"It Worked!!!!"

so we are having tons of fun potty training still. topher is getting better at tellingus when he has to pee, especially when we are in public. lily is a professional pee-er now. her downfall is the almighty poop though. mostly because every bowel movement is like givng birth.

last week lily pooed on monday, the first day of potty training. she had a pull-up on for nap time, and i think she knew it was going to be her only pull-up opportunity, so she took it and dropped a load. awesome.

then we got to friday and i realized she hadn't pooped since monday. yikes. she was crying and pushing and complaning about her stomach hurting. i kept telling her the poop just wanted to be in its home in the toilet. i didn't pressure her to poo on the potty. i just wanted her to poo. she stood on a plastic bag in the middle of the living room, pushing and crying, and squeezing out some pee cause she was pushing so hard. she was not a happy camper.

finally by the end of the night, when she was already in her pull up and jammies, she was crying cause she really had to poop. so i decided to take some drastic measures. i still had my bottle of glycerin suppositories from when topher was a clogged up little infant. they were good till the end of the year! so i grabbed one of these giant glycerin 'bullets', grabbed a half a cookie, and went into lily's room. i told my little girl that i had medicine that was going to help her poo. her face lit up at the mention of the word 'medicine'. she LOVES DRUGS! loves them. if topher needs some tylenol, she needs tylenol. topher will get the real stuff, and lily will get some juicewater in a syringe. everyone's happy.

anyhoo, so i explained to lils that i had to put the medicine in her butt. she still looked excited, especially when i gave her the cookie. and then the excitement stopped when i tried to insert the suppository. 'OUCH!' she cried. i didn't even get it in yet! when i got the clear little bullet close enough to her butt hole, it got sucked right up, as if lily's bum was a cute little vaccuum. this is when the hooting and holering went to the next level.

we went back into the living room where lily proceeded to cry and complain about her 'owwie bung' for about 10 minutes. it was so sad. the bottle said it would take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to work. all of a sudden lily started tooting. toot after toot emerged from her bung. then came the labor-like pushes and the serious lamaze breathing. lily was still weeping, but happy that something was happening. when the poop finally dropped, there was a moment of silence. lily looked up to the heavens, as if to thank the Lord, and exclaimed: "It worked! It worked..."

We changed her out of her soiled pull-up and went to put her giant Chipotle-burrito- sized turd in the toilet. right where it belonged. lily waved good-bye to her giant brown baby (proportionately to her body, that poop was probably the same size she was if i had been lily's size when i birthed her and her giantness.) and then the toilet was clogged. and it was the second toilet my girl has clogged in the last month. like i said, we are having a crap load of fun potty training at our house! and by the size of lily's poops- that's a LOT of fun!

Letting the pictures tell the story

Note: all these pictures were taken at the end of the day when the kids went to bed and potty counts were over and i was scrubbing the carpets more...

Day 1: Monday

-made potty charts for both kids. 3 categories: sit, pee, poo. kids got a mini m&m for sitting. a skittle for peeing. and a pony for pooping. many m&ms were consumed (almost every 20 minutes) a good number of skittles were consumed. no ponies were given out.
-yes, that says that lily only peed 2.5 times today. she peed in her diaper a ton when she was napping. i guess that was enough for her.
-there were NO TEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! from either chris, myself, lily, or topher. huge victory.
-only 3 little accidents on the floor.
-easy-ups were worn for napping and sleeping only.
-kids never actually left the apartment.
-great day!!!

Day 2: Tuesday

-praising Jesus for giving us patience and the ability to pee in things other than diapers!
-only 2 accidents on the floor. one from lils and one from toph. lily cried for a few minutes when she thought she couldn't pee on the potty. then she remembered she was a big girl and started peeing like crazy.
-still no ponies. lily pooed in her easy up yesterday. topher is constipated? time to fiber up!
-kids peed on the toilet at Nana and Papa's house. Super! they aren't attached to the toilet at home, or just peeing in front of me and Chris, all good things!
-progress for lily. a little regression for topher. not feeling sad about any of it!
-another great day of praising Jesus and peeing on the potty. this is going WAY better than i thought it would! Chris being home has been supergreat and absolutely essential to the process.

