the second coming

it must be imminent because jack pooped on the toilet today. by himself. without me knowing.

(and the heavenly chorus sings HALLELUJAH)

he was upstairs in his bed for quiet time and i heard him go into the bathroom. a few minutes later i heard him screaming downstairs to me, 'MOMMY!!!! i have a POOPY!!!!"

i immediately yelled back (and not in a nice voice), "IN YOUR PANTS???!"

to which he (gleefully, knowingly) yelled back, 'NO! in the POTTY!"

i ran up the stairs three at a time and danced a jig when i saw that huge poop in the toilet. swear to god, i was thisclose to grabbing my camera and taking a photo just to remember the glorious, wonderful, magical day that jack pooped somewhere other than in his pants.

negative

i just got a bill from one of my credit cards and it said that i didn't owe anything this month. i'm always on alert for funny credit card offers and figured that they were 'graciously' letting me skip a payment but were still going to charge me interest.

turns out i have a NEGATIVE account balance. somehow (how??) i overpaid my bill last month. i just emailed the company asking them what i need to do. can they credit my checking account? or do i need to go charge the negative amount in order to get my account balance to zero?

are you reading this, mom and dad? A NEGATIVE BALANCE ON MY CREDIT CARD! how ya like THEM apples? :)

chuckles and kitty kat

a few snaps of jack and kate this morning:

maggie

more strep.

kate has strep.

again.

she just finished a course of antibiotics on monday and she woke up this morning with a fever of 101 and a sore throat. so we're headed back to the doctor today for more antibiotics. it's probably just a matter of time before jack gets it, too.

sigh.

meanwhile, check out some new photos of kate posted on my photo blog. i was trying out the idea of setting up a studio in my house and it looks like i might be able to make it work.

outta here

i'm heading out of town this afternoon for a weekend by myself. just going to virginia, down to tyson's corner. not far, not fancy, not glamorous. but it's away. away from jeff and the kids and the dog and the house and my life. when the kids were little, i used to try to get away every 4 months or so. i went to sanibel island once and another time i just went to a hotel in baltimore. it's not about where i go, it's just getting to spend time alone. time to refresh and renew and relax. time to be kristin and not mom or wife or carpool driver or potty-trainer or caregiver. just kristin.

so this afternoon i'm heading down the the ritz carlton in virginia and am going to order room service and watch tv and sleep in and take ridiculously long showers and go to the bathroom BY MYSELF. i'm going to eat all my meals WITHOUT INTERRUPTION and i'm going to catch up on season three of the wire on DVD. i might even go see the new katherine heigl movie, 27 dresses.

or i might lie in bed for two days, drinking vodka tonics and watching crappy pay-per-view movies.

blue cheese

how do you know when blue cheese dressing has gone bad?

kozmo

tonight i found myself missing kozmo.com. i have a craving for ben and jerry's and jeff is out at a concert. i'm too lazy to pack up the kids to run to the grocery store to buy it. i wish kozmo was still around to deliver it to me.

back in the late 90s when i lived in seattle, you could order just about anything from kozmo.com. i didn't have a car so many friday nights i would order a movie and a pint of ben and jerry's. i'd have it in under an hour and would curl up on the futon in my basement apartment and watch a crappy movie and eat an entire pint of ice cream (i miss my metabolism). and then there was the night when jeff and i were dating and i burned my hand on the stove before we were supposed to go out that night. we canceled our plans and ordered up a movie and a tube of aloe vera. one hour later my burn was healing and we were watching an utterly forgettable movie.

it was an idea destined to fail but i miss it. i want some ice cream.

strep throat

jeff went out of town this weekend and kate came down with strep throat. have you ever taken a sick 5-year-old and a potty-training three-year-old to a doctor's clinic at 4pm on a saturday? and the three-year-old hasn't had a nap and is hungry? and needs to pee? and the five-year-old is listless and has a 103 degree fever? and the three-year-old wants out of the room where we've been waiting for an hour for the doctor?

yep. it was a fun night.

GETTING OLD

jack and i were snuggling today and he started looking at my eyes with an intense look on his face.

jack: mommy? are you getting old?

me: why?

jack: because you have cranky eyes.

me: (laughing) what are cranky eyes?

jack: you know, what old people have.

cranky eyes? i have no idea.

