Potty Mouth

We've got some pretty interesting lives right now. For an outsider looking in and especially a non-parent, our life would seem crass, or gross and full of way too much information. You see, Tati is potty training. Ok, first off, I think we started a little early. She did just barely turn 2 but I was pregnant at the time and it seemed like a great idea. It has been a longer road than Chloe ever had and I'll admit I even tried to sell out and put her back into diapers on more than one occasion but she HATES the way they feel now. Can't blame her. But we have persevered and are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Potty Training. That statement seems harmless enough but I just don't think it really gives the full picture of what that entails. This is part of the full picture--boots and all. The rest isn't too sharable.

It feels like this is the only thing I'm talking about lately. If you call me and ask me how I'm doing, most likely I will tell about a success on the potty or a horrible accident not on the potty. Yes, I say "potty". It is a dumb word, but it doesn't bother me. So if it bothers, you, say a different word in your head. I only say "potty" if I'm talking about the portable one. A toilet is a toilet. So me using this word often is pretty short lived, so chill. If you come over to my house, I will most likely wow you by showing you my awesome pet who can do tricks like peeing in her potty on near command. It may seem weird to you to have a child just drop her drawers and pee in front of you but see, that's what I'm trying to explain, it isn't weird to me. And if you want to do video chat, I will most definitely have you watch a virtual pee pee party or poop if you're really lucky all the way from another country. You see, even though there are 3 of us who are already trained, we are all constantly on high alert status. We can be ready at a moment's notice to drop what we're doing, run, pick up a child, grab a book to read, get some toilet paper handy and help somebody pull their clothes off. We've also all been known to do all those things within seconds of each other or almost all at once. You see, we are a family and being a family means we are a team and we all work together. Then when we aren't actually running to the toilet, that means we are forever talking about whether or not a pee-pee or a poop are ready to come out. That's the crass part. You see we talk about pee and poop ALL THE TIME! It is no big deal to us because we're all used to it but we do realize how out of the normal it is whenever any "outsiders" come to visit. Plus, it is supposed to seem normal and no big deal to talk about all this stuff with your families. But we even talk to the pee and poop. This was the conversation in the car on Friday when we went to the mall:

Tati: Poop!
Chloe: Uh oh Mommy, Tati said, "Poop!"
Me: I know, I heard her. Tati, do you need to make a poop right now?
Tati: Uh hum.
Me: Ok, well we're in the car right now and Mommy can't stop the car so you need to tell your poo poo to wait for a few minutes. Do you think you can do that?
Tati. Yeah.
Chloe: What did your poo poo say? Is he going to wait?
Tati: Yeah!
(about a minute passes)
Chloe: Is your poop still waiting or is he in your panties?

Chloe is always quizzing her like this and I guess we are too because that is where she learned it from. I think the conversing with the pee and poop is the best though. We use Tati as the intermediary step. Can you ask... Is he ready? What did he say? I think it makes her feel important and it also gives her a sense of control over the situation. Very empowering!

I love seeing her little bootie in her undies. Although with such a little bootie, it is a challenge to find undies that fit. These are those trusty "training" pants from Gerber. Nice and comfy and also absorbant.
One last over share before it is all complete. This time in Tati's life is also coinciding with a phase where everything she sees and measures is measured in families. If something is big, it is a Daddy, something medium is a Mommy and something small is a baby. This can be for anything from animals on t.v. to candies. She wants a "Daddy Candy" means the biggest one. The best was when she made a poop this week and said, "A Daddy!" because well it was big and then she says, "Aww, and a baby one!" and looked at it and then at me with such love of the baby poop and also such pride that she made it in her potty. Ok, it is a little gross and a little hilarious but it is also very sweet. I'm glad that she measures things in family size. I'm thankful that I'm giving her a Daddy and Mommy family to measure by.

Sugar High!

Proof of the coo-koo bird in action. And yes, those are panties. I'll have to post about that soon. Enjoy.

