YEA JACK!

Just logged into the daycare "Watch your kid while you are at work" webcam, which I rarely do anymore. But, as you can read in previous posts, we have been on the potty train this week. We have been in pullups all week, but have stayed dry every day with the exception of a few instances of #2 (blech!) And so I have been telling him that he's doing great and soon he will get to wear a pair of big boy underpants, of which we currently have an assortment on display in a basket in his bathroom to entice him, including Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Grover, Ernie, Thomas the Train and his favorite - 3 pairs showcasing the Pixar film - Cars. Last night as he made the last trip into the bathroom for the night, he picked up his favorite pair of underpants - featuring the ever cool Lightning McQueen, laid them on the bathroom floor, smoothed them out and bent over and kissed them. Lightning has a power in our house that is unsurpassed by anything.

So, I had to check to see if he's still in the same shorts I sent him in to school today because as we were getting dressed today he picked up his Lightning McQueen big boy underpants and held them out, looking at me with those big blue eyes as if to say,

"Mommy I can do it, I promise...please can I wear them?"

And so off to school he went.

And he's still in those same shorts and it's 3:15pm.

My little man is, as he says, "getting BIGGER!"

Ah the power of Cars continues to dominate the Rath household.

Progress

If I'd written this post on Friday, the title would have been something like "Looks Like We'll Wait a While" or "Regress" but alas, just when you think you know what the heck is going on as a parent, BAM! New day.



So, last week Jack was on the rollercoaster of potty training. Went to school in big boy underpants everyday and stayed dry all the way ...not a small feat when you consider we have about a 45 minute drive, and one day it was more like an hour. However, once there, although he would wake up from nap and RAN to the potty and made it, for the most part the days were filled with "accidents", sometimes in the middle of the room and sometimes standing right in front of the potty.



On Wednesday, the day of his graduation party, I dreaded thinking how he would likely have an accident, especially with all the extra parents and siblings in the room. And although I initially wasn't planning on going, the teachers convinced me to change my mind since they had a short program planned with a song and a little ceremony where each child was given a small construction paper medal to wear around their neck with a "best" moniker...Jack Rath - "Best Nature Lover". (I'm told he likes to lay on his cot at nap and look out the windows into the woods behind the center and watch for deer - go figure.) Cute moment, eh?






Not so cute moment - as the class sat in a circle ready to sing the song they likely practiced for months, my child turns facing me and all the other parents (instead of his friends) and says "I don't want Mommy be here!" Fabulous, and I was fighting the guilt the whole day that I had sacrificed being there later in the week for Duke's party. I'm thinking now I should have stuck with the 20 month old celebrations.


He did have an accident, 30 seconds after both his teacher and I asked him if he needed to sit on the potty. So by Friday when I picked up and learned that he'd had several accidents that morning and was in a pull up, I was fully prepared to go right back to the safety of his Cars pull-ups to try again in another month.



But that's just when BAM! shows up.



Saturday were a day of firsts:
First time tells me on his own that he needs to sit on the potty.
First time he makes it nearly an entire day dry between trips to the potty.
First time he calls me back to his room (by the way he is now in a "big boy" bed") so he can sit on the potty because he has more "pee pee coming out" and actually makes it to the toilet.



So, how about that! We are still relying on the pull ups rather than big boy underpants, mainly because he transitions to a new room at daycare Thursday and I really don't want to dump on the teachers a child who will likely be more interested in his new surroundings than keeping track of his body telling him when "it's coming!"



Of course, might be the cool new Melissa and Doug stamp kit his Mommy bought him on Friday to use as a reward if he actually puts his pee pee in the potty.



Either way, on we go.

Potty Training...I Think We Started?

in March...we started wearing Pull Ups that month. My mistake, if I had any idea how this was supposed to work I would not have been paying through my nose to only frustrate myself for nearly 6 months knowing that eventually the kid might actually tell me when he's ready.

I have not pushed, in fact I would like them both to be in diapers/pull ups for as long as possible because then I don't have to repeat myself 20 times an hour "Jack? Are you still dry?" "Jack? Do you need to sit on the potty?" "Jack, tell Mommy if you need to tee tee." Or worry on our 45 minute commute if my car is going to smell like pee for the rest of the time I own it.

