mostly b/c he’s just so darn adorably scrumptious *NOM NOM*. 

our first few days were those of relaxation.  sleeping in (until 9am!  woo hoo), moving things about the house b/c things they are ‘a changin’, playing with trains and cars & OMG i haven’t seen that thing in forever, but wait… what is it? and running about feeding the ducks b/c even those ducks are having babies.  we also cooked together (he helped roll up some homemade, made from scratch chicken enchilada thingies i concocted and assisted in prepping breakfast each morning – he is SOOOO good a pouring things) and did some art projects. 

then we got real creative and spent even bigger LOADS of time at the pool, the zoo, the park, the store and a bit of time terrorizing other people’s homes. 

the two of us had some fun conversations…

hey, silly monkey, are you ready for lunch?
yes.
what would you like?
um.  i would like a hug and a kiss.

and some of our more normal conversations…

i am going to school* tomorrow.
no, not tomorrow.
in ten minutes.
no, not ten minutes.  when are you going to school?
in september.

 we did some other things that i’m not going to mention b/c they are special camping in the living room-like silly monkey & mommy things, but trust me… SO FUN!

it was THE best time i’ve ever spent doing pretty much nothing with THE best person in the entire whole wide worldUNIVERSE.  how true is it that it’s not what you’re doing, it’s who you’re doing it with? 

* silly monkey really is going to school.   no, like, real school!  he is SUCH a SMARTsmartSMART boy.  and he couldn’t be MORE excited. 

PLUMPER…

if there’s one thing i love, it’s lip gloss.  i may have close to 50 different ones… in my purse!! 

i also have a major obsession with lip plumpers… not so much that i need to plump them a bunch (and would never so much as inject anything), but they could use a bit of help every now & then. 

so i’ve pretty much tried them all and have a few that top my list… 

*  duwop lip venom – very tasty, very spicy, ouch ouch ouch
*  two-faced lip injection – kind of like the lip venom and a bit painful
*  fusion beauty lip fusion- cooling and visibly works, though a bit drying

BUT MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE…

smashbox o-plump
(O-PLUMP Intuitive Lip Plumper With Goji Berry-C Complex™)

the stuff is ridiculously amazing.  it plumps, it shines… and it’s so tingly & cool  (actual coolness, but metaphoric, just the same!). 

i was skeptical about the o-plump, b/c it has a color enhancer to give your lips a pinky color when applied, in addition to the plumpiness.  i had tried the smashbox o-gloss a while back and it turned my lips a shade of pink no pink should ever be… let alone lips, so i really did almost pass up the o-plump.   in fact, for a while did pass it up and actually became addicted to the lip fusion.  BUT, after reading some fantastic reviews, i decided to just give it a go and plopped down my twenty-something dollars (steep!  i know!!) and took it home. 

and NOW?  OMG!!!  i use it everyday, all day and i LOVELOVELOVE it.  the color is fabulous.  the hydration is fabulous.  and the plumper works exactly how a plumper should work. 

i’m also partial to this (yay! no breakouts!!)  and would LOVE to try this (gah, i’m poor!), but those are items for another day.

HE DOESN’T HAVE A TAIL…

let’s go take elliott out.
at uncle joshua’s house?
yes.
he doesn’t have a tail.
who?
elliott.
nope, he doesn’t have a tail.  just a stump.
yea.  just a stump and a butt.

THE NAME GAME…

a good friend of mine had a baby yesterday (boooo hisss i hate babies… ok, i hate people who can have babies… oh hell… where’s my baby?).  on the long shot that they posted a photo of her on the hospital website, i decided to peruse.  no such luck, which i figured b/c she’s a preemie. 

BUT, i did find something interesting… a baby named “mister”.  yes.  “mister”.   how well do you think that’s going to go over in school? 

ABOUT THAT POST…

so the ranting of my last post related specifically to one incident where i was un-deservedly screamed at b/c one so unloving person pissed off another and i was apparently the only pleasant one to blame, thus the reason that i got pissed off and decided to just be done… with them… for now… or perhaps, forever. 

it’s been some time and i haven’t quite figured out exactly how it’ll play out in the end, but i’m totally good b/c 1.  i have an amazing FAMILY!!!  and 2.  i have amazing FRIENDS!!!  and quite frankly, none of those have ever yelled at me just b/c someone else ruined their plans.  and to boot… i totally know what i’m doing.  so there. 

JUST DONE…

i am done. 

absolutely, completely done. 

no longer will i make the effort to be part of something that should no longer be a part of me – due in large part to the selfishness and self absorbed nature of a (very lucky) beast with no soul. 

so keep backing the beast and attaching me to it’s awful behavior.  

i need not figure it out.  i need nothing of the sort.

i am done. 

goodbye, to you.

