Not just another Thursday

I've been playing housewife today. It's kinda fun, you know, a nice change of pace. I've been putting things away, vacuuming, washing dishes, even chopping onions and potatoes for dinner! (It's my night to do dinner b/c C is working late. Once a week. This may be only the second week out of, I don't know, 10? that I'm actually making dinner instead of leaving for him when he gets back or heating up leftovers, which never counts as making dinner.) So, yeah, the living areas of our little apartment are actually bearable to be in! I'd kinda given up on this place because it's so small feeling, there doesn't seem to be "a place for everything" (as the adage goes), and I found I'd rather spend my time with the boys. Or reading. But that's another post. Or maybe just later in this post.

But I was on a mission this week: Z has a couple friends coming over in about 20 minutes and there was no way I was going to let them play in our pig sty. I feel so very accomplished! Like maybe I can actually keep it this way! It would be nice to live in a place that's a little bit welcoming to come home to. Recently I've been avoiding coming home from errands or an activity with the boys because the clutter was getting to me. I knew it was bothering me, but I couldn't seem to find the motivation to do anything about it. Like I said, there isn't a place for everything, which made it seem like a losing battle, and knowing the battle is lost before it's begun is really disheartening. Now that things are picked up though, maybe it won't be so hard to keep it this way. I have two techniques to use: 1) always do something to make the room a little bit better than it was, even just taking something out that doesn't belong. 2) If something catches my attention, take care of just that item w/o trying to clean every lampshade in the house, for example.

The other motivating factor this week was a book. I have fallen in love with the Twilight Saga. We watched the movies about 2 weeks ago, and then I took the boys to the library and couldn't resist checking out the first book. And then I was hooked. I spent an entire Friday reading Twilight and Midnight Sun. When I finished I was rather conflicted. I loved reading, but I felt really icky with myself for neglecting everything all day long. All I did was read. Then I checked out the 2nd book (New Moon) and spent Saturday afternoon, evening, until 2am reading. My theory was to finish it and then I'd be free to focus on other things. That worked for Sunday, but then Sunday night BOTH boys were up several times and I didn't get much sleep. I was so nauseous from lack of sleep by Monday morning I couldn't even drink my coffee. That's REALLY nauseous. Not much got done on Monday. I was kindof a zombie. Then Tuesday I was catching up on emails etc. from Monday (why is it that the day I'm out of it, everyone emails me??). Which left me with Wednesday and today to get things straightened up. And because I had this deadline today of friends coming over to get my house clean, I couldn't afford to check out the 3rd book (Eclipse). C promised to bring it home for me after work tomorrow. I cleared my calendar for the weekend so I can read it without guilt. And let me tell you, knowing that I have that book to look forward to made the house cleaning so much easier!! All I need now is a constant stream of books to look forward to and I bet I'll never suffer from lack of get-up-and-go again.

....

Our friends aren't here yet, so I wanted to tell you about potty training. It's still incredible to me and I'm not sure it's sunk in yet, but Z is potty trained! Nighttime, daytime, wet, messy - all trained! All it took was 6 months of indulging him when he was interested but refusing to put my heart in it because I was too exhausted and then 1 week cold-turkey from diapers to underpants, and it's done! We only had 2 nighttime accidents (both only wet), a handful of wet accidents, and a smaller handful of messy accidents. I feel like I got off really easy and it blows my mind. I still pack a change of clothes for him when we go somewhere, but he's so aware, I don't think he'll have any more accidents if they can be at all helped. The funny thing is that I wasn't planning on starting the training until after all our activities had ended (as they will next month) so we'd be home and could focus on the training. But one Friday morning he decided he didn't want diapers back on. Since we were going to be home all weekend, I figured we could give it a go. And we haven't looked back. At one point he was having trouble with going BM and I offered that he could use a diaper. He took it as a threat and became even more determined to use the potty!! Not the reaction I was expecting! So waiting until he insisted on underpants was definitely a good thing, even though I wasn't sure about the timing.

My little alarm clock is going off (why doesn't that child just NAP ALREADY???) and our friends will be here soon, so I'll talk to you again later when I get another chance :-)