The Potty Training Chronicles

This morning as I'm changing Bubba's diaper:

Bubba:  Where's [Scooter's] diaper.
Me:  She doesn't wear a diaper. [Scooter] wears big girl underpants

*Scooter laughing*

Bubba: I want big girl underpants.
Me: Do you want big boy underpants?

*Scooter laughing*

Bubba: No. I want big GIRL underpants like [Scooter]
Me: Hm...well...you have to go peepee and poopoo on the potty EVERY TIME, like [Scooter] to get big girl underpants, too.

*Scooter hysterical*

Angry Birds

Have you ever played that game? I have not. I'm not really much of a gamer. I did, however ruffle some feathers last weekend.

A little background:
1. the ex is a bit of a control freak. He's super angry about losing the court case in March.
2. the ex gets airfare and hotel costs "reimbursed" by the state if he comes out to visit Scooter (up to his child support amount - basically, if he comes to visit Scooter and spends $800 on air and hotel, he gets a credit applied to his child support obligation, and Scooter doesn't get child support for the next month).
3. as such, the ex plans to visit monthly indefinitely.
4. Scooter spent 10 months at his house in the past year, during which time she slowly but surely moved almost all of her clothes over to his house, as well as several toys.

My thoughts:
1. if the ex truly cared about his child, he'd buck up and pay child support.

Apparently, my thoughts don't matter too much. But back to last weekend. I emailed him before he came alerting him to the fact that I didn't think it was wise for me to continue sending clothing and other items with her when she visited him, since I still haven't gotten anything back from his house. In fact, he admitted to throwing most everything away - including a stuffed animal that Scooter had bought with Christmas money when she was with me for a weekend in January. In the interest of objectivity, my email to him is below.*

Hi Adam,

Scooter had her ortho appointment at Ensley Orthodontics yesterday. Dr. Ensley said that her x-rays looked really good, and although there is some crowding of the teeth she currently has, it's pretty mild. They'll monitor her development annually until all of her permanent teeth are in, and then start treatment.

Scooter really wants to do Girl Scouts this year. The open house for that is on Sunday from 12 until 3 at Valley Catholic Church (4275 SW 148th Ave). Please make sure she makes it to that. Where are you staying this weekend? This will be a good opportunity for you to return the clothes she brought to your house last year. I'm reluctant to send anything with her this weekend, as you have a history of not returning her things.

What do you want to do for holiday travel this year?

Thanks,
Lori

* I changed her name. You know the drill.

His reply? Well...there was none. But after he picked her up on Saturday (after 11am - he had her for a total of 33 hours - which amounts to over $24 an hour), he sent me two emails, which are also below. They are verbatim, so please excuse the cursing.

Real fucking nice Lori.
 
Thanks for packing no clothes not even pj s or a t shirt.
 
You can drop them off at the hotel or pay me back for what I spend.
 
Next time pack some clothes for Scooter supermom.  
 
Thanks,
 
Adam

and this:

And vanicream.  Thanks asshole.

Additionally, he cc'd his wife on both emails, which is kind of a no-no according to the court order (I'll quote below):

 "Keep all communications regarding significant matters regarding the minor child between the parents who are 

parties to this agreement only, regardless of future relationships."

I guess technically, this was not a significant matter. But still. What bothered me most by those emails were not 

really the swear words (although for real, people...do you wonder why we divorced in the first place?!), but the 

grammar (syntax?) errors. "Next time pack some clothes for Scooter supermom."? I had no idea that her nickname 

was Scooter supermom. "Thanks asshole"? Whatever happened to commas in proper places? I don't think 

his emails meant what he thought they meant.

party party

It's been a while since I've felt like this at work. It used to be that I'd stay out late, maybe have a couple of drinks, stagger home around 2, get up for PT (I was in the Army, afterall) around 5:00am, and feel similar to this for most of the morning. I'd bounce back quickly enough to do it again the next night. Or I wouldn't, and I'd go to bed early. Either way, I had a say in the matter. Nowadays, I feel like this because I slept with a toddler in 15 minute increments while alternatively listening to his cough and then listening to his breathing (is it too shallow? Is it too wheezy? If I fall asleep, will he die without waking me up first?). This is no way to live.