KEEP ON TINKLING…

warning -  this post is a long, drawn out story about my child FINALLY using the toilet.  if you care not for toilet stories, stop reading now…

today is day five six seven of the latest potty training mission and silly monkey is catching on quickly.  i was worried that he would NEVER tell me he had to go and i would just have to guess and/or require him to sit every 30 minutes and/or ask him if he had to pee every five minutes.

the first few days were a bit rough – i would ask, he would say no, i would make him sit, he would go, i would ask why he said no, he would say he didn’t know, i would tell him he needed to tell me, he would say ok and we would clean up and be on our merry way.

after a weekend with M, we were pretty much back at the starting point, but i took it as a good time to give silly monkey a refresher on proper bathroom etiquette (ie.  tell mommy as soon as a tinkle feeling appears and strip down the undies… AND SIT!), all the while making silly monkey feel like he was in control of telling me and going and etc.  the conversations were more so made up of me asking him where he should pee, should he have to pee and him responding like OMG mah, seriously, i may be a toddler, but i know EXACTLY where to go, just don’t expect me to go THERE if i’m playing b/c OMG mah, seriously. BUT, while playing, he looked over at me and said “mommy, i have go pee pee“, to which i responded by jumping out of my seat and quickly guided him to the potty where he emptied, we cheered and we went on our merry way.

going back to daycare yesterday i figured would be a bit tough.  but, it played out just fine with zero accidents.

today was exceptional.  not only did silly monkey tell me several times that he had to use the potty, he actually went in the potty every time, which oddly was about four times after 8pm (and another after he laid down for bed, which he decided belonged in his pull-up “undies”).  in fact, today was so great that during his bath, he asked to use the toilet – got out of the tub, onto the toilet, peed and then asked to return to the tub.

i’m not sure what i did right this time.  or what i did wrong before.  i’ve been wracking my brain to figure out what made this work and why it failed so miserably over the past year.  i’ve done so much reading on potty training that i could probably write my own book (legally paraphrasing, of course) about ALL of the different methods.  and really, i’ve tried everything (pretty much by myself b/c really, one other can’t be bothered to do the things he should and no one else should be required to teach my child not to pee himself) and really, everything did NOT work:  waiting until he was ready did not work b/c unless he could say “mommy, i’m ready” (which he still hasn’t said), how the heck do i really know he is ready?  and pulls ups?  please.  they’re like diapers with inconvenient sides.  why wouldn’t he want to pee in them?  how in the world would he know they were any different from diapers?**  bribery worked for  bit, but got expensive.  rewards were OK, we go more headway with candy than with stickers.  and then there was my final option…

JUST PUT THE DAMN UNDERWEAR ON AND LET HIM RUN WILD!!!

at first, we tried naked potty training, but silly monkey wouldn’t stop touching his butt, and i thought that was weird.  plus, it made company uncomfortable.  that, and i was worried that he would assume he had to be naked to pee and wouldn’t understand the point of the undies.

so… we put them on and haven’t looked back.  yet.

** silly monkey now refers to pull ups as night night undies.  so, i take back most of what i said about them above, however, i still wouldn’t ever recommend using them as a potty training tool.

ON THE POT, MOSTLY…

i’ve spent the last couple weeks really, seriously, diligently potty training silly monkey, for every single moment he is with me.  and for the past few weeks, every moment he is with me, he’s done so very well with the potty.

today, he actually stopped playing, looked at me and said “mommy, i have to pee“.  i just about peed MYSELF!  i didn’t have to remind him or ask him or demand that he still sit even if he didn’t want to… he TOLD me he had to go!  i think my heart actually stopped for a moment!

granted, we’ve had a few talks about how big boys don’t wear diapers and diapers are a no-no from now on and we’ve even had a few issues with crying and silly monkey demanding diapers and even one instance where he took the undies off and brought me a diaper, but really, in all, it’s been pretty seamless during this past trial.

of course it will require everyone’s cooperation, M and the sitter and anyone that watches him anytime after he’s had ANYTHING to drink, but in my estimation, we are well on our way to using the toilet and the toilet only.  in fact, today, we only had two accidents.  TWO!  one was right after he went down for his nap.  and the instant it happened, i heard elephant footsteps in the hall and a tiny, sad voice whispering “uh oh, mommy, i made a poop in my thomas undies“.  so he knows and he’s now certainly not oblivious to fact that pooping on thomas will most certainly guarantee that thomas will end up in the trash.  the other was during a non-stop train playing fest and he was FAR too busy to sit on the potty that i had so graciously brought TO him and put right in FRONT of him, and he literally peed, in his undies, while i was lecturing him on the fact that he must sit even if he didn’t want to and his toys would definitely be there when he was done peeing.  we had another lecture after the pee in the undies, but by golly, no more accidents after that and we even spent a couple hours outside playing in the evening, away from the diapers and way way way away from the potty.

i recently read an article that stated if a child, during potty training, has two or less accidents in the day, he can be labeled successfully potty trained.  so, as of today, i am deeming silly monkey as successfully potty trained!  i suppose we’ll have to see about tomorrow.  but… i’m pretty darn optimitic at this point.