Trouble in potty training paradise...

After 2 weeks of pretty much potty training perfection, I was calling Lily the easiest kid to potty-train in history.

Today, however, she has made up her mind to go to the bathroom ANYWHERE but in the bathroom.

Running total for today: So far... she's gone in her bedroom, in my mom's new classroom, on the living room rug, in Jeff's office, and on the living room floor lamp... and unfortunately they weren't all numero uno.

 
We are officially out of undies until this load of laundry finishes. I was informed by a parent of a similar child that there might be a battle of wills to see who would give up first.  Therefore… I WILL NOT put her back in a diaper. We’re on a reward system again. Once Lily fills this chart… she gets to make cookies with me.  She’s already confused by this and the reward system for sleeping in her bed (not rolling into ours at 2 am).

 

Completely unrelated…

Yesterday, I decided to try to stop drinking cokes since our supply had run out.

Totally related…
Today, I had a true addict moment.

After the 3rd potty accident in 30 minutes, I yelled, "Get your shoes on pee-pants, Mama needs a COKE."

While driving to Sonic, I observed that the drive through liquor store is much more conveniently located right at the entrance of our neighborhood (...classy, I know!)

… but I digress.

In other matters...

I've had so much fun with not one, but 2 visits from old friends in the same week. Laura and Kelli, my roommates at UT and BFFs, came to stay in Casa de Olson both at separate times Tuesday through Sun

day. It was so much fun to reminisce and catch up in person.
Laura took 2 year pictures of Lily while here... can't wait to see how they turned out.

…Especially since our NEW camera is in a cardboard coffin bound for the Nikon warehouse.  Someone, who shall remain nameless, dropped it in the garage while taking a photo of his Bowflex to place on Craigslist.  It stopped working just as the first bid on ebay was placed on our old Olympus.  I start twitching and sweating when I think about having no camera… correction… no DSLR camera… for who knows how long and through who knows how many important events in my daughter’s life.

 

How will we survive without slightly blurred photos of MAJOR happenings…

Like watching deer in our backyard…

… or painting with Lukie B.

 

Hurry home little Nikon. Hurry home.

Mama’s doing her home wax kit tonight….

 

Lily’s favorite thing to say lately is … ‘like so and so does!” always going UP at the end.

For example…

They are playing baseball…. like Nonah and Siah does.

I colored green… like Isaac does.

I be silly…. like Lukie does.

 

So today while playing with chapstick she said…

 

Look, I have a mustache…

…LIKE MOMMY DOES.

 

All I could say was…. ‘NEAT!’

Stinker.

 

The REAL housewife

of central Texas.

I must admit that I laughed…. hard…. when watching The Real Housewives of NYC and they cut from one family sunning in their luxurious pool at their Hamptons home to this:

"People who live in apartments in New York City, as a lot of people do, don't have this luxury," breezed Alex, as she and her semi-creepy husband floated in their  inflatable, above-ground pool.

HAHAHAHA!

 

Well, who’s laughing now…

We are now the proud owners of this beauty.

Although the show made them out to be  nerd-city…. I’m totally psyched. The blue blow up pool is a big step up from the jungle themed number we had been occupying previously…. and was not big enough for me to be in.  This thing I will definitely be using… just wish I  couldn’t be seen from the street as I lay on a neon air mattress during Lily’s naptime.

 

I laughed again imagining if there were camera people capturing me, A REAL HOUSWIFE of central Texas…. packing up and heading to the local Wal Mart… buying zit cream, toothpaste and an inflatable pool… running back to check if they had Blue Bell Butter Crunch ice cream…. returning to husband and child deflated after they didn’t…. coming home to eat hot dogs on the porch and watch her husband put it together…  standing in the knee deep water bargaining with her toddler not to ‘GO’ in her swim diaper… hoisting a screaming toddler out of the water  after she ‘WENT’ in her swim diaper.

Ahhhhh….  what a glamorous life I lead.

Lily takes a break from her fancy new pool to go to town on some black olives.

I just wasted about an hour on the website...

www.yearbookyourself.com 

I took our Christmas card photo from last year:

 

and found out what I would have looked like had I been born in a different time.... and slightly deformed.

 

1960                                                                1964

1968                                                           1976

1980                                                                           1986

1990

 

I had so much fun doing mine that I did Jeff's too...

and nearly wet myself. 

ENJOY...

1950                                                                1962

1976                                                               1980

1986                                                               1990

Yesterday morning I left my noisy wind tunnel of a bedroom that Jeff has made me acclimate to, only to hear another sound. It was like I had just stepped out of a tent. The crickets were so loud that I was sure we had left a window open or something. I left for school giving Jeff the mission to find the window that was open during the day.

During school, my day was interrupted several times by shrieking children. One rolled an eye over to see a cricket sitting next to his head on the library center pillow. Another time a cricket liked the story I was reading, so he decided to hop in and join us at the carpet. The children were aghast when I instructed them to step on it and then put it in the trash can. My justification to their " Awwww"s was, "Hey, if I dropped into a cricket classroom... I would fully expect for them to dispose of me as well."

