The Woes of Potty Training and other Adventures...

I think I might really be the worst mother ever.  We've been trying to potty train Dennis for months now.  No such luck...  he doesn't ever want to break away from whatever he's doing to go and sit on the potty, no matter how much I try to convince, cajole, or coerce.  So I finally got the bright idea to buy him some actual underpants and I told him that he could wear these as long as he went and sat on the potty when I said it was time, and he was excited because they were Thomas the Tank Engine underwear.  I was thinking that he might not be so keen to sit in a puddle of his own urine and surely when that happened he would be more eager to come with me to bathroom.

 Well, shortly after these pictures were taken, he had peed all over the floor and Scott.  So I said, "come on Dennis, let's go sit on the potty!"  And he screamed bloody murder.  Well I don't think that forcing a toddler to sit on the potty is necessarily effective and will only lead to mutiny in the future, so needless to say that I cleaned up that mess with no apparent benefit and now he's back to diapers.  My life is just so busy right now that I can't give him the consistency that he needs to learn this new skill.  I'm hoping that when we move and get all settled and can give him more attention that he'll be more willing to learn, but as of right now, those diapers are eating up our precious moving money bit by bit! 

Meanwhile operation "lose weight" is still coming along very slowly, if at all.  I did a 5k on the elliptical in 40:15 minutes yesterday.  That may not seem very fast for you athletic types, but considering that I couldn't even do 3 miles in highschool, it's a great accomplishment for me.  Also I can fit into some of my pre-pregnancy clothes again!  Woo hoo!  So even though I still weigh about the same, I'm feeling better and hopefully looking better.

I'm all wrapped up in the move stuff.  I don't know how so many families move so often all the time.  It seems like there is so much to think about  and so much to do, not to mention that Bill (my boss) wants me to do about 60,000 things around the office and train my sister-in-law at the same time in the two and a half weeks that I have left before I stop working.  But the plus side is, since Bill wants me to overlap with Heather's schedule, it calls for an occasional afternoon shift, which I love, and so last week before work, I took Dennis on a picnic at Smucker's park with me and we absolutely loved it.

He usually runs straight to the playground, but this time he actually came up to me and wanted to snuggle and just watch the birds fly over us and he thought it was such a great time when the bugs crawled over our blanket.

So even though I'm incredibly busy, I still have time enough I suppose for the important things, even if potty-training is not on the top of our list right now.  Hopefully by the time Dennis is ready to learn the potty with full force, I will be too! 

Today I had 10 sunbeams.  10 three-year olds.  10 of them.  10 sunbeams who feed off of each other's energy.  10 little bundles of crazy.  10.  Poor Carrie, my team teacher, barely made it through her lesson with her sanity in tact, and I ended up doing bicep curls with Tiny the entire time to stop him from destroying the class.  I'm really lucky that he didn't break my glasses because they're on the verge of breaking already and they're the only ones I have and AHCCCS doesn't cover new ones!  He had such a fascination with them and randomly pulling them off my face when I wasn't expecting it.  I firmly believe the Lord protected them because I was performing my calling!  Haha..  Anyways, at the end of class he had an issue with Grant Claridge and a certain blue crayon.  There was some yelling and kicking and crying.  I took Tiny into the next room for a time out and heart to heart.  And this is how it goes:

Me:  "so talk to me Tiny, how come you hurt Grant?" 
Tiny:  "When someone kicks me, I kick them back.  And I kick HARD!" 
Me:  "Grant had that crayon first and I didn't see him kick you.. some kids are just playing with you, Tiny, and when you kick them, you mean to hurt them, and that's not very nice.  Is that what Jesus would do?"
Tiny:  "No".... he says softly
Me:  "You hurt Grant in there, do you think when we go back you can say sorry and give him a hug?"
Tiny: "Yeah, okay"  he jumps up and runs to the door.
Me:  I pull him back into his chair  "Tiny, I want you to know that you're one of my favorite Sunbeams and when I move next month, I will miss you a lot" and he's getting fussy again so I pull him up onto my lap for a huge hug.
Tiny:  "Will you still know where I live if you move?"
Me:  "Yes, I'll still know where you live when I move.  Thank you for trying to be so good in class.  Let's go say sorry to Grant"

When we get back to class, he goes right up to Grant who's still milking it for all it's worth, and says sorry and gives him a hug.  We didn't hear a peep from Tiny for the rest of class (which, granted, was only 10 more minutes, but that's still an achievement for him).  It amazes me - that receptiveness of their sweet little spirits.  Sure, I may leave that class FEELING like I just went to the gym, and my hair looks like I just fell in the pool and I have huge sweat stains underneath my arms and I go home and pass out on the bed, but I do love teaching them.  I'm grateful for this oppurtunity that I have to learn how to be a better teacher, friend, and Mom, and I'm especially thankful for the oppurtunity I have to learn from these precious children.  It's like they said at General Conference last week, the most difficult children are the ones who need us the most, and we need them the most too!  I want Tiny and all of my sunbeams to know that I really do love them and will miss them very much.