I'll admit. I'm a little jumpy when it comes to upper respiratory infections (either viral or bacterial). I have an 8 year old who's been hospitalized for 4 days with pneumonia and kept in the ER for a night with an asthmatic response to her dad's cat. I have a 2 year old who got so many viruses in daycare his first year that he was hospitalized w/ an RSV-type infection for 2 days. We finally got a nanny to curb his once-per-week illnesses. When we moved here, and put him back in daycare, the viruses have slowed, but not by much. He's still sick more than he should be. And even though I was sure he'd be well on his way to recovery when I got home from work yesterday, the opposite was true. He was worse - coughing until he was sick to his stomach last night, and then breathing shallowly enough for me to contemplate waking Ben up.

So forgive me today if I am a little slow or foggy-headed. I had a wild night last night.

Heeeeeyyyy Portland Timbers!

I took Scooter to a Portland Timbers game on Wednesday. There's only one home game after this, and I've been talking to her/wanting to take her to a game since March, when the Timbers started playing. Not necessarily because I'm a huge soccer fan. Mostly b/c I've never been to a professional soccer game, and since Scooter is interested in soccer, I thought she might like to take in a game with me. When we lived in Omaha, I took her to several minor league baseball games. They were always pretty much what you'd expect. Hot. Monotonous followed by some excitement and some snacks. I kind of expected the same from the Timbers. After all, watching soccer on TV is about as boring to me as watching baseball.

Man, was I wrong. We could hear the crowd while we were still on the train on our way to the stadium. We got our tickets (general admission which is the Timbers Army section) and headed in for ice cream and to find a seat. As we entered through the doorway into the stadium area, thousands of pieces of torn program rained down on us like confetti. Green balloons bounced off our heads as we nearly went deaf from the screaming around us. The game hadn't even started, yet. There was chanting and clapping and kind of a controlled chaos. We were general admission, so we could pick our seats. Since we got there moments before kick off, we were relegated to the northeast corner of the stadium. Behind a large concrete pillar which held (I think) an apparel store below. We could see about 66% of the field, not including the south end jumbotron or the goal. But really, the action was in the stands as far as I was concerned.

The Timbers Army sang/chanted/cheered with equally intense gusto for the whole game (well...the whole game we were there. We left shortly after the half). It was amazing and fun. Scooter's eyes were round like soccer balls and she was laughing out loud people-watching and cheering for the Timbers. I was smiling at her and studying the program to figure out who on the Timbers team had the ball. It was the most exciting live sporting even I've ever been to.

A sampling of the chants are below. Study up before the next match!

Hey Portland Timbers chant

Tetris Chant

Onward Rose City

Oh Rose City Soccer City

PTFC (Portland Timbers Football Club)

Toilet humor

This will, by far, be the grossest thing you've read all day. Maybe all week. So, please excuse me for my crassness, but I'm slightly sleep deprived, stressed at work, and facing what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle of a stubborn boy in the midst of potty training.

Everything started out really well. We took accidents in stride, and praised using the potty like mad. I even brushed off the ol' "pee-pee in the potty!" song (think samba line beat). We were consistently turning out 0-1 accident days. He spent a test day in preschool and loved it. Then something happened. Well...it might have been a confluence of events. For one, he's never really *liked* going poopoo on the potty. Other than the one time we forgot about him and he did it on his own, it's been kind of a "have to" type of thing rather than a "want to."

For the past few weeks, he's been "holding it." Every few days, he'll blow - either in the potty or in a diaper or *shudder* in his underpants. Last night was one of those "day 3" situations. There were skidmarks in his hulk-smash underpants. It was time. He sat on the froggy potty making his poo-face for a while. And then he hopped up and said no. I briefly thought about letting him go, but those skid marks! No way. He needed to sit. He chose to squat on the floor while horrible gases escaped. Scooter and I talked him back down onto the potty. He hopped up and I gave him the option of going on the "water potty." Utter, bone-chilling fear crossed his face and he sat back down. He hopped up and said his belly hurt. He leaned across my lap while more noxious fumes seeped out. Then he panicked. It was coming! I sat him back on the potty, and he filled it, softserve ice cream style until he couldn't sit on froggy anymore. The whole potty was filled and the poo was swirled up like some sort of grotesque DQ cone. And my son was terrified, screaming, so sad. We dumped, flushed, cleaned, wiped and sanitized and then put new big boy underpants on.

