Potty mouth

I've started toilet training. Not the two-year-old. The ten-year-old. He can't seem to leave the toilet seat down.

He understands the plain English of "Put the seat down when you're done." In some ways, getting him to lift it was a victory. But now we're working on the other part of that skill, which is returning the seat to home when his business is finished.

The problem isn't that he doesn't understand the command. It's the concept that escapes him, as evidenced by the following question: Why?

It's a routine. "Knock knock." "Who's there?"  But our version goes, "Put the seat down." "Why?"

Now, I win the battle every time by pulling out my bazooka against which there is no defense. "Because I'm your mom and I said so." But the war is still waging and it won't be over until I never again have to repeat the command, "Put the seat down." That will be victory.

The trick to winning is to make an argument so compelling that my ten-year-old never needs to ask me "Why?" again. I could force him to put the seat down under threat of grounding but there wouldn't be any real submission. It'd be martial law if I enforced "seat down" status that way. Revolution would brew in his little mind. And worse, we'd still be having this argument every other day.

So I stepped up the artillery and brought out bigger guns. "Why?" he asked. "Because your future wife is going to be super mad (I'd like credit for skipping the obvious pun here, btw) if you don't put the seat down."

Guess what? Future wives + ten-year-old boys = no dice. He couldn't care less about abstract future wives. Girls are still yucky and I've got at least two more years to enjoy that phase.

A few minutes ago I called him down the stairs, had him put the seat down, engaged in the same dumb verbal skirmish we always have, sent him back up, and then . . . it struck me. I'm prepared for Wednesday, which should be the next time he "forgets" to put the seat down and asks "But why? How come I have to put the seat down? It's not fair. Why don't YOU have to put the seat UP?" when I make him do it. His most powerful weapon is an argument constructed solely on logic. 

But I have one too, and it's even bigger. Here it is: Only boys use the toilet standing up but EVERYBODY uses the toilet sitting down so it's more fair to leave the seat down.

Ka-boom!

Ah, the sweet sound of blowing the opposition to smithereens!

Best Diet EVER!

Sometimes I'm a natural genius, and other times I stumble across genius ideas. Either way, I'm always happy to share. Today, I've got the best diet idea ever in the history of the whole entire world. EVER!

1. Weigh yourself.

2. Eat right and exercise for two days. (Wait. Don't exercise for two days. Exercise ON each day for two days in a row, but for like, a half hour or hour. 48 hours straight of exercise is just crazy talk.)

3. Step on your scale on the morning of day three. Notice a slight dip in your weight and feel good about it.

4. Let your toddler play on the scale several times that day.

5. Weigh yourself again on day four. Do a major happy dance when you're down five whole pounds. IGNORE the fact that the toddler has obviously tweaked the scale in a way that means it should be exchanged for one that works properly. This scale is MAGIC and you must keep it forever.

Or until the five pound differential starts working against you. Whichever is first.

Decisions, decisions.

If you had to choose between depression and anxiety, which would you choose?

I feel like that's the choice I'm facing, although not at a clinical level. I'm pretty even-keeled, mostly. But that gets tested during major upheavals like, oh, say . . . buying a new home and moving to a new stake, school, city, blah blah blah, in a month.

I shouldn't feel stressed OR anxious. Our time frame to move is flexible but I have a lot of self-imposed deadlines set that I'm struggling to meet. Deadlines are how I get things done, but at the same time, they're making me nuts. I keep starting and tackling different projects and little to nothing is happening. This makes me feel depressed. To be sure, it's not the dark twisty kind of depression that other people suffer with. I'm more on the blues/funk end of things. But I don't like it because it takes me out of my happy orbit.

The solution is to get things done. That's hard with a toddler and a nursing newborn. Oh, and one dental emergency after another (whole different blog post). My current strategy is to tackle things I know I can finish, even if they're not the most important things. This is why I shop Craigslist exhaustively while nursing (just scored a $100 upright 20 cu. ft freezer for the garage today--woot!) but the dishes go undone. I can't keep up with the volume for one thing, and for another, I can't do them one handed. And when the baby does let me put her down, I usually choose to do something else for those blessed ten minutes.

Don't ask me what. I have no idea. I just know it's not dishes.

I haven't been able to edit for days and I really want my manuscript cleaned up by June 1, but . . . I'm using free time (HA!) to do things like buy paint samples for our new walls and exercise because . . . 

Uh, my pants don't fit. And I sometimes don't have time to shave my legs which makes a full conversion to skirts kind of tricky.

Anyway, I was saying (and mind you, the tangents here are pretty much a road map for how my days go: start cleaning my bedroom, get distracted by changing a dirty diaper, end up trying to locate a tax number for something because I found a paper I forgot about by the diapers, etc. and so forth, GAH!), the solution is to get stuff done. 

