Still working on that love list

In the meantime, here's a pop quiz. Can you tell the difference?

My anti-love list

Day 48 of the bus strike.

Balmy -25 degree weather.

French training.

Husband who pretends he's listening, then asks me a question directly related to what I just said to him.

Pre-adolescence.

Potty training.

Any time any one any where says "Oh oh."

Feeling that I'm in over my head. (I've joined a group and offered to be the Board Secretary. I've been getting a deluge of emails since. I'm wondering what the krunk I got myself into now!)

Maybe tomorrow I'll be in a better place and can post a love list. Any suggestions to get that one started?

Fall out

The fall out from the Terror Child's activities have finally been noticed, though I don't know that I really can call it fall out, more like a like sprinkling Spring shower.

CU-1: "Heh, who took my candy box out."

Me: "I don't know CU-1. I found it downstairs."

CU-1: Looks at me suspiciously.

Me: "Did you check out your locker? Do you see what was there?*"

CU-1 paddles off.

The end.

*At Christmas, CUs-3 and 4 got into his other Christmas candy, which I said I'd replace, which I did, finally.

Terror child update

These are of the Terror Child, in better times.

Funny, the side effects of the chocolate. It was the easiest evening in over two weeks that he went to bed with much less of a fuss.

Tonight it's back to the usual shenanigans and the running of the stairs. (The Huz is going to have a back side that can crack walnuts by the end of this.)

Living in this house should come with a WARNING

I've repeatedly told my children that they signed a contract at birth. They claim they don't remember. I tell them, that's their problem, not mine.

For example, when one child provokes the other, and I'm in my did-I-really-sign-up-for-this-I-can't-recall-doing-so moods, I'll tell the warring children that it's in their contract to annoy one another. Usually that brings a break in the proceeding, long enough for them to get distracted and leave one another alone.

Apparently my contract says that I'll have a steel-trap mind for stuff that lies around our home. Not a particularly useful super power until you get the desperate call at work from The Huz who's channeling an equally desperate kid who can't find his or her mittens-lunch-box-home-work-glasses-socks-shoe-favorite-lucky pencil.

I have to say I think it's really sad that I've got a response for him like "check the laundry room shelf on the right hand side, left side of that shelf, in the green bin, at the back, under the cotton wads). It's very sad.

Alas, it's not these common place occurrences that have triggered today's entry. No. I wish it were. It has more to do with siblings getting into places they're probably not supposed to be going into.

Take this evidence, for example:
When The Huz went upstairs for the eighth time this evening to try to put the Terror Child to bed, The Huz found chocolates, partially consumed, apparently not being of the liking of the immediate consumer.

This was never his box of chocolates to consume. The greater problem isn't trying to scrape the child off the wall after having consumed sugar, it's having to deal with the sibling to whom the box of chocolates belongs who isn't here to deal with the immediate disappointment.

Even more regrettable is that the child on the loosing end already had another candy stash broken into.

So here's my problem. Do I try to guess the number of chocolates post-consumed and replace those? Do I hide the box and pray to small gawds that he doesn't notice the box is missing? Do I even confess what the sibling did? Oh the choices.

That's minus honey!

Taken from inside the kitchen this morning at about 7:30 a.m.

A short post on anti-social vegetables

Perpetual Chocoholic (who's running a very good tutorial on drawing) guessed correctly about my reference to anti-social vegetables in the previous post. So here's the short version of the back story.

I've been working very hard to try to reduce, reuse and recycle (mostly ME). So that means many more vegetables and the like. For some, vegetables are a great thing. In our house, they're the anti-social element of the house and it kind of goes like this:

I make a modified version of the cabbage salad (aka known as a party salad or a chinese salad or the like). It's pretty good. Feeling peckish, and watching the Food Network (not a great combination), I serve myself a serving ... then another ... and then The Huz joins me. He's the one that kind of started the conversation. After he finished his serving, he said "oh, my body's not going to like me in the morning" to which I corrected him "No. Your colleagues at work won't like you."

So, the next day it was Pizza night in our house, and we've put on a ban of potty talk at the table (at my mother's request). I was talking about the great salad, that kind of had miserable side effects and refered to them as "the anti-social vegetables".

And dang, they sure are yummy.

Monday love list

Oh so many good things happen when so many bad things are going on. In a week we'll have an Obama-nation (and I consider that a good thing)!

Stealing the idea from Meg, here's today's love list:

• snow
• snow storms
• music I can sing too (AND remember the lyrics to)
• having a light bulb moment
• hair after it's been outside in the cold
• surprise rebate cheques
• boxes that come in the mail
• French class, especially when it's heavy with boy humor
• anti-social vegetables
  

Things I love a bit less

• hypocrites
• head lice
• dirtied diapers
• people parking haphazardly
• endless house cleaning
  

I guess locuses are next

As if I don't have enough to do, I was greeted by two members of the after-school staff asking me if I received the telephone call they'd apparently placed to me this afternoon.