Poor Bubba was traumatized. Going on the potty is scary. And so many people were expecting so much out of him. I picked him up and hugged him while talking soothingly in his ear about how proud we were of him for giving the froggy his poo poo. Bubba layed his head on my shoulder and started to relax, his breath catching a few times as he calmed down. He went a little limp, fully relaxing. Only then did I realize that he hadn't gone pee pee in the potty in a couple of hours. And I only realized it because my shirt suddenly got very warm and wet. Yeah...he peed on me.

I could either look at it as paybacks for my making him sit on that potty for 45 minutes. OR I could look at it as he feels like he can really, truly relax with his mom. I chose the latter, and told Ben as much. Ben replied with, "Well, yeah, but nobody should relax THAT much." I guess he's right. But I'll take it for now.

Wow. Maybe this is legit...

I wrote last week about yoga. Specifically, the beginning bikram class I'm taking, and how each pose is supposed to alleviate some sort of health issue - or promote some other health thing. I thought the claims were a little far fetched. And then last night happened.

I was in class (my 9th, I think? Which would get us down to $2.22 per class, thank you!), doing the rabbit pose, when I felt/heard/sensed a popping in the middle of my head. At first, I wondered if my skull had popped, like a knuckle joint. Then, as my breathing became suddenly eeeeeaaassssyyy, I realized that something ocurred deep in my sinuses, and I could breathe more clearly than I had in years (ever, maybe). I've lived with allergies since I can remember. I am ashamed to admit, that I was a bit of a mouth-breather in elementary school. I still am, when I visit Omaha in the wrong season. And although in adulthood medications have greatly helped me in my quest to breathe, I realized last night that I have never really not struggled with breathing through my nose. I mean, I live like this...so I had no idea that I was struggling until last night, when suddenly, in the middle of a pose that:

• Cures insomnia, depression, colds, sinus, tonsillitis, laryngitis, allergies and glandular defects
• Compresses thyroid
• Balances hormones
• Improves flexibility of scapula
• Stimulates nerves behind eyes

I was able to really, truly breathe. It was incredible.

It's actually my favorite pose for stretching my lower back and one that I've tried teaching to Ben. I've come to realize that the 26 poses (rabbit pose is #23) kind of build on each other and the 105 degree room also enables a certain amount of flexibility that one might not be able to reach outside of that temperature range. Maybe we should invest in a hot room when we (if we ever) buy a house... It's got to be cheaper than the $1,000 per year membership (per person - and that's with the huge discount!) to this place.

Good Sam

I work for a healthcare system. It's pretty large: one of the top 10 employers in Portland. On my way into work this morning, a woman flagged me down at a stop sign. Her car window was rolled down, and as I walked up, she asked if there was a parking lot or parking garage around there. I asked, "What for?" She replied, "For my car!" he he he...

I rephrased, "Where are you going?" She said, "To the hospital on 22nd." Ah. Of course. She was heading in exactly the wrong way. I gave her directions to the three parking garages near the hospital, she thanked me (as the cars were piling up behind her) and I walked on my way. I saw her a couple of blocks later, parking her car in the system office parking lot. She was more than 3 blocks away from the hospital, but she was in a visitor spot, so I figured I'd just wave and let her be. It feels nice to help people out. I especially like helping older, Asian ladies. Don't ask me why. I have no idea.

Dreaming of Me

I've been having some pretty vivid dreams, lately. Vivid is a strange term, to me, to explain the phenomenon of dreams that stay with you. Mostly because I generally think of the color saturation definition of vivid rather than the "realness, freshness, trueness to life" definition. But they were "true to life" dreams. Not so much in what happened during the dreams, but more along the lasting impression and emotion I felt afterward.