And I do know how to do that. Make a list, prioritize, and execute. And I know how to prioritize. I can, when I choose, order things in a way that makes sense. If I do the things that will make my family happier and more comfortable, this will ultimately stress me out less than shutting everything out and revising, which is what I desperately want to do. If I chose to revise all day, I'd feel good about doing that in the same way I would feel good about getting a pedicure, but I'd feel guilty that dinner wasn't cooked and that Grant never got out of his pajamas (you know, because changing his clothes each morning is a half hour project due to his extreme emotional attachment to whatever he fell asleep in).

If I play Mussolini and get all my trains running on time, I CAN do it all. Clean, cook, exercise, play with kids, revise, do errands, and even blog. 

But it's at a price.

All will be well and everyone will be happy AS LONG AS THE UNIVERSE COOPERATES FULLY AND NOTHING DEVIATES FROM SCHEDULE EVER, EVER, EVER.

Because if I regiment the day, and things don't go as planned, my anxiety skyrockets and I LOSE IT when things don't go right. We're talking wig-flipping crazy. We're talking flinging myself on my bed to sob angrily if James takes too long with his homework or Grant spills something that I didn't schedule for.

If things go right, we're all genuinely happy. But I have to gamble that they'll go right and the universe will, for the next thirty days, cease its endless mockery of all my "plans."

So.

Do I stay in my funk, leaving my family mildly dissatisfied with the condition of everything but more or less all right? OR. Do I embrace my control freak tendencies, plan religiously, and have my family swing between deep contentment and well-being and hide-under-the-bed wariness when something goes awry?

Depression and anxiety, meet rock and a hard place.

I want the box of 64 with the sharpener!

We've been picking paint. Lots and lots of paint.

One wall in James's room will be red. "Red Delicious" is too dark for him and "Candy Apple Red" is too bright, so I'm trying to find the one shade exactly in the middle that he'll like. That has resulted in splashing Quite Red and Ruby Ring on the walls.

For the bathroom, we want a spa feel so we have shades of brown ranging from Pumpernickel Bread to Mocha Latte.

Grant's room was easy, a nice bright shade called Marina Blue.

Eden's room gets tricky again. We're doing two shades of pink split by a chair rail. So far we've tried Lauren's Lullaby, Colonial Rose, Deep Dusty Rose, Temptress, Morning Blush, and Sweet Baby Girl among others. Many others.

And we're just touching up the front room and hallways, but who knew there were so many names you could call white?

My head hurts already and we haven't even bothered figuring out what we're going to paint the kitchen. Right now it's a violent red color courtesy of the previous owners and it totally clashes with the cabinets (which will be repainted a soft white called "Swiss Coffee") and the granite counter tops. I know the walls will be some kind of neutral and I'm sure it will be called something like Sole of a Foot or Coppertone Self Tanner or some other nonsense. 

It occurs to me that maybe my creative talent is wasted on being a novelist. I should be a paint color namer. For example, let's take gray. Gray? Gray? I spit on the word "gray." No. It should be more like "Dirty Old Spoon" or "Slide Bolt on My Garage Door." Now that tells you what color you're dealing with, right?

And yellow. Hah. How about "Raw Egg" or "Yellow Snow?" Much more helpful and descriptive, n'est-ce pas?

Let's play a game. I'll give you two colors and you give me your best color names. Winner gets a cool prize, specifically a book. You can choose between The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt or My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison. If you've read both of those, then I'll find something you haven't read. And if you hate books, then . . .

You are a sad, sad person but I will send some sort of candy that won't melt en route, okay?

Here are the two colors. Take your best shot:

Happy Friday, y'all.

Reverence is a virtue

So during church today, Grant stood on our pew and with a stern face and an unwavering finger, pointed at the little boy in front of him. "Sit down!" he yelled. And then during the sacrament prayer he followed that up with a hollered "Close your eyes!"

I guess I should be embarrassed that my two-year-old shouts during prayer.

But I'm just going to take credit for teaching him about sitting down and closing your eyes instead.

Happy Sabbath.

The joys of sleep deprivation

I'm starting my own online homeschool of the Midvale School for the Gifted, the continuing adult ed version. I'm currently recruiting and while I'm excited to enroll new students, I warn you that I have the highest standards. You MUST be at LEAST on par with one of the most distinguished alumni of the Midvale School: Me.

To decide whether this is really the place for you, ask yourself if you've done  the following at least once. That's a minimum. I've done all of these multiple times. (I told you, I'm one of the best.)

Have you looked everywhere for 

1) Your glasses and found them on your head?

2) A pencil that it turned out was clenched in your teeth?

3) Shaken your keys at your child and demand to know where he put them? (Think about that one.)

Speaking of keys, have you ever attempted to use your key remote to open your house door, clicking it several times before realizing that your CAR is flashing its lights every time you do but your house is totally uninterested?

Have you ever sat at a stop sign waiting for the light to change? You have? Okay. But have you done it more than once in a day?

