My chefs

Today was the first time all four kids and I successfully cooked a meal together.  I use the word "successfully" somewhat loosely, because by the time we actually got to eat it, was nearly a half hour past bedtime, the kids in their pajamas and everyone's tempers were pretty short.  But, compared to previous attempts, it rates as successful.  The next closest to successful attempt was baking cookies with the twins earlier in the week when Lukey angrily threw a a spoon because it wasn't the "cookie" he'd expected he was getting and later ate the butter he was supposed to add to the bowl, all with a soundtrack of an endless loop of a duet questioning, "Cookie coming?  Cookie coming?  Cookie coming?"  They did cheer up a little when they got to taste the dough.

This evening, we walked to the store and picked out our vegetables and other ingredients.  Then we came home and the kids helped cut the vegetables and measure and add the seasonings.  As the soup cooked, they formed pretzels to go with the soup.

Ally was disappointed with the taste of this dough compared to cookie dough.

They were really content forming the pretzels until Luke had a brainstorm.  He announced, "I'll get it!"  Then he ran to a drawer and returned with a rolling pin, which he's seen me use with dough for pizza.  After that, Luke and Ally just fought over the rolling pin until I finally plopped their half formed globs of dough on the cookie sheet and baked them.

Anna asked, "Why does mine just look like a circle?"

I was thrilled when Kate, Anna, and Ally all finished their soup.  (Luke wouldn't touch it, but I only claimed the experience was "successful," not "miraculous.")  I even emailed a friend how much everyone liked the soup.

As we were clearing dishes, Kate commented that she liked everything in the soup except "those things."

"What 'things'?"  I asked.

"These," Kate explained, pointing to the lentils.

"Lentils?"

"Yes, the lentils," she confirmed.

It was lentil soup.

Boots is missing

I finally finished Luke's Boots costume, to go with Dora, a.k.a. Ally for our Halloween parties and trick-or-treating this year.

This thing was a challenge.  I decided to base the body off of a dragon costume pattern I'd found for 99 cents, just so it would fit well.  I made it a 2T, so there would be room for Luke to wear a winter coat and thick pants, since Halloweens in Wisconsin are often in the 30's.  When I tried it on him, this costume for which I'd followed a pattern so it would fit was 8 inches too long in the pants and 6 inches too long in the sleeves.  That would have been an easy fix, but the crotch came below his knees, so I had to revamp the entire thing, which was very time consuming.

But, I finally did finish, and I think it turned out great.

Although we have the Boots costume, we unfortunately don't have a Boots.  Luke will not put it on.

Ally was kind enough to model the hat for me, though.

So, Ally will wear the Boots costume.  I wonder if Luke would wear the Dora costume...

Don't worry, Wendy.  I won't do it.  I know you're already concerned that I'm going to bring out the potty training pictures at Luke's graduation.  Pictures of him as a young cross dresser would surely be worse.

Bad listener

After Kate and Anna left for school today, Luke told me he wanted to draw a "picser."  Ally liked this idea, too, so the two of them climbed up onto the project table and waited for their markers.  That gave me a great idea.  It was the perfect day for a fall project.  We'd just collected fall leaves on Monday.  Today, I'd cut a brown paper tree, and I'd let them make finger print "leaves"all over it in different fall colors.

I told them what we were going to do, and I gave them each a piece of white paper.  While I cut out the brown tree trunks, I asked them, "Remember when we saw the trees yesterday.  What colors were the leaves."

"Markers, Mama?" replied Luke.

"We're going to paint leaves on this tree trunk.  What colors were the leaves that we picked up the other day?"

"Dwaw. I dwaw,"  prompted Ally.

I gave them each their tree trunks and some glue and told them to put some glue on their trees.

Ally took the tree trunk, pushed it out of her way and went to get her own markers.  Luke obligingly smeared glue on his tree trunk.  I praised his hard work and put the tree trunk onto his paper.

"No, Mama," he told me, frustrated.  He peeled the tree off of his paper, threw it on the floor, and reached for the markers Ally had opened.

As Dave was getting ready for work, I told Dave this story to show how uncooperative they'd were.

"You didn't listen," he told me, "They wanted to draw pictures.  They didn't want to do a project."

Why didn't I listen.  Why didn't I let them just draw right away?  Did I think doing a project would be better for them, more enriching?  Did I think it would make me a better mother if we did a project?  I don't know.  I need to learn to listen to them at certain times, just as I expect them to listen to me at certain times.