Day 3: Wednesday

-chris was still home today! so great. such an awesome husband and amazing dad. and superb potty training coach. he is officially adding that to his professional resume.
-left the house to go to Target! Topher peed his pants almost immediately and we tried to pee in a public bathroom with no success. Lily has yet to pee her pants. good girl!
-topher tried to poo on the potty, but no one was watching him so he stood up mid-poop and got it on the carpet. fortunately it was pretty solid. and i have an awesome carpet cleaner. he tried, and therefore got a cookie, but no pony.
-lily is a peeing champion and we are SO PROUD of her! And Topher too.
-thanks so much every one for praying for us!

will update more thoroughly later!

Oh girl...

topher had his day in the sun, so now it's lily's turn. i have recently been having glimpses into lily's future, and i like some of it, and some of it makes me just want to get down on my knees and pray. the above pic for example. lily did not want to take a nap the other day, but then she passed out in the living room. it just so happened that she passed out on her potty. flashforward 20, no THIRTY years, when she gets drunk as a skunk (in the privacy of her own home!) on half of a glass of a wine cooler (like mother, like daughter!) let's say this is a picture of her future, and she is drunk in public, hugging a toilet, not a potty, imagine her father standing off to the side of this picture, ready to arrest his daughter, and every person who serves alcohol in the state of arizona.

another peak into her future that kinda freaks me out comes to me when lily is trying to poop. lily has some bowel issues. she just has very firm poops. we are trying to insert A LOT of fiber into her diet. but sometimes it still takes a VERY long time to get it out. sometimes there are tears. sometimes there are screams. sometimes lily wants me to go away. but sometimes she wants me to hug her and push with her. i count to three and we 'PPPPPPPPPPPPUSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!' then we take a break. breath. then get ready for another big 'PPPPPPPUUUUUUUUUUUSHHHHHHHH!!!'
again, maybe this will happen in 30 years... but not while she is drunk on half a wine cooler. obviously, that's not ok.



then there is this picture. i hope this is a picture of her future. it's almost as good as a chastity belt. that's 6 pairs of undies on top of her diaper folks. impenetrable! yes, these undies have been put on haphazardly, but somehow she got them all on, and she even fell asleep like this for awhile. this picture was taken last week when she was getting pumped about potty training. we are in the midst of potty training week, and i will have pics and posts aplenty of that in the very near future. just know we are all alive, sane, there is some pee pee on the carpet, but there is plenty of joy in our hearts and praise for Jesus!

Oh Boy...

Here's Topher playing with his bristle blocks in the kitchen. While I was getting dinner ready, he was just busy playing with his toys, having a grand time. Then he stood up and I noticed something wasn't right...




Topher had a loose string on his jeans, and he managed to get that string caught in between two bristle blocks, so the blocks were just hanging from his pants. And he LOVED it. i tried to take it off, and he freaked out. He was very impressed with how well-endowed he was suddenly looking, and he wanted to show it off.

Boys will be boys.



And here's another picture. Not of Topher fortunately. This is Chris' bloody sock after he ran in the PF Chang half marathon yesterday. Chris pretty much never grabs the camera to take a picture of anything unless it is a giant poop, or an overflowing bottle of urine. So in staying with Chris' obsession with body fluids, he snapped a pic of his owie foot. Considering my husband just barely trained for the event, I think his time of 2 hours and 8 minutes is pretty great. Congratulations husband- though you are gross, you are pretty dang awesome. Same goes for you son.

Mean Lil Machine

i mentioned before that chris got me the Little Green Machine by Bissell. it's a handy dandy little carpet cleaner. even though i got it for our anniversary on december 19th, i just took it out of the box to use today. i am a loser. a lazy loser. our carpet here are the apartment is gross. especially since you are in the living room, and practically in the kitchen and dining room as soon as you open the front door. we are all about taking off our shoes, but the carpet still manages to get filthy. so today was the day i chose to say good bye to the numerous dirt, yogurt, milk, dirt, and juice stains that litered our carpet.

the little green machine is super light and easy to use. there is only one container to fill with solution and water. there is another container where all the dirty water goes. easy to use. easy to clean up. and the nozzle is pretty small, and can only spray so much water, so your carpet never really gets all that wet. i even used it on my couch. pretty good stuff!

we used to have a giant bissell carpet cleaner, but it died after 4 years, and being shuttled between my house and lindsay's (since barb bought it for us to share.) i was pretty sad when it died, but am happy to have this much lighter and smaller replacement. i am hoping this one lasts longer than 4 years though. i may need a bigger carpet cleaner when we have a bigger house, but for now, this will do just fine. i am anticipating getting a lot of use out of this bad boy this weekend as we give potty training another shot...

