children, happiness, health, mommyhood

You Can Dance (for inspiration)

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Full Speed and I had a dance-off with Mad Dog as the judge. We did it to honor our recent viewing of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ which is a television competition.

Even though I unleashed my best moves (they were almost as amazing as my cooking skills), Full Speed was the hands-down winner. Later when we were eating dinner I asked him where he learned his amazing and award winning break-dancing moves. These moves are a spectacular display of energy, creativity and boundless, pounding movement.

“Well, Mom, I didn’t learn them, I was born already knowing them,” he replied in that self-assured way that only Full Speed can.

Interesting. I certainly don’t possess any break-dancing genes/ability. I’m going have to ask Mad Dog to break it down for me when he gets home from work tonight. I’d like to see the original break-dance genes in motion.

Bust a move.

mommyhood, potty training

Big Boy Underpants

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Potty-trainging little T.Puzzle has become the bane of my existence. I’m giving it until the end of this week and then either I’m going to go on a huge bender (you are more than welcome to join me) or I’m putting him back in pull-ups. I can tell there has been some maturation and progress on his part (ironically, my maturation and progress seems to be diminishing). He only screams and cries for a minute or so before he starts telling me that ‘I not poop!’ or ‘the poop is hiding, Mommy!’ Before, he would just scream and cry the entire time I left him on the potty. He also told Mad Dog while we were at a movie this weekend that he had to pee. They raced to the bathroom and made it in time. So this is moving in a positive direction.

However, the pooping (oh! the pooping!) is still not clicking. I mean he still is pooping just mostly in his pants. As I was putting away laundry and fussing around the house, I came across him sitting next to his brother watching Frack play computer games in dirty, wet underpants. Apparently, he could care less about how disgusting that really is.

Thus, my huge bender approacheth!

children, parenting, terrible threes

The Truth

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We were at brunch and as awful as this sounds, I was happy that little T.Puzzle was annoying the heck out of Mad Dog. Not because Mad Dog was annoyed but it validated the short fuse I’ve had with T.Puzzle for the past several days. Lately I’ve been feeling ready to lose it over any minor infraction of his. So maybe it isn’t all me. Maybe lots of it has to do with him and his recent behavior set.

Mad Dog’s patience was clearly being tested. It started with little T.Puzzle launching a purposeful flick of white milk across our table. Then he deliberately thumbed a hole in the side of his cup. This allowed a pool of milk to collect in the center of our table. To top off this double display of insolence, as Mad Dog was trying to discipline him, little T.Puzzle  kicked him. Mad Dog kept his cool and threatened consequences in hushed tones just as the waitress came to check in on our table. She notes the damaged cup and says she will replace it. Mad Dog says that yes it was broken and a replacement would be great.

This is the moment that little T.Puzzle decides to repent. “I’m sorry, Daddy! I’m sorry!” He says it in such a pitiful way that in the eyes of the waitress he is a sweet, gentle soul asking for forgiveness over his ‘accidental’ broken cup. It also appears that we are mad at him for ‘accidentally’ breaking his cup and that is why Mad Dog is talking to him so harshly. The waitress and her sympathy are almost palpable.

Mad Dog and I both roll our eyes.

I say, “Trust us, he’s all game. You didn’t see the five minutes (or the attempted kick) leading up to this moment. He appears a lot more sweet than he actually is.”

Believe me, the truth hurts.

bad day, children, mommyhood

One of Those Days

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I’m having one of those days that if I have to take care of one more need of someone other than myself, I could possibly spontaneously combust into angry flames (Mad Dog will vouch for my less-than-sunny demeanor).

I can’t handle another demand, another ‘poop-in-our-big-boy-underpants’ incident, or any other sentence that begins with ‘I need’ or ‘I want’.

Unless it’s my own sentence like the following: ‘I need a vacation’ or ‘I want a full-time nanny’.

Then, I might be onto something.

children, mommyhood, potty training

Teach by Example

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I took the boys to IHOP for dinner because they were well-behaved for their hair-cuts (sort of) and my kitchen was clean and I wanted it to stay that way. It was basic insanity at the restaurant as usual but we managed to have a good time.


That morning I had decided to try little T.Puzzle in big boy underpants again to see what would happen. He had a couple of accidents including an unfortunate incident involving a good length of his train tracks, but caught on to keeping his pants dry pretty quick. Of course the pooping is a whole different matter.

As we were finishing up our dinner little T.Puzzle starts emitting some squeaky sounds from his nether regions and I could smell, I mean I could tell, that he was going to need to potty soon. When we arrived home I took a less than compliant T.Puzzle to the bathroom. As I’m about to place him on the potty, Full Speed busts in and says, “T.Puzzle, I gotta poop, let me show you how it’s done.” He hops up on the pot and states, “See that brown stuff coming out of my booty? That’s how it’s done!” Apparently little T.Puzzle just got ‘schooled’. It was highly entertaining.

Once it was little T.Puzzle’s turn he cried and complained and refused to go. I decided to ignore him. Partially because Full Speed needed my attention for something and partially because I am so tired of the power struggle of poop, I sort of locked myself into a pleasant denial bubble. My logic was if I tuned out his complaining then it must not actually be happening.

About five minutes later little T.Puzzle shockingly announces that he ‘POOPED!”

I was so excited I almost passed out.

What does that say about my life?

Please, don’t answer that.