Everybody poops. And pees.

So we're sort of kind of starting potty training for PJ.  We put him on the toilet before baths, sometimes other times, etc. 

He has now peed in the toilet THREE TIMES.  But yesterday, yesterday was the grandest.

I heard him screwing around in the bathroom.  I march in, fully prepared to yell.  He was pointing at the toliet, and pointing at his seat.

"Do you have to go pee pee?"

He nodded.

I pulled his pants down, whipped the diaper off and put him on the seat.

AND HE STARTED PEEING.

My little guy told me he had to go pee.  Well sort of.  He hasn't actually said pee, or anything like that, but he recognized he had to pee and let me know!

I realize this might not happen again for days, weeks, maybe.  And he just turned 2 a month ago.  My goal is to have him potty trained and out of diapers by September. 

I think I am going to stop buying diapers and buy pullups.  Or maybe just smaller boxes of diapers for night time.

Man, what will I do with all that money and time if I only have to change one child's diapers?
I just began this potty training business, but a couple things I learned already.

The "splash guard" sucks.  PJ would not pee and then I took it off and he did.  I think it scrapes their poor little weiners.  Yes, we get some pee on the toilet, the floor, and me, but it's worth it because HE'S PEEING IN THE TOILET.

If you ask your child if he has to go pee and he says no, don't force him on the potty anyway.  You want it to be a pleasant experience, not something he or she is scared of and then never wants to do again.

That's all I got.  Please share with me your potty training experience, tips, tools, whatever. 

I got an award. For Substance.

So I got an award from my blogger friend Sarah because I have a blog with substance!  And no, the irony is not lost on me that my post from yesterday was about the cuteness of my kids as opposes to not-so-cute kids.  Anyway, since Sarah bestowed this award on me, I have to share 7 things about myself with you, my fabulous readers.

1.   I love football.  Chicago Bears football to be exact. I know more than most guys, I swear and yell at the refs, I play fantasy football, you will never find me shopping while the game is on or complaining that my husband is watching the game.  I even watch the OTHER games.  Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, etc.  I have to keep up with my fantasy team!

2.  I love Coca Cola.  Seriously.  I don't drink coffee.  I do not like Pepsi and pretty much won't drink it.  And not that diet crap.  COCA COLA PEOPLE. 

3.  I have an extremely huge problem with obvious grammar mistakes, but my BIGGEST pet peeve is when people use apostrophes for things that are plural.  For example, "Kids eat free on Tuesday's!"  NO.  Tuesday is not possessing anything.  IT'S TUESDAYS!!!

4.  I had a miscarriage before I got pregnant with PJ.  Next to my mom's disease, it is the hardest thing I've ever had to go through.  I was lucky to get pregnant very quickly with PJ afterwards, but my heart still breaks when I think about it and breaks every time I hear of some poor woman losing a child.

5.  I hate socks. Seriously.  I have a rule that I do not wear socks from April 1- November 1. I don't care how cold it gets during these months.  I do not wear socks.  I hate them.  In the winter months I take them off the minute I get home, and if I'm not going to be outside for long, I won't wear them outside.

6.  I still watch Roseanne whenever it is on TV.  Not the later ones though, with the new Becky and when they won the lottery.  I'm talking about the early episodes, when Becky was dating Mark, and Darlene was at her prime.  That is some of the best television ever.

7.  My best friends from high school, though I don't see them as often as I'd like anymore, or even talk to them as often as I like, are still my best friends, and we always pick up right where we left off.  The same doctor delivered all three of our first borns.

So there you go!  And now, I get to bestow this exciting award on 7 of my friends in no order.  Some of these ladies are super awesome busy bloggers, so I don't expect them to do it, but if they do great!!  So here you go ladies!! :)

Christina

Sara

January

Rebecca

Tasha

Tracy

Peeper

Sometimes I feel bad for the not-so-cute kids.

WARNING:  This is going to be an extremely conceited post. 

First LOOK AT THIS PICTURE OF MY GORGEOUS BABY GIRL

Seriously.  SERIOUSLY.  She's fucking beautiful.  I mean, my awesome kick ass friend Katie Ryan is extremely fucking talented as well, but even she can't turn an ugly kid into the gorgeousness of Maggie in this picture.  And this is just one of MANY gorgeous pics she took of my baby girl.