The Icecapades II

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. Whew, we have been having a rough month of sickness. Hopefully we'll just get all the crappy out of the way for 2010 and then we'll be all good. This one is from a few weeks ago, but I wanted to talk about it because it was so fun. We enjoyed the Icecapades II. Well, if you don't remember Icecapade I, you can look here. It is fun to live in Canada for stuff like this. Here is how we started out. I forget how awesome a skater Greg is. He pulled Tati on the sled most of the time and then when she got sick of it, we let her run around on the ice. Yeah, I said, "run around" on "ice". It was pretty cool. And no she didn't fall. It wasn't slippery and her shoes have good rubbery treads on them. Luckily it was super warm this day (like close to freezing) and it reminded me that I don't mind winter, I just mind the FREEZING winter. We met up with some friends at the rink (which is where they play soccer in the non-winter months). We bought some ice skates this year at the thrift store. Mine were only $10 and Chloe's were $5. Sadly we haven't come across any for Greg yet so he had to borrow.

Chloe started out so wobbly and scared. We brought a foldy chair for her to use to steady her. She just pushed it along. Luckily her pal, Corbin was there to suffer with her.
After a while they got some confidence and looked like this:

I won't say she turned into an expert, but she sure had fun. Look at this hilarity.


Then it took so much out of them, they had to take a break and just do Chloe's favorite winter past time: Eat Snow.
It was a little humbling to go skating with some actual born and bred Canadians because they kicked our butts. I was skating around the rink and Clay (age 8) would weave all around me doing these tricks. We found a hockey puck that had been thrown out of the rink and then Clay wanted me to play hockey. We didn't have any sticks (or helmets--am I such a wimp that I was scared of that?) so he told me we could just kick it around. I told him that sadly I couldn't do that because the ice was a little bumpy for me and also I was pretty sure that if I lifted a foot off the ground, I'd be a goner. Greg on the other hand was able to jump right in and they even did an impromptu "hockey" game just kicking the puck around. It was pretty impressive. (see video at end)

Then there was my friend Jeanette who started pulling Tati around on the sled because pulling on the ice made me too wobbly too. She kicked butt. Also, notice the funny graffiti.


Here's wobbly me.

Tati was mad a lot of the time because she didn't have skates and also because although she liked the sled, she didn't like being treated like the little kid. This was what she looked like most of the morning with her mad face.

Luckily we all love her anyway. It is a cute mad face afterall. She was also happy to just watch everybody and eat her snack.


I wanted to finish off with a video of the puck hockey game. Notice how close Tati is to deflecting the puck at the end--and also notice how awesome everyone is skating!

Training Mtg.

Note to people putting on a meeting at church.

Please do not go over time.

Because:

• I've been around little kids too much and I can't last as long as I used to with just sitting there and listening.
• I'm hungry.
• I only had a pancake and orange juice for breakfast and that was almost 5 hours ago.
• Because I can smell the lunch in the next room and all I can do is think about it.
• Monkeys start dancing in my head.
• I become distracted by things around the room.
• I start talking to people and distracting them too.
  
• It doesn't matter what you're saying anymore--and I'm sure you have good things to say but once you go over time, I'm not listening to you.

Sad Post

This is sad post. It may also have too much information about girly stuff or girly areas. If that isn't really your cup of tea, skip this one. It is more of a post for me and for my family to see and read later as part of our family history.

January 15th-We were really looking forward to having some great news for everybody. I was going in for an ultrasound (finally). I was a little more than 9 weeks along. I was nervous because you're always nervous and I was trying not to over think it even though I had two miscarriages in between Chloe and Tats. It was Dr. King's birthday and I was going to the doctor so I thought maybe that was a good omen. And maybe it would've been a good omen had I been carrying a black child. But I digress. Obviously you should be able to see where this is going, they were unable to find a heart beat on our baby. Just like that our happy news day turned into our sad news day. Also, I just happened to have the world's most retarded ultrasound lady in the history of the world. Let me just relive some of the drama:

• They called to tell me that I absolutely HAD to drink a liter of water before my appt. They also told me to show up early. Well, I'm a pretty obedient person (especially medically) so I listened. I was nervous because I had been peeing all the time anyway and thought an extra liter to hold in would probably be an issue.
• We were driving to a far away city because if I got an ultrasound somewhere closer, I would still have had to wait another week. We figured the peace of mind would be worth the drive. Too bad, google maps over simplified our directions and we overshot our city simply by missing one dumb street. So I did what anybody about to pee their pants would do, I stopped at a nasty gas station and I peed.
  
• When we got to the lab, they made us wait for almost an hour. I was so mad and I had to pee so badly. They finally told me that I could pee but to only empty "half" my bladder. Yeah, that's something super easy to do. I did that twice. So if I emptied half of it and then another half of it, it should've been empty, right?
  