Have you stuck food items in the wrong place, like the milk in the pantry and the dry cereal in the fridge?

Do you regularly misplace your tv remote and later discover it in a place like on your upstairs nightstand?

Have you accidentally brushed your teeth with something besides toothpaste because it came in a tube and you found it on the bathroom counter? Like say . . . athlete's foot cream?

Have you driven off with the gas pump nozzle still in your tank?

Have you tucked your skirt into your underwear and not noticed? HAVE YOU TUCKED IT INTO THE FRONT?

If you're guilty of some of these things, I'm afraid you're not a fit for us. If, however, you've done ALL of these things plus stuff it's only a matter of time before I do, then drop off your application for the Midvale School for the Gifted in the comment box: you're one of us.

This post is full of . . . a word Nancy won't let me say.

Oh, my gosh.

I had the best idea for a blog post.

And I totally forgot it.

Too bad. That means I have nothing to say today, but really, when has that stopped me?

I saw a commercial I loved today. It's for toilet paper. This guy calls for his wife to throw him a roll because they're out and she does. It whizzes by his head and shaves a thatch of his hair off because it's so rough.

That made me laugh, probably because I always buy the t.p. on sale and I brought some home last week that was just paper. It was so uncomfortable I finally just handed it to my son when he said he needed more paper for school.

What? Haven't you heard? "Use it up, wear it out."

Now on the other hand, one of my least favorite commercials is also for toilet paper. It's the one with the bears. What brand is that? Because I don't want to buy that brand even on sale. Anyway, it's not the bears that make it bad. It's the slogan on the most recent one: Enjoy the Go.

Ew.

Back to favorites. It is bad to drink beer. I get it. But if I DID drink beer, it would be Dos Equis (sp?) based solely on The Most Interesting Man in the World.

And in the interests of yin and yang, you know what product I'll never use? I think Sue blogged about this before but I just saw the commercial on TV the other night: the Schick Quattro TrimStyle for women. I won't inflict it on you, but . . .

Ew.

Farenheit 451. Or something like that.

It's been so long since I hit the "New Post" button that I forgot where it was!

Hey, guess what?

I ask rhetorical questions because I think my blog can talk back to me.

Okay, no, really. Guess what?

First of all, "guess what" isn't really a question so much as a command and probably shouldn't have a question mark after it. But I always see it written that way and don't want to be cut from the lemming herd . Annette, I'm not linking because I'm so tired, but what's your take on "guess what"?

Secondly, that wasn't my real first of all. My real first of all is that I'm going to warn you that I'm blogging on very little sleep.

You couldn't tell, huh?

Anyway, me blogging on very little sleep is similar to (reaches down into bag of overblown analogies) me operating a giant backhoe while under the influence of Oxycontin.

Hm. That's not true. It's just like me operating a backhoe, period, because I've never operated a backhoe. Couldn't even pick one out of a line-up if said line-up included any heavy machinery besides a forklift. I know what forklifts are. I stole one once. (No, I didn't. I only thought about it.) Anyway, me driving a backhoe would be a total train wreck.

Um, no, it wouldn't. It would be a backhoe wreck.

All right. Now that I've warned you, I'm going to announce why I'm blogging today. I'm going to announce it because the mere fact that I found twenty minutes to spew this garbage out is on par with a miracle like the invention of rainbows. That Roy G. Biv was a freaking genius. I really hoped he patented his little invention because I bet the merchandising rights are INSANE.

Anyway, I'm blogging today because I am bugged. I have no right to be bugged. But I am. So tell me what to think. I mean, what you think.

Here's the situation. A father I know prohibits his daughter from reading the assigned novels in her high school English class. So far that I know of, I think that's included Grapes of Wrath and if I wasn't so danged tired, I could think of the other one but I think it was maybe Lord of the Flies. But the titles aren't the point. (Although it's utterly ridiculous to ban The Grapes of Wrath. That book has amazing things to say.)

I am trying to figure out why this bothers me. He's her dad and I'm sure he's got good reasons.

Actually, I don't. But I'm not going to speculate here on my theories about why he does this. Not with so little sleep, because the one tiny grain of common sense I have left is telling me not to.

However, it's a pretty small grain so I am going to throw out my opinion. Mind you, I'm an English teacher and run out to buy and read books as soon as they get banned. So there's a little context for you. But here's my opinion: I will read every single book my kids are assigned if I'm not familiar with them, and then I'm going to use the opportunity to discuss anything that worries me with them in a gospel context. But I'm not going to exempt them from reading the novel so that they have to sit in the library for three weeks while the novel unit is going on and do the lame alternative assignment that the very annoyed teacher is going to give them involving worksheets printed from the Internet. I'd  much rather send them into the classroom armed with gospel insight and a reaffirmation of our values and let iron (the Controversial Book) sharpen steel (my kid). 

What say you?