So my kids are pretty fucking cute.  I know this because strangers have commented to me how cute they are, people I don't know have made comments on pictures on FB that family have posted, etc.  It's not the obligatory "Oh he's so cute" because strangers don't do that.  And of course, as a parent, you always think YOUR kids are the cutest, but you can also appreciate the cuteness of other kids.  And at the same time, you can recognize the not-so-cuteness of others.

Some kids start off really cute, and then as they get older, they lose it.  Maybe they have a really big forehead.  Maybe they look too much like someone in the family who's just not that attractive.  Maybe they don't have enough hair, and this is of course through no fault of their own, but they just look weird.  Sometimes they start off not so cute, and then get cuter as they get older.  YAY!  Whatever the case may be, I feel bad when I know my kids are cuter than someone else's.  Because I'm pretty blunt and honest, and I won't tell someone their kid is cute because they say mine are. 

I have a lot of friends who have kids and I will say the majority of them are adorable.  There's a couple that I give the side-eye too, but they are pretty much all good kids, and I'd be happy if either PJ or Maggie ended up with one of our friends' kids later in life. 

The good thing is, all of you followers of mine that have kids?  All your kids are adorable.  And I'm not just saying that because you said PJ and Maggie were. :)

My RAVE experience

So last Friday I posted a funny story of my life, and I thought it might be fun to make it a weekly thing.  So here goes.

Let's step back in time to March 1997.  Southside Irish Parade weekend (for those of you who aren't familiar with Chicago, the SSI Parade was one of the best weekends in our city, till the bastards cancelled it this year).  The Parade is on Sunday, so we're talking Saturday night.

My three best friends -- they called us the Four Headed Beast -- decided they wanted to go to a rave.  I did not have any desire to go.  Just not my scene, so I opted to go see a movie with a good friend.  Off my friends went to the rave.

Now here's where it's important to tell you that I had my own phone line.  This was both awesome and terrible, because it meant people knew they could call me pretty much WHENEVER because the phone would only ring in MY room.  Therefore, no risk of parental units answering.  Also, in 1997. only adults and important people had cell phones.  We had pagers.  We were so cool.

So I'm peacefully sleeping when my phone rings.  I look at the clock and it's 6:12 a.m.  I look at the Caller ID and it's a payphone.  Knowing it's one of my three friends, I answer.

"Hello?"

"Hey Lis!  Whatcha doin'? (It's the other Lisa -- I quickly discover why neither Rita or Kristine made the call - because they were afraid I'd kill them).

"Um, it's 6 in the morning.  I'm sleeping."

"Oh.  Well, um, we, were sort of, um, wondering, if you could, um, pick us up?"

"Pick you up?  What happened?  Where's Kristine's car?"

"Well, we came out of the rave and three of her tires were slashed."

At this point, I shoot up in bed so fast, I got dizzy and almost fell out of bed.

"WHAT?? HER TIRES WERE SLASHED??? ARE YOU KIDDING?"

"No, and we tried to jack up the car to put on the spare, but we put the jack on wrong and we broke something."

Okay.  Here's why I was the mom of our group.

First of all, WHAT GOOD IS IT TO CHANGE ONE TIRE WHEN YOU HAVE THREE SLASHED TIRES.

Second of all, WHY WOULD YOU ATTEMPT TO DO THIS WHEN NONE OF YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU ARE DOING, AND IT'S 4 A.M.

"We borrowed a guy in a Cadillac's cell phone to call a tow truck but we couldn't find any numbers."

"Okay.  I'm coming.  Where are you?"

Silence.

"Um, where are you???"

"1650 E. 87th Street."

"Wait.  did you just say EAST 87th Street?"

Sidenote:  The SOUTHEAST side of Chicago is NOT a good neighborhood.  This is where I will run a redlight without giving it a second thought.  Needless to say, I don't drive on the SOUTHEAST side of Chicago.

"Yeah, that's where the rave was."

Now I'm pissed.  "I'm leaving.  You better be ready to get in the car when I get there."

I get there, and the three of them are sitting in Kristine's car.  I pull up and they get in, smiling.  I am not smiling.

"Thank you!  We love you!"

Continuous glaring.