• When I finally got called into the ultrasound they didn't let Greg come with me. They made him wait out in the waiting room for almost 1/2 hr., to which he said to me later he kind of figured something was up.
• I commented to the ultrasound lady that holding your pee was like torture to which she responded, "Well, you won't get any sympathy from me!" I remember thinking in that moment that I hoped that would be all the sympathy I'd be needing that day--especially from her. Then we played this really fun game of "your bladder is too full to see anything" and she sent me to the bathroom like 3 times to empty more and more of my bladder. You guys are the retards who told me to drink a liter! I have a nalgene--it is all measured!
• After a few minutes she still was mute so I said, "Are you allowed to say anything about what you're seeing?" To which she says, "It doesn't look good. No heart beat." Just like that. So I'm tearing up and she goes, "We need to get a better view inside so let's switch to the other ultrasound machine." (You know which one I'm talking about, right?--the inside one). When I asked if Greg could now come in at this point she still said no. So we switch to the other machine and after this fun game of her coming in/going out so I could put on/take off my clothes to take a look and her telling me I needed to pee some more like 3 more times (the bathroom was down the hall), we finally get the second show on the road. She's moving it all around but she is still mute. I figure that is a bad sign so I ask her, "Can you tell when things..." and she said, "I'm measuring 7.5 weeks right now." And that was that. After a few minutes she asked me if we had any children and I said that we had two. She goes, "Well, then." I was so bugged at this lady I probably could've fought her except that she had a camera up my hoo-haw and I was really in no state to fight anybody. Then she tells me she'll get the doctor and my husband.
• The doctor was not a doctor, he was a radiologist. No offense radiologists but I wanted a real doctor there. He was really nice but he didn't quite know what to say. He said if things didn't start "happening" w/i a week to see my doctor (which p.s. we can't find anybody to be our stinky doctor so I have to go to this like urgent care clinic everytime I want to see a doctor!)
• Maybe it is weird but I asked for a picture. I didn't get a picture of the other two and it has always been something I've regretted. It just makes it real. This did happen and I want to remember. So here is our baby.

• For a while afterward, I was convinced that they made some sort of mistake. I mean she was a dorky ultrasound technician. He wasn't a "real" doctor. Maybe the heart could start beating later. I even found some message boards of ladies who were as far along pregnant as me and had the heart start later. It was getting my hopes up. Or else I was in denial. I bet websites have stories of every kind out there if you're looking.
  
• Luckily a friend of mine told me about this place called, the "Early Pregnancy Loss Clinic" so I called them. They more than made up for retarda technician and awk "doctor" and even though they were supposed to have a referral from my family doctor, they said they'd see me anyway. They were also able to give me more answers about my ultrasound. (They could pull up the results on the health care computer system--that was pretty cool.) Taffy, my nurse, read the report straight to me and then put it into real people language. She didn't have to do that. But she knew that was what I needed to hear. According to the ultrasound, the baby had already started to pull away from the placenta and there wasn't a lot of fluid inside the amniotic sac. So even if the baby were still alive (which I guess technically wasn't impossible but just super unlikely), there would be no way it would've made it all the way to the end. Once she told me all that, I guess it really hit me and then I was able to process it all. Why didn't I get all that info before?! They gave me 3 options, to 1) Let things just happen, 2) Take some medicine and start the process of cleaning my body out, or 3) Have a doctor go in and clean everything out (D and C). Since I wasn't super far along to them they suggested I do #2 because you never know how long #1 could take--possibly weeks. But after 2 days and 2 doses of the freaky drugs, nothing happened so they finally said I should probably do #3.

January 20th-#3 isn't really that bad but unfortunately with my "free" health care I had to wait there all day until they could fit me into the busy hospital schedule. We were so grateful that we have friends to watch our kids all day.