So, I finally listened, and Luke and Ally didn't do a project.  They happily drew pictures.

Luke got a little paint on his face before he pulled his tree off the paper.

Tada!

To laugh or not to laugh

I've had an exhausting few weeks, when I just feel like it's all I can do to make it through each day.  At times like these, it's hard to see the humor in the difficulties of daily life.  Although I wonder about cause and effect.  Am I really unable to see the humor because I'm exhausted, or am I exhausted because I stopped seeing the humor?  Either way, I think it becomes a cycle.  Luckily for me, the cycle was broken.  Today I had no choice but to laugh.

Luke has been doing a wonderful job with the potty aspect of potty training, but pooping is another story.  He was only pooping in a diaper.  If we wouldn't give him a diaper, he'd hold it... for days.  So, we started giving him small doses of Miralax to make things go more smoothly (pun intended).

Today, Luke went potty in the toilet and told me "poopy coming."  He wouldn't sit on the toilet any longer, but I kept his pants off so he could easily run to the toilet (or be plopped back on the toilet by me).

While we were waiting for the expected poopy, Ally burst into tears in the study for a reason I never figured out.  I was sitting on the floor comforting her when Luke walked up behind me and I could smell it.  I picked him and ran him to the toilet, noticing on my way that there were already two large poops on the floor.

I put him on the toilet, but he said he was "all none (done)" and then left to return to the scene of the crime.   I grabbed the paper towel and cleaning supplies and headed back to the poop myself, only to discover a poop-free floor.

Luke excitedly explained, "Mason nean (clean) up the poopy.  Mason eat!"

Then he ran into the playroom where Kate practiced piano, "Kate!  Kate!  Mason eat the poopy!"

I stood there with paper towels in one hand and a spray bottle in the other.  I looked at the floor shimmering with saliva and the dog licking his chops.  I began to gag.  Then I took a deep breath and started laughing.  I gratefully discovered a little known fact of human biology.  It's impossible to laugh and gag simultaneously.

Best laid plans

Do you ever have one of those moments where you know you have to change the way things are going?  Where you decide to make a big change?  I do.  Every week or two.  The thing is, usually after a few hours, I let it go.

This last week was one of those rare times where I actually followed through on my change.  We'd had a rough couple of weeks.  I don't know if it was the potty training, the girls going back to school, or if the terrible twos just hit us full force, but I was barely making it through the days.  I began to rely on TV, something I have never done.  Even when the twins were newborns and I was nursing them 47 hours a day, (okay, it's possible it wasn't quite that much) I still limited Kate and Anna to one 25 minute show a day.  But, I'd let that limit slip during our intensive week of potty training, and then almost two weeks later, I was still letting them watch two, sometimes even three, shows a day.  When it all seemed like too much, or if I really needed to do something and couldn't do it with one kid under my arm and another clinging to my leg, or while trying to break up two-year-old squabbles, I would say, "All right!  Who wants to watch Dora."

(I realize that's probably just fine for them, but it wasn't fine with me.  It's not something I ever did with the other two kids, and it was making me feel disappointed in myself, so I decided to make a change.)

It was never like this before.  Kate could always play by herself.  Anna could play by herself or Kate would occupy her.  But Luke and Ally, all they do is argue when I want them to occupy themselves, and they often end up hurting each other.  But, I wouldn't use the "two two-year-olds" thing as an excuse any more.  When it all seemed like too much, I was going to throw the kids in the van and go do something fun.  When I needed to get something done, I would be creative and let them do an activity to occupy them.

Saturday, I had one of those moments where I was about to lose it.  I decided to take the kids to see the animals at Hoffer's Pet Store.  The giant tortoises were walking around in their garden.  I bought a couple bags of leaves to feed them and we headed outside.  Immediately Luke and Ally stopped short in the doorway.  I couldn't understand why they didn't think these prehistoric monster-like creatures of at least their size were something they wanted to walk around with.  I carried them both outside.  When I tried to put them down, Luke clung to me, grasping my shirt with a vise-like grip and literally hanging from me.  Ally let go of me and then scaled the edges of the fish ponds, perched precariously between her fear of being eaten the unknown creatures and drowning with the koi, and cried.

Ally can be seen scaling the wall in the background.