We drive back to my house.  I sit Kristine down with the yellow pages and tell her to find a tow truck.  I go to Dunkin Donuts and get coffee and donuts because I am THAT good of a friend, and I am the mom.

We drive back to EAST 87th street to meet the tow truck guy.  Tow truck guy tows the car back to my house (where Kristine was "spending the night" according to her parents") and the plan is to say the tires got slashed overnight while it was parked on my block.

So we've now paid for one tow truck.  Kristine's parents pay for the second tow truck to come and get the tires fixed. 

They did anything I asked for the next month.

And Kristine's parents still don't know what really happened.

Haircuts & Chick-Fil-A

Today PJ will be getting his sixth haircut in his life.  Since he was 1.

Today we get to eat Chick-Fil-A for dinner (I fucking love CFA).

That is all.

Happy Thursday.

PYHO: Losing Mom

Linking up to Shell once again this week.

I posted a couple weeks ago about my mom, and was told by a friend I should continue to blog about her, even though I try to keep my blog upbeat and happy.  But today I feel the need again, as she's been on my mind more than usual lately (if that's possible).

I miss bullshitting with her.  I miss telling her stories about my friends -- who all know and love her -- and watching her crack up.  I miss her head tilt and smile when I talked about certain friends she loved so very much.  I miss asking her what she thought about the dress I got for so-and-so's wedding.

I miss the email I'd have everyday when I got to work.  I still have the very last email from work she ever sent me.  I sometimes still pick up the phone to call her at work, when she hasn't worked in nearly two years.

I hate that when I need advice about something with my children, I can't call her, because she can't tell me.  I hate that I've raised my children pretty much without any guidance from her -- not that I always needed it, but before, I would have told her when PJ coughed, or Maggie was fussy, on a daily basis, because we spoke on a daily basis.  Now I just tell her the milestones, usually over email that her caregiver types or when we go visit her.

I hate that we can't go out shopping, or out to lunch.  I hate that she can't watch my kids when John and I want to go out or have something to do.  I hate that she told me she would take them for a week when John and I went on our 5 year anniversary vacation, that she'd take the week off work and they'd do all kinds of fun stuff.

I hate that I hate going to her house, because seeing her this way makes me sick to my stomach.  I hate that I'd rather NOT see her because it's just so terrible to see the woman who was always on the go, so vibrant, so full of life, so loud, boisterous, such a loving woman be confined to whatever spot she was put it, without so much as being able to lift her hand to brush a piece of hair out of her face.

I hate that I want her to die, because her quality of life is nothing, and her life sucks beyond all stretches of the imagination.  I hate that she knows EXACTLY what she is missing out on, because her brain is perfectly fine.

I hate that she will never ever be able to wear the 65 plus pairs of high heels that she loved to wear again.

I hate that she will never be able to wear the dress she wore to our wedding again.

I hate that she will never attend one of my children's birthday parties, school functions, sporting events or anything else they do.

I hate that I will never receive another birthday card that she signed.

I hate that I cannot find the last birthday card she did sign.

I hate that I constantly think about all the plans that will be made when she does die.  I hate that I think about if my stepdad is going to want to move out of the house and give it to us.

I hate that although I know these feelings are normal and expected, I feel like a selfish asshole.

I hate that my mom is physically here, but my MOM is gone.

Things making me swoon

I am stealing this idea from Rebecca at Unexplained X2 (who you should really check out, and follow, because she's just awesome).

Things currently making my heart skip a beat:

**PJ giving me kisses right on the lips

**Maggie whipping her head around as soon as she hears my voice

**Maggie's smile

**PJ's giggle

**Nutella

**Ham & Swiss cheese on Rye sandwiches

**Not wearing socks anymore (even though the weather SUCKS in Chicago)

**Knowing our vacation is less than three months away

**Knowing I have just about 5 months left of breastfeeding and pumping

**Knowing in a little over 5 months I will be getting rid of the pump FOREVER

**Pepper Steak

**Jamba Juice four cheese flatbread

**Reef flip flops

**Sundresses

**The fact that PJ can color all over himself with marker, and I just laugh, because it's funny, and cute.

**Maggie trying to use a sippy cup and PJ helping.

**Maggie doing downward facing dog as she tries to crawl

And now, for a lot of pictures, some referencing the above.  All of which make my heart flutter.