Usually I am ignored when I question him. This weekend I got a new response, "Don't talk." or "Stop Talking Mommy!"

Hmmmm...do I read this as progress?

The girls at daycare assure me it is. He pleaded to wear "the highway ones" (Cars underpants) today and I let him. And he went through all 3 pairs of extra shorts and Elmo underpants I left at school with him. But I am told that's normal.

Let's hope so.

Duke isn't far behind.

And based on my level of stress with it, I may hire someone to deal with the second round.

How Cute is My Kid?

I'm not that into myself, you know that, but since I haven't had time to upload new pics, I will just direct you to my sister in law's site, where she did!

How cute is this, I love you Natalie!

The List

It is never ending, but I have managed the following this week:

• Have the kids back on a schedule of some sort, at least one that does not involve an all out screaming fit of "I don't want to brush my teeth!" prior to bedtime that escalates into an hour and a half wrestling match into a crib.
• Posted nearly all of the infant/baby items that we no longer need and want to sell on Craig's List - with pics that I took a month ago!
• Uninstalled (after multiple failed attempts) a corrupt Quicktime application on Cory's laptop, reinstalled iTunes and connected and sync'd his new iPhone.
• Logged into facebook and actually connected with some friends instead of just checking the live feed off my phone app.
• Avoided my own meltdown at the office due to having 4 colleagues out on vacation this week and wanting to strangle a few that were left behind.
• Shipped two book requests from paperbackswap.com and am considering just what 4 I want to request free for my credits.
• Restored my home to near normal cleanliness after visitors departed this weekend (we miss you already!)
• Donated our 3 bags of gently worn clothes to Hannah Home (after the 6 months they have been residing in our garage).
• Bought $116 worth of this week's groceries for only $70 - I LOVE PUBLIX!
• Saw an allergist and actually will stop ignoring and start treatment for the annoying nasal allergies I have been suffering from for the past 10 years.
• Setup a sitter for two adult only nights out in August.
• Played a game of indoor baseball "Mommy, it's YOUR turn!" with the boys (all 3 of them).
• Sharpened both ends of all their crayons to make it a no brainer choosing which end will color best (all while keeping Duke from chewing on every one he could get his hands on).
• Posted to this blog.
• Found a shrieking 19mo old's paci in the near pitch dark of his room after staring at computer screens for the past 3 hours and silenced him seconds later (I know, I know...it's just as much my habit as his!)

Not bad, considering it's only Tuesday.

Ending the guilt

Has it been a month? Really?

Yes I know fully well how long it's been since I've posted because every night as I laid my head down on my pillow I'd think of the post I meant to write and now I have something like 26 that I want to do. Such as the awesome time I had in Racine with old friends (ahem, as in from a long time ago, not aged!), the break I had from 24/7 Mommy in Orlando last week (even if it revolved around work), the amazing community service event I participated in with my church in downtown Birmingham and just the multitude of craziness that has overtaken our summer. Well they will get here somehow, but for now I'm just playing with my new iPhone and discovering I can now blog on the go.

This could get fun.

Perspective

My devoted readers, I do apologize once again for the extended hiatus from keeping you ever so entertained with my humorous existence. I intended to blog from the road, first from the lake trip to Cory's parents in Tennesse, and second from my trip back home to Racine, for my 20th High School Class Reunion. Both deserve entries in their own right, and I will be posting in the near future with flashback moments, so do not stray far. However, with those two trips and life in between and recent events, I have not had the time to spend like I want to - and the reunion by all means deserves much attention! Tonite however brought a morsel of reality to my week that I felt I had to share.

I had a short week last week in between returning from Tennessee on Sunday and flying out to Wisconsin on Thursday, most of it spent working, laundering, re-packing and settling Cory into what he needed for the boys while I was away. One of which was a plan to build a beach for our lake so they could enjoy the water as much as they did the weekend we were at my inlaws. That leads into the manic week we've had since I returned. And let me apologize in advance to my mother in law who is reading this and learning it for the first time...I have not had a moment to call and catch you up...and I needed this break for my sanity!