Monday we escaped the house to go to the butterfly exhibit at the museum.  That had to be better than the tortoises.  Butterflies weigh, what?  Like an ounce.  Not scary.  The kids all love the butterflies in the backyard.  We've caught them and observed them in butterfly habitats.

When we got to the exhibit, I looked to see the wonder in their eyes, but they looked hesitant, kind of freaked out.  I went ahead and put one on my finger for them to see.  After a while, things were going all right.  They didn't want to touch one, but they were looking at the ones I showed them.

Ally was sitting on my lap on the floor, looking at a butterfly on my finger.  The other three were kind of gathering around me, whether that was to see the butterfly or out of fear of all the butterflies flying around them.  Suddenly Anna let out a piercing screech, and I realized a butterfly had landed on her leg.  The screech was followed by repeated blood curdling screams.  I tried to release the butterfly from my finger and get Ally off my lap to get over to Anna to brush the butterfly off her leg.  It couldn't have taken more than a few seconds, but by the time I got the butterfly off, Anna was nearly hyperventilating.  I picked Anna up, and then had to push my way, and the ways of three other kids, through a group of German high school students all staring at us, to exit the butterfly exhibit.

I'd thought we couldn't possibly make that much of a commotion again in our lives, much less the same day, but the screaming was nearly replicated an hour or so later when I tried to strap Ally in the stroller, because I can't possibly make it through a parking garage with two toddlers.

So, that afternoon, I was already tired from our morning, but when the twins began fighting and crying and clinging when I was trying to make dinner, I stuck to my plan.  I made them each a "sensory tray."  I poured some salt, grains, legumes, and small alphabet pasta into some pans and let them play with spoons and then little animals.  It didn't go half badly.  They were happily occupied for almost 15 minutes.

When they exclaimed they were done, I wiped off their hands and set them down, feeling very satisfied with my parenting.  This feeling lingered about a second, until Ally slipped on the salt and fell.  I comforted her and then began to sweep up the floor.  While I did that, I Luke and Ally emptied a kitchen drawer and then began to haul toys into the kitchen.

When I was nearly done sweeping, Luke told me he had to go to the bathroom.  I quickly dumped the salt into the garbage and then ran to help Luke .  As soon as I saw him, I regretted taking the two seconds to dump the salt.  I stripped him down, leaving the clothes in the kitchen so I could throw them in the wash machine tonight, and ran to get him some dry clothes.

When I came back downstairs, I found Luke standing on the stool in the bathroom, running water over his clothes...and the entire bathroom floor.  "I wash," he explained.

I ran the wet clothes into the kitchen sink and came back to begin sopping up the floor, just as Ally walked into the bathroom and fell (again) in the water.  So, she was now soaked and also needed an outfit change.

Kate came into the kitchen, as I was finishing wiping the bathroom floor.  "Is it almost time for dinner," she moaned.  "I eat!  I eat!" piped Ally.  I looked at Ally, who still needed to be changed.

I stripped Ally down, too, and left the two naked babies for a moment to get Ally some dry clothes, too.  When I came back downstairs, Ally and Luke were fighting over a push toy, and Luke bit Ally.  I took him immediately into the Pack and Play for some time by himself, and comforted Ally.

I heard Luke yell that he had to go to the bathroom, but since he'd just wet his pants, I knew this was just a cry for attention.  I dressed Ally, thinking of how I still had to clean up the bathroom floor, finish dinner, and dress Luke.  When I went to get Luke out of the Pack and Play, I found that he must have had a lot of pee left in his bladder, as it was now all over the carpet and the Pack and Play.

"Who wants to watch Dora?!" I exclaimed.

--------------------

Since I am evidently unable to admit defeat, Tuesday I came up with this activity, one which I remembered my students loving years ago.  I mixed up some cornstarch, water, and food coloring.  Ally was baffled, Luke was disgusted, referring to it by his word for poop.

Last night I prepared another activity to occupy them.  I'd read about using colored rice to have a sort of indoor sandbox, because, according to someone on Pinterest, it's "easy to clean up."  I really needed to use bigger containers, so they could keep the cup in, but I wasn't too worried, because I figured I'd just sweep it up.  

Luke and Ally both loved this, and it kept them happily occupied for about five minutes until Ally did something to make Luke mad and Luke dumped his bucket and threw a fit that sent rice flying throughout the kitchen.

