Cleaning House

Since you are all just sitting on the edge of your seats wondering how goes the "poop parade" - so coined by my dear sister-in-law, I just had to post to keep you all informed.

Oh? You are tired of it already? Yeah, well, I don't blame you.

I'm tired of it TOO!

People keep telling me - "This too shall pass" and "They won't be pooping in their pants in college", etc... but to be honest, it feels very much like we'll be doing this for a LONG time, But as my husband tells the kiddos, "You will learn. It might not be today, it might not be tomorrow but you will learn - someday."

I just had to clean my house today. It's a gorgeous, warm, sunny day. All the windows are wide open. Christina took the kids outside and played with them for awhile, then I told her to go work on her math and I actually made the little kids stay outside unless they needed to go potty. They have thought that we would entertain them all day, every day and have not been very good about playing on their own at all. I worked hard at disinfecting the house and everytime they came to the door I asked them if they needed to go potty. That was enough to make them run the other way. I even packed a picnic lunch and two of the girls took them up the hill to eat. It only lasted so long when one of the girls came running to tell me Mister was throwing a fit. He's now sitting on the time out chair while the rest went for walk to look for wild flowers. The nice thing about him in time-out is he doesn't cry much. He only says "I being good" every 30 seconds which translates into "let me off this chair". Unfortunately for him, he has to respect everybody, not just me, and somehow he hasn't figured that out.

I'm being a stickler for them using words to express their needs. Grunts and facial expressions don't cut it. Communicating by crying means NOTHING at all to me. I know I'm a meanie, but that just the way it is. I'm oaky-dokey with trying to figure out what their mangled words mean so long as they are trying. Sometimes they don't want to try so they don't get what they want. Life is so tough.

As far as the potty training goes, we are celebrating the small victories. Little Missy is giving us a teaspoon of poop in the toilet on occasion and we have a party over it! The fact it she isn't in control of it herself, so it's a process and we have to keep that in mind. Her brother is a different story and I'm not sure I know what the story is, yet. We've seen a lot of poop these days and that in itself is a victory because I know they were backed up to their tonsils and all that fiber is doing it's work. We've taken to watching dvds in the bathroom on potty breaks on the laptops. Good thing we have two laptops and three bathrooms.

I've lost my appetite pretty much . . . I have this "aura of ickiness" about me :- / My husband brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers last night and a friend brought over three loaves of fresh bread and an entree and some have called or emailed to say they were praying. It all means a lot. . . mostly that people recognize that this is hard work and that they are interested.

One thing I am learning is that praying with the kids and asking Jesus for a change of heart during bad attitudes is very helpful. It keeps me focused on the important thing, and Jesus truly gives them a new outlook. Sometimes they don't want it, but eventually they give in.