I dreamed last night that I lost the appeal. I lost the appeal that I hadn't realized had been pushed up to late September, from the late February/early March estimate given to me by my lawyer. I lost the appeal because my lawyer hadn't given me his brief to review ahead of time. I could have added so much to that document. Not only did I lose the appeal, but for some reason, I lost custody in the process. I had to go to work to quit so I could move, unemployed, back to Omaha. It was shocking, discouraging, sad. I immediately wanted to call my lawyer when I woke up to make sure that he was still on top of things. It made me want to hear him tell me, again, that our chances of winning were greater than 95%. But that was the other thing. Part of the reason why the dream was so shocking and sad was because I knew our chances were so good.

When this all came about a little over a year ago, my lawyer warned me that our chances of winning the original case were 50-50, maybe even 40-60 (the bad way). District Court judges in Omaha, NE happen to LIKE Omaha, NE. They raised their children there. They don't like to separate kids from their parents. Damn. Since my options at that time were to stay in Omaha, unemployed, likely in danger of losing my house or move to a better job with a better climate for my family, we took our chances. We knew the chances. We prepared ourselves for a devastating loss. We won. And I still tear up thinking about the day we found out.

Now, my Debbie Downer lawyer (for whom I am eternally grateful) was giving us 95-5 98-2 odds. Why wouldn't I assume that it's in the bag? Except, in my dream, it wasn't. And it was even more devastating than if we had lost in the first place. So I think I'll start preparing myself for a hail mary-style loss. God, I hope we don't lose.

So...Some random thoughts I've had these past few weeks (since I'm not a very devoted blogger, lately).

I saw a stranger in the break room the other day. We had been out of napkins for a few days, and suddenly, here was this stranger, at 4pm on a Monday, taking tally of everything in there. Weird. The next day, the napkin basket was full, and a backup napkin pack was in the cupboard. Cool. Today (a mere 2 days later), the napkin basket is empty and the backup is 3/4 gone. Someone in my office steals napkins. I'm going to have to start watching the break room door a little more closely.

Multi-tasking

I generally pride myself on my ability to multitask. But I found out this week that I cannot listen to a radio talk program and write at the same time. I have no problem listening to coworkers and writing or listening to music and writing, etc. But I cannot, for the life of me, listen to This American Life and write my blog at the same time. And since I have forgotten my ipod at home everyday this week, I regret to say, I haven't been able to think much less write.

The first day of school was Tuesday. It (apparently) went well. Scooter is a very positive girl, and even if it was a horrible day, she probably would have told us it was a good day. Wednesday was her first soccer practice. It went well, too. Scooter met a new friend (nobody on her team goes to William Walker), and I met a mom. She seems really nice, but we'll see how it goes. I'm pretty terrible at making friends. Thursday was a mellow day. Kind of. I went to yoga (class number 5). Friday was decompress day. Saturday was busy with Scooter's first soccer game and a cleaning overhaul of the kitchen as well as a little shopping for Scooter and I. Today? Today, the kids and I went to Seaside and Cannon Beach. We went to the aquarium at seaside and then we ate at Mo's in Cannon Beach. That area was so fogged in, we drove back up to Seaside to play on the beach. It was 59 degrees.

 And really windy...

But it was fun. I figure if we don't do fun things like that, even on a day like 9-11, then the terrorists have won.

It was a good day, and some good quality time for me with the kiddos. I guess yesterday was like that, too, since I took the kids to Scooter's soccer game by myself, too. But honestly, it's sometimes easier just me. I'm the "mean" parent. So when it's just me and the kids, I don't have to second guess my instincts. I can just be mean. In my defense, my parenting style worked pretty well with Scooter, and when Bubba is with just me, he's usually very good at listening. I might be strict, but I also have a certain amount of patience for noise and squirms. I have an intolerance for disrespect and not listening to me. But I'm pretty ok with inappropriate squeals and pokiness during mealtimes. I think it all evens out in the end. I hope it all evens out.