I returned home to find that Jeff had located the source of our house sounding like a campsite. He opened the garage door to reveal about 80, 000 crickets. I'm not sure what Austin, Texas has done... its probably only like number 3 on the lists of modern day Sodom and Gomorrahs.... Las Vegas would definitely be destroyed first .... but ....I'm talking about a plague of biblical proportions. I'm just praising Jesus that its not frogs.... I'd be saying " Minnesota... here we come!"

Picture this...

21 sweaty kids just in from recess. I saw one picking up pebbles and sucking on them, one licking the palms of his hand, and several eating the finds from their left nostril. Point being... they're pretty dirty.

I had just dismissed them to do some independent working and one girl began to have a breakdown. This is the same girl that tried to get out of putting food in someone's seat, by crying to me about how it was because her sister calls her an idiot. Anyway...

She's sitting at my table... because I need to talk to her about balancing her water bottle on her forehead while I am teaching. Another child came up to ask me a question while I took a big drink of water. While the other child was talking to me... this girl kept trying to get my attention and I kept quieting her. Finally... I say, "Yes Leticia, what is it?"

"um... Mrs. Olson... you just drank the rest of my water bottle."

I have never had to fight back my gag reflex so much before in my life. I really thought the kids were going to see me lose it. I had to eat 3 tootsie pops and drink a coke to help me forget.

I will never make that mistake again... guaranteed!

After leaving my apartment due to having no hot water (yet again), I returned to find no heat either. Normally this would be no problem, however, Austin has had arctic temperatures over the weekend. I don't know why my pilot light blows out so often.

The other morning I was awoken by somthing moving on my face right under my eye. I quickly and half-consciously slapped and then flung whatever it was. When my alarm went off, I turned on the light and was horrified. An insect, which I pretty sure is a 1st cousin to the roach, lay half squished on my carpet. It was long and brown and had two stinger-like appendages on its end. I know what you're thinking and I say...Yeah! Sick!

Using the term coined by the great Corky St. Clair in Waiting for Guffman, I can't wait to get out of this "ELL OLE!"

Upon entering my frigid apartment today, Jeff made a beeline for the bathroom and began to scrub. I keep reassuring him that I'm really not a dirty person... I'm just never at home to clean. He kept a classic look of disgust on his face the whole time as he frantically tried to fling my shed hair off of his hands. As long as it doesn't make him stop liking me... I'm quite enjoying my new shiny bathtub!

I should rename this blog "confessions of a girl that drives a car that's a piece."

But anyway... so just when I've been telling my dad and jeff that the reason I should get a new car sooner rather than dragging out my agony for a few more months is because my car could die at any time... leaving me unsafe. Well, my car and I were on good terms lately and I actually considered waiting until i had a bit more money... when it died... on an exit ramp of I35. It died.. it just popped up with 'check engine' and died. I was going up a small hill and it proceeded to roll backward as I nervously tried to get it started while irate motorists zoomed around me. Now granted... I was rather low on gas... but still...that is reason enough for me to call it quits.

So... if anyone is in the market for a grayish/black ancient explorer with a dented in bumper, 1 1/2 functioning automatic windows, a smashed in blinker, and leaking power steering fluid that gives each turn the charming sound of a sperm whale trying to locate its lost family... then I will sell it to you..cheap ... heck, I'll leave it parked at my apt. with the keys in it. come by anytime.

I’ve been driving the same car since I turned 16, and even then, it was 7 years old. There’s a leak somewhere in the sunroof … the sunroof that cranks open to about a 15 degree angle when fully opened… so after in rains, it smells sort of like a hamster cage. Parts of the car have been repainted, so some panels are shiny black and the adjacent will be a dull grayish black. Somehow that translates to people as navy.(?) I put on a W '04 sticker to show my support in the Kerry sticker filled parking lot of UT. However, I often worry that other republicans see my car and wish i would remove it... cause it's bringing down their image.
Recently my old friend has begun a new list of old-car symptoms. 1. can’t change gears for several miles…When I pull out of my apartment complex, I get to watch as cars zoom around me being sure to give a good, hard look at the girl who just pulled out onto a busy street, but can’t seem to make it over 10 mph for the next 6 miles. 2. rumbles, shakes, and lurches at stoplights. I get a horrible sense of dread at the color yellow. When I stop at a light for longer than 30 seconds, I have to stop a full car length behind the last person because my car begins to shake violently, make a coughing noise, and lurches forward. 3. makes a machine gun noise at random, inconvenient times. A few months ago I got the pleasure of watching the lady in front of me at a stoplight physically jump in her seat and look in her rear view mirror with sheer terror at the jarring rat-tat-tat coming from under my hood. I now fantasize about seeing her face if I could have only been carrying a toy machine gun with a crazed look in my eye. Hmmm….

Final thought: It truly is a luxury to get in you car and know that it will start, to accelerate at a normal length of time, to have keyless entry, to have a sunroof that slides – not cranks, to be able to stop close behind a car at a stoplight, to have doors and panels all the same color, etc. Be thankful.