POLITICS

ok. i'll admit it. i don't like politics. i don't follow politics and i don't like political debates. it just doesn't interest me. i feel like all politicians (on the national level) are crooked so it's just a matter of voting for whomever is LESS crooked.

that said, i'm curious to find out about the iowa caucas from yesterday. obama and huckabee won, but what did they win? does this mean they are the official republican/democrat candidates? is hillary out of the race completely? or is this just the first of many votes to come? when do we find out who the final presidential candidates are?

(hi, my name is kristin and i'm completely ignorant when it comes to our nation's government)

MANLY

i found this face recognition thing on another blog. it looked interesting and i had a few free minutes. i was curious which current celebs i look like. turns out i look mostly like a man. seriously. 6 of my top matches are men. and not even good looking men. i keep hearing austin powers' voice in my head, "she's a MAN, baby!"




ETA: i tried another photo (a horrible photo from new year's eve. many drinks preceded this photo) and it turns out i look more like a girl (but how the hell did i get mccauley caulkin in the mix??)

POTTY TRAINING

yep, that picture is what you think it is. we went through three pairs of pants and underpants before noon today and there's sure to be more before the day is through.

sigh.

jack is three-and-a-half. it's beyond time for him to be potty trained. we've started and stopped, thinking he needed more time to mature. i bought potty scotty, bribed with m&m's and jellybeans and finally resorted to buying jack a play guitar to get him to pee on the toilet. but pooping? no dice. he refuses to poop on the toilet and could happily play for hours with a poop in his pull up. i've been taking a 'he won't get married in his pull up' attitude but today something snapped. i'm done with pull ups. the kid needs to use the toilet.

so today was day one of cold turkey potty training. jack had one accident this morning before we left to take kate to school. rather ambitiously, i decided to take him to target so i could stock up on undies and sweatpants (easy to get on and off). believe it or not, he actually told me he had to go to the bathroom while we were shopping. we made it to the bathroom and he peed on a public toilet for the first time. i (prematurely, it turns out) congratulated myself for nailing the potty training. and ON THE FIRST DAY, no less.

ha.

this is jack we're talking about. the boy who was supposed to be in the NICU for one week and ended up staying for five. the boy who is as stubborn as his mother. i should have known.

i let him play in the playroom for about thirty minutes before checking on him. when i shouted up the stairs, "jack! do you need to go poopy or pee pee?", he answered, "no! i already did it in my pants!"

the kid who hates to have dirty hands and cries when he clothes get dirty is the same kid who will happily play with a poop in his pants and pee running down into his socks.

tell me. HOW do you potty train a kid like that?

HAIRCUT

kate got her haircut a few days ago. for as long as i can remember (or at least as long as she's been old enough to have an opinion), she has wanted long hair. so we let it grow.

but last week, she mentioned that she wished she had short hair like mine. she wanted to get it cut. i said sure and we went to the local hair cuttery the next day.

i surprised myself by getting emotional when she got into the chair. i wasn't (and am not) the mom who saved her kids' hair from their first haircut or got weepy when kate and jack reached other milestones. most of the time i was overjoyed that they were getting more independent. but the haircut? it got me. i got weepy. i didn't know why, at first. kate has had her hair trimmed before. but i realize now it was because she made the decision herself. she wanted to cut her hair. for whatever reason, she was tired of long hair and wanted a change. and THAT'S what got me. she's separate from me. really and truly. for so long (it seemed, at least), kate was part of me. first in my belly and then as an infant. i was ready for the physical dependence to go away but i wasn't quite prepared for the emotional independence. when did she start having opinions about her hair? what comes next? i know it sounds insane but it feels like this haircut is the first step towards her moving out of the house and moving on with her life. and i'm surprised that it makes me sad.

NEW YEAR

nope, no new year's resolutions. i don't keep 'em so why bother making 'em? we did have a great new year's eve with wendy and her family. i have lots of photos but i'm going to send them to wendy to post on her blog since i don't update this one that often. stay tuned.

in the meantime, here are two photos of jack i took last month. i took him on the metro into DC one morning when he didn't have school because he's never been on the metro. we got off the metro in DC, got a bottle of juice and a pretzel, and sat on a bench watching the pigeons. then we took the metro back to maryland and drove home. a small outing, yes, but it just seemed wrong that at almost three-and-a-half the kid hadn't ever ridden public transportation.