Friday Shuffle

Day Three of potty training followed the trend of Days One and Two: peeing every 20 minutes, two accidents, absolute refusal to poop in the toilet.

Britt can pull her own pants down now, and sometimes she can pull them back up (and sometimes they get all twisted in back and she can't get them over her plump little booty), so I need to find some kind of platform that won't tip over so she get herself up on the toilet, because this every-20-minutes crap is wearing me out.

Anyway, today's shuffle:

1. The Letter, The Box Tops
2. One Toke Over the Line, Brewer & Shipley
3. Long As I Can See the Light, Creedence Clearwater Revival
4. Mighty Tight Woman, Bonnie Raitt
5. Give It Time, Eric Lindell
6. I've Been Loving You Too Long, Marc Broussard
7. Respect Yourself, The Staple Singers
8. Come On in My Kitchen, Keb' Mo'
9. Zombie Me, No More Kings
10. A Whiter Shade of Pale, Procol Harum

I've mentioned that Britt likes to sing, right? Well, she knows the tunes to "Old MacDonald" and "Frère Jacques" but she doesn't know the words, so she makes up her own. It amazes me how well she can carry a tune (because I couldn't carry a tune if it had handles on it), plus it's just cute as can be. I need to get it on video.

She does know the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," or most of them anyway. Her version goes like this:

Twinka twinka litta star
How I love you what you are...

Potty Training Attempt #17

I decided to get serious about potty training. Again.

So, yesterday morning, we got started.

Britt's potty chair had been banished to the garage because the only interest she had in it was using it as a step stool to reach things I'd put up out of her reach. I brought it in and polished it up and plunked it down in the middle of the living room, and told Britt that I wanted her to start peeing and pooping in it.

She said no. And then she crossed her arms and went "Hmph!"

I took her wet overnight diaper off and decided to leave her bare-assed. I told her that if she needed to pee or poop, she just needed to sit on the potty and do it.

She wasn't going for the potty chair or for the butt-naked thing; she laid on the couch bleating like a dying calf. And occasionally hollering, "Diaper! Diaper!"

Already my plan was going off the rails, not even 15 minutes into it. We compromised on a pair of big-girl panties if she would tell me when she needed to potty. And...

It worked! Well, she still won't have anything to do with her potty chair, but I put the potty seat on the toilet and she tells me she needs to go and I pull her panties down and set her up there and she goes. About every 20 minutes.

But she flat-out refused to poop in the toilet. No, no way, not happening. I was afraid of losing the little bit of progress we'd made (because we've been this far before), so I put a diaper on her and let her poop, then put her back in panties. And she only peed in her pants twice yesterday.

Whew! So far, so good.

Today it was more of the every-20-minutes peeing, and this morning she pooped in the toilet! She had a couple of accidents today and she did her afternoon poop in her panties (which is way worse than cleaning up poop in a diaper), but we're heading in the right direction.

I knew her poop schedule already, but I had no idea she was peeing so often. I'm thinking maybe I should cut down on her fluid intake, because she's obviously a well-hydrated child. And she can't pull down her own pants or hoist herself up on the toilet yet, so less peeing would be great for me.

Also, the wiping thing. Her arms are too short to reach her poony from the back and her legs are too fat for her to reach between them from the front, so we'll have to work on that.

But Britt's into it, so that's half the battle right there. This afternoon the cat came in to use his litter box while we were sitting in the bathroom. We listened to him pee, then Britt started clapping and went "Yay! Good!" just like I do with her.

Out and About

I didn't get Britt signed up in time for art classes in June, July and August, and they're all full, so we're minus one out-of-the-house activity for the summer.

This sucks, because there aren't that many activities around town for two-year-olds. Once she turns three, there'll be about half a jillion things we can go do, but we're fighting cabin fever here at the ranch right now.

So I took her to Omniplex yesterday. Most of the exhibits were way over her head, and I knew they would be, but I was desperate. And Britt had a great time anyway.

You see this here wooden tower thingy?



(Britt's not actually in the picture. Stupid frickin' shutter delay.)

It supposedly houses the tallest spiral slide in the country, and Britt climbed up and went down the slide several times. She didn't find much to interest her in the tree house, but she did like climbing the rope net.



She loved the seesaw



but hated the Hall of Mirrors. She has a tendency to run ahead of me, and she kept crashing into the walls.