Good Support. Part 2

what does good support look like? a good bra makes you look, well, good. that's good support. i have AWESOME support AROUND me. (don't even get me started on the sad state of my chest-al region...)but my support system makes me look goooooood.
lots of people think i am a lucky person. i am lucky to be married to chris. i am lucky to be able to love ALL of my in-laws. i am financially lucky. etc. etc.
but the thing i chalk all this up to is that i have a network of people who pray for me. a lot. i know my mom prays for me and my 4 siblings a lot. i know chris' grandparents pray for us alot. as do his parents. all four of em. and then i even have friends who pray for me. it's amazing.

right now i am reading the Bible chronologically in a year. that means i usually read 3 to 4 chapters a day. it's easy to read for the sake of reading just so i can check that off of my list of things to do. but i am actually getting a lot out of it. for some reason, my schedule has me reading Job and Matthew. that's not chronological, but whatev. i am doing as the reading plan tells me to do. these two book don't really go together. and that bothered me, until i was able to apply lessons from both on how to be a good friend.

in chapter 8 of Matthew is the story of the centurion who has the sick servant at home. the centurion's faith provokes Jesus to heal his servant: "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." (v.13) then in chapter 9, there are some friends who bring their paralytic friend to Jesus: "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.'" (v.2) the servant and the paralytic did not ask for help or healing. it was their friends and master respectively who came before the Lord and asked for healing for them. this is the kind of friend i am striving to be.

and then i am also reading Job. if you know the story of Job, it is about a guy who is in the midst of some serious suffering, and he has these 3 friends who are 'trying to help him'. but they don't help. they make things worse. but sometimes as you are reading what they are saying, it kinda sounds like they are giving pretty good advice. not so says the Lord! The Lord says to Eliphaz: "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as mt servant Job has... My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly." (Job 42: 7,8)

i am very fortunately not identifying with Job right now (thank you Jesus!) but i definitely am trying not to identify with his friends either. i unfortunately have some friends who are kinda in Job's shoes. things just aren't right right now. so i am in the midst of trying to be there, give good advice and support. but the best thing i can do is pray with faith. cause then it's not about me, or my friend, but about Him who is able to heal and fix and create and comfort and change. i can't remember who said this, but i think about it when i pray: the power is not in the one who is praying but in the One who hears them.

Good Support. Part 1

i was going to write a post about having good support around you. and then i got this e-mail from chris' grandfather, so i thought i would share it, cause it made my day:

"To my Dear, Dear, Jihae,

I throughly enjoy reading your blog, it's a daily thing for me and I'm disappointed when there is a lapse for a few days but I plug on, knowing that another one will eventually come. I'm pleased with your blog on Serious Rambling. Your (that's plural, including Chris) desire to grow in Christ and recognize dissatisfaction that there is more to life than just satisfying yourself is very reassuring. The very first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is "what is the primary purpose of man?" And the answer is "To glorify God and enjoy him forever." That really sums it up very beautifully. It's a real trap though to think of what you could or should be doing (and being dissatisfied by your "failures") when in reality God calls us first exactly where we are, both in time and maturity. The old maxims "Bloom where you are planted" and "when God gives you lemons make lemonade" etc are really quite valid. The ministries and opportunities in your life now will be quite different from the ministries and opportunities you'll find yourself in ten years from now when the kids are becoming teenagers, and twenty years from now when the kids are grown and gone, and thirty years from now when you're slowing a bit but have greater opportunities to do more. Every decade brings new and exciting relationships and opportunities, and as long as your vision is fixed on God, He will use you for His glory. So hang in there, take time to meditate on the Word, follow the good impulses that keep you in obedience to loving your neighbor (and your friends), and keep on being the wonderful granddaughter that you have become. I love you and we love you, and your husband, and your sweet children, and any future children that you may be blessed with.

GGpa"

thanks grandpa/ggpa! i, we, love you too.