I still wasn't too worried about the mess.  I'd been promised, by some random person on Pinterest who I apparently trust deeply, that it's easy to clean up.  I began to sweep and discovered that the Chinese could have abandoned water torture for rice torture.  The stuff is very frustrating to clean up.  As you sweep it, it bounces enough to land in every nook and cranny instead of nicely on the dustpan, and, worst of all, sticks in the soles of your feet in an increasingly annoying, borderline painful, way.   Every time you remove the grains from your feet, more find their way into your feet.

 It took me 1 1/2 "Dora"s to get everything cleaned up!

Big news

"Mom, please let me retain some self-respect!"

Well, I'm calling it.

Luke is potty trained!

I still say that with some hesitation.   I realize he'll still have accidents and things aren't going to be suddenly easy (I have dragged the potty chair everywhere with me for a week and will probably be doing this for quite a while), but after the difficult last two weeks, I must formally declare this huge accomplishment.  If I lived in a ranch style home, I'd shout it from the rooftop, but even this news isn't worth a two-story fall.  You know my history of clumsiness.

He hasn't had a potty accident in 48 hours.  He has told me every time that he had to go to the bathroom, and just now, he even told me he had to poop and did so in the toilet!

Yes, the following pictures are a little gross, but just consider our last two weeks if you wonder why I'd post pictures of feces on my blog!

Camping trip photo book

Click here to view this photo book larger

More costume making

As you saw, the Dora costume is done, but we still have three more costumes to go:  Luke is going to be Boots (so Dora can have a buddy), Kate is going to be Merida (from the movie Brave), and Anna wants to be a pirate princess.

Although I never sew with patterns, I did buy one for sewing the dress for Kate's Merida costume.  Using a pattern has been a challenge for me.  Good thing I have such a great helper.

I also ended up being able to make a jailbird costume for my friend's one-year-old son W over the weekend.  It was a lot of fun, and, although time consuming, it was quite easy.  And, I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I couldn't find any striped fabric, so I used white and added the stripes later.  I just used a long sleeve t-shirt for the top and altered the neck to look more old-fashioned.  I sewed a pair of cotton pants using the material from a child-sized t-shirt using a wonderful tutorial I'd found a few months ago on how to make pajama pants.  Who knew sewing pants could be so easy?

To make the hat, I cut a long rectangle and a circle.  The rectangle was about 3 inches high and just slightly wider than the head circumference.  The circle had the diameter of the head circumference divided by π.

Did you catch that?  I actually used the c=2πr formula when trying to figure out how to make the hat.  Who'd have thought I'd ever use that again.  Seriously, the last time had to be 15 years ago... not counting when I taught middle school math that one year in summer school.

Then to add the stripes, I used 1 inch wide masking tape, setting a ruler in between, and taped off what I wanted to stay white.  I painted the hat before I sewed it together.  Then I painted everything with... spray paint, just good old fashioned flat spray paint.  It sounds weird, and, obviously, you wouldn't do that for a regular outfit, but it's a halloween costume.  I've read that the spray paint holds up great in the wash, too, if the costume ever gets handed down.

For adding the prisoner numbers, I used made an appliqué from leftover t-shirt (just ironed on heat and bond and cut out a rectangle) and wrote the numbers on using permanent marker.  I would have used stencils, to get that old fashioned look, but I didn't have any (can you believe it?), so I had free-handed a stenciled look.  I think they look pretty good, considering.

I can't wait to see the costume on W!  He's going to be the cutest little jailbird ever!

Hamster names

Here's a snippet of conversation I overheard between Kate and Anna:

Kate:  If I get a hamster for my birthday, will you help me take care of it?
Anna:  No.
Kate:  Mo-o-om, Anna said if I get a hamster she won't let me take care of it.
Anna:  Because I don't want a hamster.
Kate:  It'll be like Humphrey.  (From the book series ...According to Humphrey)
Anna:  Okay.
Kate:  What should we name the hamster?
Anna:  I know. Humphrey.
Kate:  What if it's a girl?
Anna:  Maybe Golden, because it will probably be golden.  I know!  Golden Retriever.  Yeah, let's name our hamster Golden Retriever.
No response from Kate.
Anna:  Or, I know!  Vegetarian.

The mouse story, unabridged

Part 1 - Bad Odds

8:45 am

I'm not a gambler.  I don't buy lottery tickets.  The few times I've went to a casino with friends, I limited myself to $5 or $10,  expecting to lose and figuring that was the cost of a movie, our other possible evening entertainment.