Which was pretty funny, actually. I wish I'd had my video camera with me.

She had fun at the water table



and with the "antique" phones.



Also, there was a face-painting station



where she gave herself a little blue Hitler mustache.



Then we had lunch and visited the gardens, where Britt chased a rabbit and found some "kine cones."



And then we went to the planetarium show, which was boooooring.

And then we came home to find that it had rained like a mofo while we were gone, and the kitchen and half the garage had flooded, so -- yay.

My First (and Probably Last) Meme

I'm not crazy about memes because they can be so deadly dull, but the "Six (or Seven or Eight) Odd/Strange/Unusual Things About Me" meme is usually more entertaining than most.

Nobody tagged me or nuthin', but I made a list anyway. You'll notice I was a bit of a wild child in my youth, but I swear I've been a fine, upstanding citizen for the past twenty years or so. For the most part.

**********
1. I was once bitten in a bar fight. And it wasn't even my fight!

When I was 22, a date took me to a small-town knife-and-gun bar, where he promptly got into a fight with an old nemesis; the fight was broken up and then a cat (Don't ask; I never figured it out myself.) walked across the floor and my date picked it up and threw it at the other guy and the fight was on again. I was standing against the bar when the two rolled across the floor and crashed into me; the next thing I knew the other guy had his teeth buried in the tender flesh of my inner left wrist and I frantically pounded on his head until he let go. Then the cops came and sent everyone home.

Needless to say, it was my last date with that guy.

I never went to the doctor; I had no insurance and couldn't afford to. Luckily, the wound didn't get infected, but a long ridge of skin had been pinched up and never flattened out; it eventually turned black and fell off.

Wanna see the scar?



When my kids asked about it, I told them a dog had bitten me. Which was true enough, I suppose.

**********
2. I was later involved several bar fights that were mine.

**********
3. The statute of limitations has run out on this one, so I guess it's safe to tell:

About 20 years ago, I owned a 1970 3/4-ton Chevy truck that had a three-speed on the column and no power steering. It was a big, clunky fucker to drive and I was built like Nicole Ritchie back then, but my 1980 Buick Regal had died a painful death and I was able to buy this truck dirt cheap.

Anyway, I drove my friend Donna to town in it (probably to buy some weed, I don't remember) and, when we got there, I pulled over on the wrong side of the street to park against the curb. And my brakes went out. And I crashed into the front end of a car parked on the correct side of the street.

Those of you who knew Donna probably remember that loud braying jackass laugh, right? Well, she kept doing that. While repeatedly demonstrating how funny my "skinny ol' spaghetti leg" looked when my foot was flailing away at the useless brake pedal.

I had a hard time finding humor in the situation right then, myself.

So we got out of the truck to look at the damage and to face whoever come running, because surely someone had heard the crash. We couldn't see any actual houses because there were tall hedges in front of them, and we didn't know which one the car belonged to anyway, so we spent about five minutes milling around on the sidewalk, wondering what to do and making false starts toward one house or another (we may have smoked a little weed already, I don't remember). And Donna was still laughing her ass off.

But nobody ever showed up, so we finally climbed back into the truck and split.

**********
4. I'm not a social person at all. I tried to be when I was younger, because I thought being social was normal and I desperately wanted to be normal.

Eventually, I got over that.

I haven't managed to stay in touch with anyone from my childhood, from school, from work, from anywhere. The only people I have regular contact with are related to me either by blood or by marriage. And I'm cool with that, because I enjoy solitude and I'm very selfish with my time.

**********
5. I went to nursing school when the kids were babies, but a miscarriage and a divorce led to my dropping out just before finishing the first year. But not before I got to witness an autopsy!

A man being treated for congestive heart failure died at the VA hospital in Muskogee. Two hours later, he was on the autopsy table in the hospital basement, where I watched his chest and abdominal cavity being dissected.

The sight of it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, since they kept his face and genitals covered and it kind of de-personalized him. But the smell! Like fresh meat. Ugh.

Anyway, it turned out the guy didn't have congestive heart failure after all. His heart was fine, but his kidneys were covered in huge abcesses.

During another clinical rotation, I took care of a man in the last stages of cirrhosis who'd had a penectomy some years earlier. Which I didn't find out until I went to give him a sponge bath, so it was a bit of a shock.

