A hard day's potty training

Potty update

I think Little I. finally has the hang of this potty training thing. He went potty 4 times yesterday. He stayed dry all last night with no diaper, and the first thing he did this morning was pee in the potty.

Hooray! He's on the right track now!

Woman vs. Toddler

You already know who won this battle.

Little I. will soon be three years old. In September, he starts attending pre-school two days a week. Both he and I are very excited about this.

There's a catch, however. He has to be completely potty-trained before his first day. That's five weeks away.

So I started training him today. He went once in the potty (hooray!!!!). He's had 10 accidents.

Accidents my butt.

He requested a pull up for bedtime, but made me promise I'd get out his "big boy underwear" in the morning.

At least the dining room floor got mopped again today because of it. Five times.

Woman 1, Toddler 10.

"Neither can live while the other survives, and one of us is about to leave for good..."

I waited in line with almost a thousand others last night to get my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows shortly after midnight. I finished it tonight at 10:30.

What an immensely satisfying ending to Harry's story. Rowling spared us nothing, and yet I finished the book smiling.

"All was well."

Thanks, Jo, from the bottom of this bookworm's heart.

What did the rest of you think? Megan?

About a year ago....

...I was chanting my end of pregnancy mantra, "Give me life, give me pain. Give me myself again."

HT to Megan for reminding me of how wonderfully emotive Tori's music is.

Woman vs. nature

Anyone who knows me well knows I'm an outdoor kind of girl. I love to camp Girl Guide-style, in tents and lean-tos and quanzees. My bedrolls are water-proof and tight as a drum. I love to start a cooking fire with one match, some newspaper, pine cones and kindling. I excel at cooking on rocks heated in a fire. I make the best S'mores ever.

But I loathe bugs in all their shapes and forms. And Vancouver Island is full of spiders and hornets and bees and beetles and ants of all shapes and sizes.

There are earwigs in my backyard and three types of ants in my front yard. There are flying insects everywhere -- everything except mosquitoes.

Ugh.

Our PMQ (that's a house for all you civvies out there) has hardwood floors in the living room and dining room, and lino in the kitchen, front entry and laundry room/back entry. The hardwood is lovely, but every drip and spill on the dining room floor shows up, even after being wiped with a sponge.

My floors were filthy last night. Two weeks of visiting relatives and days at the beach and a heat wave will do that.

Last night, the ants discovered a way in my back entry. And they discovered the bounty of dried beer and wine and pop on the floor around my blue box.

The bugs had invaded my domain. And they were looking hopefully towards the bonanza that was my dining room floor.

Attack!

Out came the mop and bucket, hot water and Pine-Sol. I mopped the back entry and kitchen, teeny ants shrivelling up as the soapy water hit them. Mwahahaha!

Then I entered the dining room. And an alarm started sounding in my brain. It was using my mother's voice as a weapon.

"Cindy Marie, don't you DARE use Pine-Sol on those hardwood floors!" it admonished. "Vinegar and water mopping only, followed by a quick buffing. That's the PROPER way to clean them!"

"But, Mom," I countered in my head, "the ants are coming! I need to disinfect, and fast. Besides, my neighbour Kim cleans her hardwood this way."

"You'll leave a film on them!"

I was pondering this when one tiny ant skittered from kitchen to dining room.

"Sorry, Mom, this is war. And war is ugly."

Twenty minutes later every ant in the house was dead, and all my hardwood was gleaming. The whole downstairs smelled of pine trees.

Woman 1, nature 0.

Happy Birthday, Hubby!

The Hubby turns 30 today. Happy birthday, love, and many happy returns. I love you.

Update: An excited wreck!

Update! The realtor called about an hour after I posted the note below. Our house is sold, effective July 13, 2007. We are making a modest profit, too. Hooray! Thank you, Lord, and thank you St. Joseph for favours received.

I'm waiting for our real estate agent to call with a possible sale of our house in Yellowknife. The other party made an offer, we accepted, and the house was inspected yesterday. Now it's all a matter of the final decision.

My stomach's in knots. Sell, house, sell! Saint Joseph, pray for us!