So why do I always take a gamble on getting my heart broken when it comes to rescuing wild baby animals.  I know better.  I know there's probably a 50 to 1 chance they won't survive, but I take them in, care for them, love them, and then watch them die and cry my eyes out.

It breaks my heart, sometimes for days, sometimes for years.  The worst was Charlie, the tiny kitten whose mother abandoned him at my friend Mollie's farm just after Dave and I were married.  I stayed up nights feeding him with a bottle every couple hours.  I carried him against my chest in a special pack I'd made to keep him warm.  I remember taking him grocery shopping in the pack under my shirt.  He hung in there with me for a few days, but just couldn't make it any longer.  I sobbed.  It still hurts, over a decade later, if I really think about him.

This morning, we were waiting in the rain for the girls' bus when Ally announced, "Mouse."  She was pointing to a tiny little gray lump, lying on the wet cement in the center of the driveway.  I looked closer; she was right, it was a mouse.  Aw, man, I thought, my heart sinking, another dead mouse.  There have been a few dead mice around, poisoned by the neighbors' mouse traps.  I didn't want to ruin the girls' day at school, so I said, "Oh, I think it's sick.  I'm going to go get a box so we can take it to the animal rescue center."  I am generally very honest with my kids, but the bus was just about to come, it was so cute...

I came back outside with two paper towels and scooped up the lifeless body.  I brought it inside, wondering if I should just shove it in the garbage which I was about to take out.  I stood there by the garbage undecided.  I thought about how the mouse's body weighed barely more than the paper towels did without it and I wondered Am I shaking?  It almost seems like the mouse moved.

I peeked inside the paper towel and a tiny nose poked out and two dark eyes peeked back at me.  What?  Oh, my goodness!  I almost threw you away!

I brought him back out, ecstatic he was still alive, and showed the kids.  "Look!  Isn't he cute?"  I wasn't going to fall into the rescuing/watching die trap again, though, "He wants to say hi before he goes to the rescue center.  The poor little guy must have been really cold...  Poor little guy."

"I see Guy?" asked Luke.

We couldn't bring him to the Humane Society right away, though, so I had to help him.  I told Luke and Ally that we'd warm him up and get him something to eat, and I put the baby mouse in old aquarium.  I quickly sewed up little pillow and filled it with rice to warm in the microwave to help take the chill off.  I found the babies had gotten the cereal off the counter and were filling a bowl with it for him to "have something to eat."  Very sweet.  I took the bowl and explained he only needed one piece.

As I put the nearly lifeless body on the warm pillow, covered it with paper towel, and put the cereal, some peanut butter, and a slice of tomato next to him, I could have kicked myself.  What am I doing?

Part 2 - Look who's better

11:15 am

It didn't take long for "Guy" to perk up once he warmed up.

 Soon he was eating.  Turns out he adores walnuts!

But he was kind enough to try the cereal the twins got for him.

I called the Humane Society and talked with a very kind woman for a quite a while.  I explained how I feared the mouse would just be killed, either by trap or predator, if I sent him back out.  "So," I proposed, "it doesn't seem like it would be cruel to the mouse to keep him as a pet."  She agreed the life of a wild mouse is hard, and that they don't have a lot of chance of survival, but that they make really bad pets; they go crazy in cages.

I went and had a few minutes with "Guy," and he was already trying to jump up the walls of the aquarium.  So I explained to the twins that it was time to let the mouse go back to his mommy.  The woman from the Humane Society suggested that we leave him where we found him, where he could be safe and where his mom could have a chance to find him.

Luke and Ally said their goodbyes.

And we tilted the cage on its side.

Then we walked away.

And that's when I saw Luke, blowing Guy kisses.

Part 3 - Mouse!  Mouse!

12:25 pm

We hadn't left Guy for more than a three minutes when Luke and Ally had to check up on him.  They opened the door themselves to go out.  I was only a second behind, but that was long enough for me to be left out of their discussion.

Luke was telling me, "Mouse.  Mouse."

I said, "I know.  He's still in his cage."

"Mouse!  Mouse!"

"Yep."

And, because I just didn't understand, he picked it up off the sidewalk, a little, wet, nearly lifeless... brother... maybe to our mouse.

"No.  Don't touch."

I grabbed a paper towel from the cage and took the mouse.  Then I started to do the same thing for this little mouse as we'd done for the first one just three hours earlier.