Miscarriages are very common. One in four. It sucks and obviously we're sad and obviously we're disappointed. Being pregnant is scary and of course there are so many things that are not fun about being pregnant especially since I was super sick. And even though to all the doctors I wasn't that far along, to me I was and I had already invested a lot of time, sickness, dreaming and planning into it. Also this is my third one. We had two miscarriages in between our two kids. Each time around the same time between 8-10 weeks. Medically they really only start to worry after it has been three in a row and generally that is when you don't have any other kids. The fact that we have two is a great sign. Anyway, after 3 they start to do genetic testing on you and your spouse and see if there are any problems that stand out. Geez, how would you feel if you found out you and your spouse weren't chromosomially compatible? The doctor that did my most recent stuff seemed really nice and I'll have a follow up with him in a few weeks. He seemed optimistic that we'd figure out some sort of reason as to why this happened. I like that prospect but also I'm ok if they don't. I don't know if this is how it works in the grand scheme of things, but for me I like to think of the 3 other people who don't have a miscarriage because I did. Right now my sister and two of my sister-in-laws are pregnant. It makes me feel more happy and excited for them like they and their babies are safer because I had a miscarriage and I can be their 1 of 4. Also, no matter how sad it is, there is always somebody with a worse story to remind you of your blessings or snap you out of "woe is me" mode. It is crazy to think that I would be pregnant with my 5th child right now though living in a 2 bedroom apartment with my husband still in school. Eek.

We've been overwhelmed by the great support, help and love from friends and family. It has been so nice to know that people are here for us to bring us a meal, a treat or play with our kids. I'm completely humbled by all of that. I'm also super grateful to know that there is a greater spiritual purpose for everything that happens to us. But recently, I've had two things really help me this week and neither one of them is all the comfort eating I've been doing. As soon as all the junk food is gone I'm sure I'll be able to really move on. I've got to let myself wallow a tiny bit, right?

Help #1: We live next to this old guy named Charlie and since I'd been hibernating and not seen him for a while I decided to go visit and see how he was doing. He's 90 and lives alone. All his family has died. Greg was home and the girls were resting so I figured it was a good time. I just sort of went over with no plan in mind of what I was going to say and he invited me in to sit down. I gotta say, I love old people. He was telling me about his health and the problems with his eyes and his vision and after a while I told him our news. He was so saddened and then started to tell me about his son. He and his wife Lulabelle (who died like 20 years ago--he has a framed 8x10 picture of her on his dining room table. Love her name!) had one son after having two daughters. Charlie said he was a "dandy". They were so excited to have a son after having two girls. He left his wife to go home after visiting and when he came back the next day, the doctors told him that his son had died of SIDS. One of my good friends had her son die from SIDS also. It is just such a sad thing. I asked him how he got over it. Charlie said, "Well, you just get up in the morning and just go until you make it to the end of the day." That's how I feel some mornings like just get up and get through the day and then other mornings I wake up and I'm thinking about breakfast or how I'm going to do the girls' hair that day. That is more the normal me.

Help #2-Remember Maggie, the Magpie? I said I had been hibernating and that is true. I hate being freezing cold. I hate the tons of layers of clothes on and off and the melting, dripping snow on the shoes. Well most birds would be leaving, Maggie has stayed around. She sorta jumps up the tree while flapping her bufanged wings. Well, we were eating lunch the other day and I saw a magpie fly up to the top of the building in front of us. It caught my eye because as it landed, it was sorta hobbling. I realized it was Maggie. She was flying! I mean it was a high building. I called the girls' attention to it and we were all just so happy. It seemed like such a wonderful nature triumph story. Maggie is some bird. I bet some birds would have just given up by now. I mean her wing was thrashed, I'm pretty sure her babies all died seeing as we saw her build the nest and never heard any chirps and hello, she's living in the freaking north pole here. There can't be good vittles to eat when there is a foot and a half of packed snow on the ground. Well on Friday, I sat on the couch and just watched Maggie outside by the tree looking for food. She just hopped around, digging her beak into the ground and by golly I even saw her munching on something. One could say that we just happened to get the apartment that is right in front of Maggie's tree or that we just happened to notice the bird living in that tree but I can't help but feel like Maggie is a part of our lives for a reason. Is it strange that this bird inspires me to live a better life?

I don't expect anybody to leave a comment unless you want to. You never really know what to say. I don't really know what to say. I think my sister said it best when she said that it sucked that this was happening to me and she was sorry. That about sums it up.

BTW, this is what Greg did to cheer me up. Hopefully if you're feeling a little glum after reading this, it will help you too.

Daddy has a squeeze box.

The "Let Mommy Sleep In" fort.

Winter Olympics

Unbeknownst to some people (Mom, how embarrassing), the Winter Olympics are in Canada this year. They officially start in February some time. Anyway, we had the pleasure of seeing the Olympic torch run through town. It was so freezing outside and I'll just go ahead and admit I almost decided against it. But in the end, I was glad we all listened to Daddy.

