overwhelming pride

I caught Seth doing something yesterday that made my heart swell with pride. I was checking on him after he had gone to the bathroom and found him standing in front of the toilet, meticulously wiping up his little dribbles with a piece of toilet paper. Then he washed his hands and came out to play. I had wondered why I could never find any potty training accidents the past few days whenever I would check the bathroom after he used it. Now I know, my precious, 3 year old with OCD tendencies has been cleaning up after himself the way he sees mommy do it. Now, I realize that for some of you reading this, the whole thing might not seem like that big of a deal. But let me preface this milestone moment by reminding you all that I grew up with 3 little brothers. I spent my entire childhood with bathroom duty because my brothers were too incompetant to effectively clean the bathroom that we all shared. This should not have surprised me because they were also too incompetant to pee successfully into the toilet bowl. My saturday mornings (super cleaning day in my house) were spent scrubbing urine from the toilet rim, the toilet base, the bathroom floor, and any part of the bathroom wall that was unlucky enough to be positioned near the toilet. I have groggily fallen into more open, peed on toilet bowls at 3am than I care to remember. Let me tell you, having your rear end soaked with toilet water as you try to pry yourself out of the bowl is an incredibly unpleasant way to wake up in the middle of the night. And as of very recently, I have learned from my unsuspecting sister-in-law that I probably spent my whole youth living at home showering with a loofah that had been peed on. (Yes girls, apparently if you hang your loofah on the faucet down low, it will most likely get peed on by any boys attempting to pee into the drain while in the shower) My sister-in-law was lucky enough that my brothers cared enough to tell her that they accidentally peed on her loofah. I doubt they gave me the same courtesy when we were 10. Anyways, all this to say that my greatest fear of having sons was that I would spend the rest of my life cleaning up urine and falling into toilets. (I now know better about the loofah and hang mine up high in shower) I have trained my wonderful, cooperative husband to keep our bathroom clean and sanitary. And I sincerely appreciate his willingness to honor my bathroom hangups. (He does know my brothers after all and seems to feel sorry for me) But I have to say, I NEVER expected my three year old boy to be so willing to spare mommy from urine puddles and disgusting bathroom incidences. I am too proud and only hope that Seth continues with his considerate, bathroom behavior. And I just have to say to Lilah (the sister) and Seth's future wife right now... you're welcome.

I Lilah Ann!

Lilah learned her name this week. She's been quite passionate about her newly understood identification. I can no longer call her any of the pet names that I have so affectionately bestowed on her during her short little life. The other day I said, "Lilah, are you my precious baby girl?" Her brows furrowed and she responded in her passionate, low growl of a voice by saying, "No! I Lilah Ann!" We get the same intense response when we call her by Lilly Lou, sugar pie, baby doll, or any other term of endearment that we tend to use. And if we laugh at her insistance on who she is, she melts down into a frenzied, high pitch squeal of repetitve pleas (all the while pointing to her chest to emphasize the point) "I Lilah Ann! I Lilah Ann!" At least she has a strong sense of identity. =) Seth, by the way, thinks the whole thing is hilarious and has taken full advantage of the opportunity to call her any name that is not actually hers, simply to get a reaction. But if I remember my own childhood with three brothers correctly... that's what brothers are for.

I'm done!

Put a fork in me... I'm done being pregnant! I'm not really. I have two weeks to go. But I want to be done. I'm big and uncomfortable and tired and everything hurts. I'm getting crankier by the minute. (And the election results didn't exactly help cheer me up today). I think I've just hit my limit of what I feel up to doing. I pretty much just want to sit like the beached whale that I am and wait to go into labor. Unfortunately, I have two toddlers who don't seem to understand that mommy has started a boycot on moving... at all. And this annoys me too. Because as irrational as it is, I feel that my children should understand that I need them to be perfect and calm and obedient and to clean up all their own messes so that I don't actually have to engage in active parenting for the next couple of weeks. lol... Today during naptime, Seth climbed on top of his dresser and somehow toppled the entire dresser and 20" TV over. He was not hurt, but the TV broke. And I'm pretty sure that I pulled every last muscle that wasn't already hurting just trying pick up the furniture and television. I called Josh and he said that it makes sense that Seth would climb on furniture and potentially destroy everything in his wake (because he's three). I find that to be an absolutely ridiculous argument and am no longer interested in Josh's opinion about parenting. Seth should have forseen all the potential consequences of his actions and how much they would irritate me. (I'm just kidding) But it was kind of a rough afternoon. =) I'm just worn out and wish I had a husband who was home more to help me out a little more often. I can't even vacuum without going into a serious episode of contractions. Sometimes I watch the Baby Story on TV and see the dads cleaning the house and giving back rubs and doing all this stuff so the huge pregnant women don't have to move and I feel incredibly jealous. Don't get me wrong, Josh is fantastic when he can be. But he works too much and usually has so much to do when he gets home that I feel bad even asking for help. Although, he did give me a pedicure over the weekend because my feet were too gross (even for him) and I can no longer reach them. That was great. Anyways, enough complaining for now. I just want to have the baby and be done with this stage. =)

On a brighter note: It was a good week overall. Halloween was fun. I took the kids to my parents' because Josh was on call. We had a candy scavenger hunt in our costumes with some friends. The kids enjoyed it and it sufficed for trick-or-treating this year. Seth was Eeyore and Lilah was Piglet, but refused to wear her Piglet face. So I did. then we enjoyed Sunday with Josh as he had the day off and just kind of relaxed. On Monday, Seth had his preschool evaluation for the Hilliard City School District preschool. They just have the kids play at different stations and look for signs that they are on target for normal development for their age. (It's a peer model program where Seth would be a peer model in a classroom with 8 children who have IEPs, that's why the peer models have to be evaluated) Anyways, Seth was accepted into the preschool, which was exciting because it seems like a really great program. He'll start next August and I think he'll really enjoy it. He's already talking about school and how he loves it. He kept saying "Thanks so much mom for taking me to school." Hopefully, it works out well for him. That's about it for us lately.