It all started with itching.

Itching and small children are NOT a good thing.

I am so thankful for sympathetic teachers too, and heavy chemical shampoos, that don't do that much good, except possibly let me sleep tonight thinking that I've got a start on things.

Yes. We've got a wild case of head lice in at least two of the kids. I'll be checking the other two Friday, when they come home, because their father is usually in complete denial about things.

Hey PC, just to let you know, you've trained me well.

Nights like this, I ask "why me".

I so wish I was talking about the bear

Poo, not Pooh.

There. I said it.

A result of popular demand (yes, can you imagine I have had people say I should blog about this?) I'm am writing about Child-Unit 4's toilet training successes and failures. And, no, there won't be any pictures to go along with this story (only because they came out too blurry to post).

So, from this point on be warned. This is not a cutsie post about fluffy kittens and puppies. You probably want that anyway, then the stories that follow. Back track and click the link now, unless of course, you're a Mom, a former Mom, or a maybe a recovering Mom that needs to get over a baby sniffing addiction! ;-)

Toilet training the last of the family lineage has been, um, a treat. I'm told these stories I will be able to look back on and laugh off in a few years.

I don't think I can wait that long.

Toilet training, in earnest, started December 26.

After CU-4 received training underpants for Christmas (he was VERY excited Christmas morning when he opened the box, pulled them out and started jumping up and down saying "Bunny! Bunny! Bunny!") we warned him his diapering days were almost over.

Hour upon hour we trotted him back and forth to the toilet. For the most part, mostly misses. Occasionally he'd tease us, or our timing would be good enough and he'd relax and dribble into the toilet. Yeh! One for us. But those stories don't make for an interesting read. Oh no. I'm about to tell you three true stories:

#1 - the near miss
CU-4 was put on the toilet and The Huz got distracted, mumbled something to me about "boy" and "toilet" as he passed. I didn't think much of it until CU-3 started howling for me to come and see what CU-4 did. And there it was in all it's glory. About three feet from where it's final resting place should have been. That's when I got the camera out and throughly lost my "good parenting" points.

#2 - making the rounds
Since construction of the new part of the house last year, we've been re-blessed with having an extra two commodes added to our formerly humble abode. We'd started the training in the powder room (also know as A----a's bathroom - named after a former neighbour-child who used the facilities at g-r-e-a-t length). However, because of a hockey play-off with Canada and the Russians, CU-4 and his equipment was moved to the en suite, which was closer to the front room and the TV. It was at this location that the second story takes place.

While folding laundry, CU-4 was playing nicely with others, and occasionally amusing himself, though generally staying out of trouble until I see him skip past me for the third time.

After the first two times it didn't really click in that he'd been coming out of my bedroom, on the back loop, empty handed. (On my behalf I'll say I've been very under the weather during the holiday season.) The second pass I *think* he had a wooden toy figurine of a giraffe. The third pass through was with a Duplo block square. (I'd missed the original foray, it turns out. THAT was a piece of train track.) My gut suspicions were triggered. I'd followed him into the bathroom, yelling for support just in case I had to have a confrontation or an intervention.

Sigh. I caught him just after he'd flushed.

Oh, I probably shouldn't mention that earlier that day The Huz had caught him, em, testing the waters in that facility for potability. Ew ew ew ew ew. (Grandma Tim tells me that most children have done this at one time or another. Still, ew.)

#3 - the sink incident
The Huz is doing his regular rounds putting the CUs to bed. I get the bellow to hurry and hurry hard (I love curling terms, they're so cute!) The Huz was upset because it looked like CU-4 had done something to clog the toilet and it had backed-up into the sink.

Upon closer investigation, The Huz concluded that CU-4 had taken a sample and decided to wash his hands of it in the sink. (Update: Upon further reflection, The Huz believes that it may have just been a soil sample taken from one of the resident bathroom cacti, though the jury is still out on that one.)

#4 - the bonus story
First day back on our regular schedule, the CU fairs ok, not leaving anything behind when trying out his care giver's toilet, and sliding things in on the sly, during nap time. She instructs me to put him right on the toilet when we get home, which I do. Too late. The cold weather has already triggered a response. Ok, so we start again.

Every hour CU-4 is coaxed to park. Nothing as far as I can tell.

During the last park-and-ride, I'm trying to multitask and verify I've got sufficient ingredients to run a batch of cookies through when I hear the scream of the howler monkey. The last time CU-4 had reacted this way, I found him with one foot in the toilet bowl, and on point, kind of like a ballerina warming up at the bar. (Apparently he was trying to get off.) No such luck this time. For either of us.

No, this time he'd took care of business and all the formalities. He'd peed on his business twice. TWICE!

Cripes. Now how do I end a blog entry like this eh? Perhaps with a grateful sigh that we're done for today and with a big thank you to small gods that I got into a Mr. Clean 2-for-1 sale!