**********
6. The first concert I ever went to was in 1983, featuring David Allan Coe at the Sand Springs rodeo grounds. The event was advertised as having family-style seating, bring your lawn chairs and ice chests, etc, so I decided it would be all right to take the kids, who were both pre-schoolers at the time.

I got there and spread out a quilt for the kids to play on and then, while I kicked back and waited for the concert to start, I started looking around the rest of the audience. And grew increasingly nervous. Because every other person in the rodeo arena was a biker. Or a biker chick. It was a virtual sea of black leather.

This was not my usual crowd. Not at all. And there I was with my two little babies. I may have even been wearing a polo shirt. In the middle of Big Bad Bikerdom. Yikes! Would we make it out alive?

Well, as it turned out, the bikers couldn't have been more friendly. My cute little kids were a real ice-breaker and we all wound up having a great time.

**********
7. I used to have a big ugly brown mole in the middle of my chest and I totally hated it, but I couldn't afford to go to a doctor and have it removed.

So, when I was 21 and stupid, I took care of it myself -- using ice cubes, a sharp knife, a pair of scissors, lots of cotton balls and a fifth of Canadian Mist.

The procedure was a complete success, but I'll leave the details to your imagination.

**********
Well, that's all I can think of. That I'm willing to admit to, anyway.

(***wink***)

I'm not tagging anybody since nobody tagged me but, Sherri, if you ever do this you have to tell the "hole in the flannel shirt" story. And if my brother had a blog, I'd make him tell about accidentally shooting that chick with a blow-dart. That was about the funniest shit I ever heard.

Trouble in Paradise

Mikey slept on the couch last night.

No, no, it's not what you're thinking. It's the cat.

Last Monday night, he pissed on our bed. It didn't occur to me that he'd do it again, but he did it again on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I didn't remember to shut the door in time and he did it again.

Well, you don't have to tell me more than three times, so after that the bedroom door stayed shut.

Until Sunday night, when we came home from a cookout/pool party at the in-laws'. I changed clothes in the bedroom, but was so bleary-eyed, stumbling-around tired that I forgot to close the door behind me when I went to crash on the couch in the living room.

And guess what the little bastard did?

Yep, this time he even got the pillows.

Even after sheet-changing and mattress-scrubbing and pillow-switching, Mikey claimed that the stench woke him up several times during the night. So, last night he slept on the couch.

We can't live like this. The cat has got to go.

This is your last chance, y'all. Does anybody want a cat? Because I'm gonna start looking into shelters today.

Overbooked

Britt loves books.

No, it's more than that. She's in love with books. She caresses them, coos to them, hugs them lovingly to her chest, and carries them with her wherever she goes. They are her most treasured possessions.

She's no longer content to sit quietly and let us read to her. Nay, she must read them herself. Not that she can read, but she either knows the stories well enough or can piece them together from the pictures that she gives a pretty convincing narrative as she pages through them.

Still, we're not completely off the hook. She'll shove a book at me or Mikey, demanding "Read!' and so we'll start reading to her, but she'll also begin reading another book out loud, and Lord help us if we quit reading because she's not paying attention, because she is. "Read! Read!" she shouts, as if we are letting her down terribly by not valiantly waging our end of some bizarre book-reading duel.

And she has a lot of books, so this can go on for hours.

Yeah, it's very cute and all, for a few months. Finally, in an attempt to hold on to sanity, I stashed her books in our third bedroom (the one room that's still off-limits to her because it houses my computer and Mikey's musical equipment, plus that's where I hide the toys I can no longer bear to deal with, like Play-Dough, until Mikey lets her play in there while he surfs on the computer, and she finds them) and allowed her to have only three books at a time. She wasn't happy about it, but it worked for a while. There were much shorter book-reading sessions and much longer toy-playing sessions.

And all was right with Grammy's world again.

Then Mikey, who can deny Britt nothing, lifted her over the safety gate one day and let her play in the office while he surfed on the computer. She took the opportunity to free her beloved books from captivity by dumping them over the safety gate into the hallway. I was not amused:

There's a reason why that gate is there.
Uh, yeah, that's what you keep telling me.
But you aren't the one here with The Books all day.

