Our oldest son is 3 1/2 years old, and isn't potty trained yet. We haven't been too worried about it, all the experts say that it is normal to not be fully potty trained until age 4. Old baby's day care offers training in that area as well. He has been going potty at school really well, but he had never used the potty at home. The day care manager recommended getting him some underwear, and he could wear it over his pull ups or try wearing them all alone during the day. I of course meant to buy him some, but it was a full 2 weeks later before I did. I bought him some Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine underwear at Target and gave them to him on Thursday night.

He was so excited! We waited till after dinner, then after his bath he got to try on his new underwear. He ran out to his daddy to show him. "Look daddy!!" he yelled while sticking out his backside. It was too funny! We had a little talk about how he knew he wasn't supposed to go tinkle on the carpet, well, he's not supposed to go tinkle in his underpants either. He got the message, because less then 5 minutes later, he had to go potty. He ran into the bathroom, onto his little potty and tinkled! I think I was about to cry I was so happy! Who knew such a little thing could motivate him that quickly to use the potty? I am still amazed at the transformation.

We made sure to bring extra underwear and pants to school on Friday, so he could wear his underwear. On the ride to day care, he tells me from the back seat "Mommy, you'd better hurry. I have to trinkle!" Since it is a 5 minute car ride, I can see that total potty trained perfection is still a ways off. He did have an accident that day, but only because his teacher decided not to put him in a pull up for his nap like I'd asked. It was probably a little bit too early to take his word on it that he could wear his underwear during his nap!

This all helped counter-act the bad mood I was in because our "check engine" idiot light came on while we were on the way home from work Thursday night. We've been tooling around in the two-door Honda Civic all weekend. I'm glad at least that I can still fit back there to buckle the kids in. The van has a faulty canister purge control cellenoid. As my husband says, they're just making stuff up now! Luckily for us, we got back just enough from CA State taxes to pay for it. Easy come, easy go.

Oddly enough, I wasn't able to find a single picture of myself from the past several years in our photo albums. I ended up taking a picture of our Christmas portrait to show you the "old" me and took a picture of myself to show you the "new" me. The end product is a bit laughable, but it gets the point across:






Smile Dammit!!



Hello eyeballs, nice to see you

I would pay real money to have the hairdresser come to my house every morning and do my hair. This picture was taken at 8:oo pm - so the hair has suffered a bit from a hard day at the office.

Please to note the perfect eyebrows and the (gasp!) green eyeshadow. Huh, huh?

I don't know what has been going on with me the past couple of weeks, but I have had an attack of the "girlies". It started out innocently enough with the purchase of some mascara. My eyelashes were not curling upwards on their own as they usually do and were bugging me. While buying mascara, I also bought some eyeshadow. It's one of those sets that has three colors and is supposed to bring out your natural eye color. Of course, going from wearing no eyeshadow to wearing burgundy and two separate shades of green turned out to be a step I wasn't quite ready for!

I also bought some nail polish, and on Friday evening I painted my toenails. Old baby was so sweet. He was so excited that I painted my toes. He said "Ooooh mommy your toes are pink and shiny! They are pink and beautiful!" That night, I tried on the eye shadow and very nervously asked my husband's opinion. I sat on the couch and said "what do you think?" He looked at me for a while, and couldn't really tell that I'd done anything. That was actually a good response, because I was worried the color was too garish.

On Saturday, I headed out to Fantastic Sam's for a haircut. I was just going to get a trim, but then I decided that my hair was too long and didn't look very good, and I was going to be miserable with the heat and wind this summer. So, I pulled out the book of Fantastic Hair Do's and picked a really cute short style. She did an excellent job, and styled it really nice. That's the last time it will look that good! It's more high maintenance; I usually have a wash and go style. I even got my eyebrows waxed. That was a first, and I am very happy with the results. My husband noticed, but not for a few hours afterwards. We were at a St. Patrick's Day party at my parent's house. I got lots of compliments. It was like, suddenly I have green eyes whereas before nobody really noticed. My brother in law told me that whatever I had done looked very nice, and everyone was outside talking about me. I just laughed because - My God! It's just a haircut and some mascara people!

It feels good to make a change every now and again. Maybe everything going on at work has got me a little bit antsy. I am going to take my gift certificates and go shopping for some new clothes too. I get to dress a little more casually now that I'm not in the corporate office any more.

Who knows, maybe I'll start exercising and eating right next!!

Today is going to be a long day.

In typical phone company fashion, my fax line was disconnected in my office yesterday morning, but the phone guy failed to appear to set up the line in the new office. My IT guy received an e-mail from our phone company rep saying the technician was called to an "emergency" in Santa Rosa, and would be at our warehouse in the afternoon. Of course, he wasn't to blame because he "just found out" himself. Lovely.

To add to the frustration is the fact that 99.9% of people apparently don't read the e-mails I send them. I let all the supervisors know twice last week that my fax line would be down on Monday, and I would notify them when it was up and running. 10 phone calls and 3 e-mail inquiries later, I re-sent the e-mail that the fax line was down and I would let them know when it was up and running. I received three responses to that e-mail asking if I could please let them know when the fax would be up and running. Oi.

Right now, my poor IT guy is over at the other office trying to hook up the line himself, and I just know he's going to take a crowbar to the box outside and electrocute himself and his wife is going to be pissed! I called over to Maria, and she said the furniture is being set up as we speak. Hopefully that will go off without a hitch.

I am taking this much needed break right now and trying to eat something that is not a Girl Scout cookie. At least I will be getting my exercise running back and forth from my office to the main office fax machine making sure no one sees any "confidential" information. I will try not to think about tomorrow and the horror that is packing up my whole office to move down the street.

So, before I even left the house this morning I splattered my blouse with chili, and spilled Children's Benedryl on my slacks. At lunch this afternoon, I splattered tomato sauce right across my boobs.

I look like I murdered someone with a teeny tiny instrument of death. Like a paperclip or something. Of course my shirt is white. Why else would this happen?

We have finally managed to nail down a move-in date for my new office. I will be moving next Wednesday. I cannot believe how much wrangling has gone into this move. There are so many variables, we almost didn't know where to start!

The walls have all been repaired and painted, and the new furniture will be delivered and installed next Tuesday. Our new phone system is supposed to be in this Thursday. The only bug is that my fax line will be moved on Monday, and I won't be in the office for 2 days after that! C'est la vie.

I just sent a mass e-mail to all the supervisors and anyone who needs to get a hold of me by phone. It will be interesting to see who actually pays attention to it!

My son has succumbed to ads on the television. Last night after we arrived home for the day he sat next to me on the couch and stared wide eyed at all the Jack in the Box, McDonald's and Quiznos commercials. He went one after the other "I want a hamburger". "I want french fries". "I want a turkey cheese sandwich". Now, it's possible that he was just very hungry and the sight of all that yummy food so close was just too much to bear. I am not used to him actually being hungry; up until very recently he would eat every meal sparingly and he never told us he was hungry. He has become so much more interested in his food, but still has a hard time trying new things and will take half an hour to chew one bite of chicken if you let him.

Seeing my children eat has given me the motivation to try and eat better myself. I'm getting there slowly but surely! Luckily for all of us we can't afford fast food!