I remember back in 1984 (feeling old here) when the torch came through my town in California on it's way to Los Angeles. It was cool. And it is something I can remember even now years later. So we wanted at least Chloe to be able to remember this later on.

Awesomely enough, when we were in California this past summer, I found this hoodie for Chloe at the thrift store. Now she feels all cool and Olympic festive. Come on, you've got to love thrifting!


We had to park far away and then walk over to the torch route. It was cool to see how excited everybody was. I forgot how much I love that Olympic spirit. It just gets me all emotional to see how much people just love their countries.


Here's our spot on the street. We strategically tried to have some wind break and just for the record, I should've worn more clothes--it was freezing! I love Chloe's pose here. It pretty much sums up this girl in one shot.

We were lucky enough to be lined up right when the runner bus dropped off the next person to get lit up and run. They had two busses, one for those about to run and the other for the ones with the burnt out torches.


This guy apparently didn't want to have his face in everybodys' pictures. Come on, we really only wanted the torch in our pic anyway. I couldn't crop out random boy without losing Tati. Oh well.

Isn't he torch weird looking?

This is right after they lit each other. They made the other guy extinguish his torch super fast. Then he posed with people with his burnt out torch and then jumped on the bus.

Here we are all together. Just a note, when you have a stranger take your picture, have them take more than one.
By the time we saw the torch and got out of the traffic, everybody was STARVING! We were poorly prepared: no snacks! We were forced to go to Wendy's and eat cheeseburgers and fries. It was a tough sacrifice, but hey, sometimes you have to sacrifice for your kids. I should try to schedule family outings to always conflict with dinner and just happen to not have a dinner picnic packed. He he.

So when you're watching the Winter Olympics (or at least the ice skating part), think of us here in Canada.

Woo-hoo, She's Two!

Happy Birthday Tati!

(This is the family birthday hat. You get to wear it all day or at least during the meals. It is adjustable so it even fits Daddy's gargantuan head. Duh, of course we got it at Ikea! Where else?!)

I'm a little late on posting this but our little baby turned 2! It was sort of funny because she didn't really understand it all. She did however know all about presents because Christmas was just recently.

Here are some things to note for our Tatiana.

She LOVES:

• To run around naked
  
• To scream
• To spill things
• To climb (sometimes leading to her own demise)
• Fruit
• Animals
• Bob the Builder and Dora the Explorer
• Wearing dress-up shoes and necklaces
• Sneaky (her baby jaguar--remember this when you see her cake)
  
• To run to run away from you in any public place
• Taking baths
• To wear panties and not a diaper (although she doesn't have total bladder control yet)
  

She HATES:

• Not being in kindergarten
• Her car-seat
• To not be in charge
• The hour when Mommy is making dinner and Daddy still isn't home
• Soda pop and will spit it out everytime
• Putting on gloves
• When she can't pull off her gloves
• The sun in her eyes
• Sleeping in
  

We decided to bust out the toddler bed for her happy birthday. She just loves to be in Chloe's bed as often as we'll let her (since it is a loft bed) and we knew she'd love it but we weren't so sure about the non-containment part of a toddler bed.
In the end she's done great. She always loves nap time anyway and stays in bed quite well. The first few nights were a little rough because she would get out to play with toys or climb Chloe's ladder or to try and escape. She'd come out of their room, go to the top of the stairs and yell, "GOOD BYE!!!". It got pretty funny because as soon as she'd hear her Daddy stand up and start walking (creeky floor), she'd run back to her bed and jump in. The game quickly turned sour when Daddy started making her have time outs. Now she does great. Occasionally she'll come in our room at night and want a hug or just some attention but honestly it is a little easier than us having to go to her. She rarely sleeps seamlessly through the night.

She had taken a long and late nap on her birthday because we switched to a later church time so she was kind of in a daze for a while. She just sort of coasted through dinner. I debated redoing her cute hair-do but really this is more how she rolls anyway.

For her cake, I drew my inspiration from what she loves the best, her stuffed animal jaguar, Sneaky.
We all had fun eating the cake and it was delicious. It was a white cake with rainbow chip frosting. I know it is white trash but it was yum. She picked out mint-n-chip ice cream to go with it. It was a stretch but we didn't mind.



Then Tati just went crazy and started eating Sneaky's "ear" with her mouth.


Once the sugar hit her system, she was having the time of her life!

We're so happy to have this coo-koo in our family. She really is one cute and special little girl! It does feel like it is going by too fast though.