So he went and bought an 18-gallon plastic bin with a snap-on lid to hold The Books. This was a moderate success at first, due to the out-of-sight out-of-mind factor, but eventually Britt would stand at the bin wailing piteously because she couldn't get the lid off.

So, eventually, the lid came off and stayed off. And The Books came out and, lo, they were everywhere -- on the furniture, under the furniture, all over the floor, piled in front of the door, stacked in our tiny utility room, etc, etc. In the time it took for me to throw a load of clothes in the washer, Britt would have the sofa and love seat completely covered in books from end to end. I'd go around picking them up and putting them back in the bin five, six, seven times a day.

Once again, Grammy's sanity wavered.

And so, one night while she slept, I put the bin of books in her bedroom (the one room of the house where she never wants to go) and shut the door. And, unless you've had an obsessive toddler on your hands, you can never understand how much I hated lying to her but it was oh so very necessary.

Where are The Books? Well, gosh, Punkins, I just don't know!

That lasted less than a week. Tonight, for the first time ever, Britt learned how to open a bedroom door. And she found The Books and, lo, they are everywhere.

(***whimper***)

Bugged

As I've mentioned before, Britt isn't into bugs at all.

Well, this is unfortunate, since it seems to be a banner year for bugdom around here. We've had numerous roly-polies, spiders, ants, flies, and an assortment of beetles (not roaches, thank God) in the house lately, as well as a flock swarm whole lot of fruit flies, which is odd since we haven't had any fresh produce in the house in two weeks (bad Grammy!), except for a couple of onions on the counter. Do fruit flies do onions? Or maybe they're just gnats, I dunno.

Our recent episode with mosquitoes in the house seems to have magnified Britt's anti-bugness to the point that she runs screaming to the couch where she huddles, snuffling and hyperventilating, until Grammy removes the offending creature.

It's even worse when it's a fly/fruit fly/gnat because, by the time Britt shrieks and runs for cover, she's pointing at an invisible menace as the thing has flown to less turbulent areas of the house. So I have to sit and hold her, giving what comfort I can, while she gravely informs me, "Skeedos. Eat us."

(***sigh***)

I think it's gonna be a long summer.

In other news, Ginger Baker accidentally got shut up in our bedroom this evening and he pissed on the bed. On Mikey's side of the bed. Mikey, who loves this cat even less than I do.

I scrubbed the spot with upholstery cleaner but it still stinks and there's not much I can do about the pee that seeped down into the padding, is there? Maybe it's finally time to invest in my first-ever bottle of Febreze.

(***sigh***)

Out & About

We went to the Crossroads Kids Club on Tuesday. Britt was totally fascinated by the emcee. Can't you tell?



Her number didn't get called this time, so she didn't win a prize, but she did get up the nerve to go give Sammy D Salamander a hug. I didn't think she would so I didn't get the camera out in time to get a picture, though.

Then she played her little heart out on the playground



and she rode the big carousel and the mini-carousel



and then we had lunch and then we went and got in our oven-hot car and went home.

I hate strapping her into the car when it's so hot. I'm so afraid her tender skin will touch hot metal and sizzle up like a pork rind, but there's no place in the middle of a mall parking lot to put her while I run the air conditioner to get the car cooled down so, hell, what can you do?

Our other big outing for the week was to her zoo class. This month was all about ladybugs and...

Well, Grammy plumbed screwed up. Either because

1. I'm an idiot, or
2. the Alzheimer's is coming to get me.

Take your pick. Somehow I thought the class started at 11:00 (even though we've been going at 10:00 all year) and we got there an hour late, so she missed everything but the ladybug release at the butterfly garden:



Britt doesn't do bugs, so she stood back and watched the whole thing in disgust. I finally went and got a handful to show her that they wouldn't hurt, but she ran away shrieking. Then I tried letting just one crawl over my hand, but she just looked at me like, "Have your lost your flippin' mind, woman?"

The trip wasn't a total loss, though, since the cost of the class includes free admission to the zoo. We watched the geese on the pond for awhile



and then we went to Aquaticus and watched the Fin & Feathers show.



Well, Britt watched it; I watched her, since she wouldn't sit still and was all over the place.



Then we went downstairs to see the fish exhibits



and then it was time for a play-break



and a carousel ride or two.



She's always so cute on the carousel; while it's going around she waves to the crowd like a beauty queen on a parade float.