Potty training

As I sit here typing, Paul sits in government hell. We needed a copy of a past tax return. After six weeks of waiting patiently for the mail to miraculously make it appear, he decided to drive to the IRS office in Memphis and just pick it up....that was over three hours ago. Lesson learned: Don't trust saving Turbo Tax info on your computer....it will crash and you will loose all your info! Print copies and save in a safe place.
Kimberly is successfully potty trained! I'd like to say I did it all, but it was actually Lauren who got her to finally poopoo in the potty last night--after two full days of not going. I took away the pullups as I realized she was starting to hold it all in waiting for that night pull up and then let loose! I finally decided the only way out of that quandary was to just remove the option. The first night she wet (my bed) about 5:30 in the morning...so she made it from 8 to 5:30. I got braver last night and put her in her own bed (I had figured if she awoke to use the bathroom that first night I'd be right there and could help her quicker). She made it from 10pm (okay, I had trouble getting everyone to go to bed last night) until about 9am! The bed and Kimberly were dry!! Hurray!
I really despise potty training. It is one of those things that really wears on my patience. Maybe loss of my hearing, taste and smell was the perfect combination to success...yes, that is right. I have hearing only in my left ear right now and haven't had the other senses for about a month now. Ever since I started in with the full blown sinusitis, stuffy head stuff it all disappeared. I actually heard my left ear pop and hearing return about a week ago. The coughing is still there, but at least that is better.
Back to potty training. I think as a young adult it seems absurd to hear grown adults use phrases like, "poo poo potty, yeah!" "make mommy a tinkle sound and then you can get down." or "put the stinky in the potty." I remember years ago my sister (unmarried, no kids) bought Katie the book "everyone poops." She was laughing so hard she couldn't even read the book all the way thru. 13 years later and it still that bad. Books don't seem to work and neither does anything else. Kids have to decide to do it on their own, but adults non the less try to make it an easy transition...don't forget making up stupid, silly songs that we always hope and pray will make potty training fun and enjoyable for the whole family! But let's face it...the worst is when they want to show you what they've done and they parade around the house with the little removable bowl from their potty chair as they look for you as you had to leave them for a moment to go check on the boiling water on the stove....urine dripped from the bathroom all the way to the kitchen....just what I want to deal at 10:00 at night! All the while smiling and saying what a big girl Kimmy is! Yeah!

sorry about a whole month away!

Well, it has been a long month for me. I started getting sick the end of August (the 24th to be exact). Megan and Katherine started with separate but I now believe the same virus. In August, Megan's symptoms manifested as a pertussiss infection and Katherine's as sinusitis. Both recovered quickly after antibiotics. Next was Lauren with severe cold symptoms, but she did run fevers off and on and seemed much more sick with this virus. Two days before I took her in to the doctor, I noticed post nasal drip and "swallowing glass" sore throat symptoms in myself and Rebecca was reporting the same. I thought I was so much smarter than my kids and that I WOULD follow thru with all the natural stuff I told them to do and of course they didn't take everything and ended up in the doctor's office with prescriptions...needless to say, just the past couple of days I have been able to function for longer than 2 hours without needing a nap. Rebecca and I both did everything we could to stave it off. Rebecca was well within three days, me....one month?! I did end up resorting to antibiotics, 1) for the sinus infection that left me dizzy, in pain, and looking like someone beat me with a bat (what I said to the doctor was..."look at my eyes...this is not normal and is not the result of abuse!"). Then Wednesday I started with the bronchitis/pertussis treatment as I was coughing so hard I was throwing up...not too good when I am so fatigued already that I could hardly get up in the morning and then had to go back to bed for 2-3 hours after doing school with the kids for 2 hours. It took us ALL DAY to do school for the last month. Thankfully this week it is better!
We now also have a computer upstairs so now I can try to keep up with my blog better. Thank you all for your prayers for us this past month. I could really tell they helped me regain my strength. I actually took the kids on a short walk yesterday to try to exercise my lungs...I still have a bit of a cough and some chest congestion, but it is sooooo much better!
Well, I need to get Kimberly to bed.
Love and blessings!
Kris