Cory built the beach while the kids were in school and while I was away. However, in the midst of it, he neglected his own well being in favor of getting it finished in between working and not having the kids underfoot, which meant the hotest time of the day and found himself in the throes of heat exhaustion by Friday night. (Note to husbands out there, avoid mentioning such things as illnesses that could potentially keep you from being able to manage your children on your own while your wife is away on a trip that requires a plane to get her home.)

He assured me he was fine on Saturday. And even Sunday, he seemed fairly well, tired, but that was assumed to be due to having the kids entirely by himself for 4 days.

Monday afternoon, I started to get a bit concerned when he said he was planning to nap because he thought he was still feeling some effects from the heat exhaustion. And by 5:30 when he called while I was at my church small group meeting for our summer community outreach to tell me he just woke up, I got even more concerned. He said he spoke to his pharmicist buddy who told him he probably wasn't replacing what he needed with just water, but rather should get some Gatorade, along with calcium, potassium and magnesium. Since we were headed to Publix, I could handle the Gatorade and told him to just down one of my leftover prenatal vitamins for now and the next day, he needed to see a doc.

Tuesday came, doc was booked, he said he felt better, just his back was locked up. Probably from the mattress at his mom's (again, sorry Ruth Ann!). So instead he made a visit to the chiropractor. That afternoon - seemingly better. That is until I got home.

All through dinner prep, he was sighing, that "oh, I feel so miserable" sigh. At first, my instinct was, "For Pete's sake! Get over it already, I'm home!". I even went so far to tell him to go to bed and leave me with the kids, I couldn't take the martydom anymore. But later, after I got the kids to bed, he came out of the bedroom and was shaky and said he felt really hot. I felt his forehead, and in a second, told him to get in the shower. I took his temp - it was 105.4. I dropped the air conditioning down to 70 degrees in our room, gave him two ibuprofen and put a fan on him while he held ice packs under his arms until his temp dropped to 102 an hour later and then eventually to 99.3 when we went to bed.

This morning, fever still hanging on but not as high, since the kids are out of daycare the rest of the week, I called in to work and sent him out to the Urgent Care Clinic.

And waited. He called at 8:45 from his doctor - they worked him in so he didn't have to wait at the UCC.

I waited.

He called an hour later, he was on an IV and they were setting up a chest xray.

I waited.

Finally just before noon he called and said he was halfway through the 2nd IV and all the test were negative for any kind of damage from heat exhaustion/stroke. They found a virus in his lungs, I guess through the xray. Apparently from the sinus infection that still didn't seem to have completely gone away, and when the heat exhaustion set in last week, it opened the door and his body just couldn't fight it. So after 5 shots, 2 IVs and prescriptions for 10 days of 2 other antibiotics, he came home.

He's been in bed since, probably will be until Friday according to the doc. I can tell you my emotions have ranged from anger at his lack of care for himself and the risk he could have brought to the kids because of it, to frustration at getting behind in things at home and work playing single parent on a week I had planned for having help. But all were usurped by the fear of what I'd have done if the outcome had been worse, heat stroke can lead to permanent organ damage, even death; and what would I tell the kids (which brought back another round of the anger, short lived, but there nonetheless).

I am settled now, checking on him regularly, glad he's home and we know what we should watch for. His fever is still hanging on, but lower, and should break by tomorrow. And I'm relieved, for reasons you all can imagine.

This brings me, the long way to the short story, of what lightened me up tonite.

Jack has been working hard at using his manners, more specifically, instead of "I want my water, snack, etc.", it's "Please may I have..." But always, it's my prompt that brings him to it.

So tonite, he's in the tub, yelling to me in the kitchen "I want my water, I want my water, I want my water!" I'm tired, I grab the water, but before I offer it, I catch myself and remind him, "Jack, we need to use our manners when we want something." He responds, "I want something." To which I reply, "Then use your manners to ask for something that you want."

The light bulb behind those blue eyes with the long eyelashes did not flicker, didn't brighten as if on a dimmer switch, it turned full on that instant.

"Please may I go to Old McDonald's!"

I have no doubt that someday, a long time from now, he will still be the one to put perspective back into my day.