Part 4 - Now I want a hamster

2:40pm

We've let "Guy" and "Mouse" go.  Luke was really sad.  I'm pretty sad, too.  I'm tempted to go buy a hamster or a pair of gerbils or a domestic mouse, but I think it will pass if I remind myself they will poop and pee, and I already have enough poop and pee to clean up.

A rant about potty training

9:07 am
All of those "potty training in one day" programs, or even the "potty training in three days" programs, which seemed more reasonable to me...  I've decided it's just complete bullsh#%.  Forgive my language, but I can't come up with a more accurate phrase.

I'm completely serious.  And, I'm saying this as someone whose first two children were, in fact, potty trained in a day.

The problem with those programs is that they contend it's up to the parents.  If the parents really do things right with kids of a certain age, those kids will be potty trained.  That's just not the case.  The kids have to be ready.  I know that phrase is used all the time, but it's absolutely accurate.  I don't just mean physically ready, which they also have to be.  I mean they have to be physically able to control their bladder, and they have to be emotionally mature enough to have the attention span to get them to the toilet, and they have to want to be potty trained.

How do people not see these programs as the aforementioned bull(etc.) that they are?  It's because one of two things happen when people try them.  Sometimes the kids get potty trained because they were ready so people think the program worked.  In the remaining cases (and I think these are well over half the cases), the parents can't do everything required in the program because it's not appropriate for their kids or things go so badly that they quit before the time is up.  When this happens, the parents believe potty training didn't work because because they did something wrong or they quit rather than because the program is inherently flawed.

I have to laugh, because I sat down to write this because I was completely frustrated on the morning of day seven of potty training, after having spent the entire morning sitting each of the twins down on the toilets and not getting either of them to pee.  I hadn't even finished the first paragraph when Ally interrupt me by walking in with potty in the bowl of her toilet.  After we went out and "watered the flowers," I continued to write, only to be interrupted less than two minutes later by Luke walking in with the bowl of his toilet filled with potty.  Things are looking up.

1:53 pm
Picking up where I left off in the paragraph above...

Since both twins had finally peed, I took them upstairs to get them ready to go run errands.  I was thrilled at the prospect of getting out of the house.  I decided to let them wear underwear as a kind of celebration.  (They'd been mostly bare bottomed for nearly a week.) I let them pick out which underwear they liked best, and I put them on.

Then Ally went to get a pair of shorts.  She opened the drawer and stood there looking at her shorts and peeing on the carpet.  I grabbed her to run her to the bathroom saying, "Stop.  Potty in the toilet.  Potty in the toilet."  Luke was standing in my way, and in my rush, I zoomed her over him.  I got her to the toilet just in time for her to have stopped peeing.

I left her on the toilet anyway, and went back to clean the carpet.  I was met at the doorway by Luke, holding his hair, saying, "Potty, hair.  Potty, hair."  I began to wipe his sister's urine out of his hair, thinking I probably should bathe him.  He pointed to the door and said, "Potty, wall."  How did pee get on the door?  I wiped off the door and he pointed to another spot, saying again, "Potty, wall."  Yep, kid, there is evidently potty on every surface in this room.  "Potty, Meow's arm."  I wiped off his toy kitty, and started to stand up to get the little carpet cleaner, when Luke grabbed my arm.  He looked me in the eyes and crapped his pants.  (Sorry, again for the language, but once again it just seems to fit.)

What happened next is a little unclear.  I'm not sure what happened.  I thought I just whisked him away to the bathroom saying, "Poopy in the toilet," but somehow poop got everywhere, the carpet, the bathroom floor, his little toilet, Ally's little toilet, and all over him.  When I was cleaning him up, he even had poop on his cheek.  I also discovered later, after we got the everything cleaned up and were finally driving to Trader Joes, that I also had an inordinate amount of poop smeared down the front of  my pants.

After we got bought what we needed at Trader Joe's, we quickly ran into the library to get Anna a book on CD to listen to this afternoon.  Ally, who I thought would be empty for at least an hour after peeing in her toilet and then everywhere else, peed on the library carpet.

When we got home and Anna's bus came, I put Luke and Ally both on the toilet and pulled Anna inot my lap for an after school cuddle.  Luke wanted me to read him a book, so I said he could go get one.  He grabbed the dinosaur book, and then stood there watching his pee arch nicely onto the playroom carpet.

And right now I want to use my third swear word of the post to express how done I am with all this, but I will refrain.  I'm sure you can imagine

Meet Dora

She will be visiting our house this Halloween.