The Lesson to Learn

I probably get a racial slur thrown at me about once a year. Twice if I hang out in really ignorant parts of town. My first 'racist' experience in Arizona was right outside of Freestone gym. I just finished 'working out' (sitting on an exercise bike, watching tv.) I was walking out to my car when two high school aged boys started 'Ching Chong-ing' it up. I was livid and speechless. I really just wanted to get into my car and run them over. Seriously. Not Christianly, but that's how I felt. Fortunately I was dumbfounded for so long that the boys were able to peddle away on their bicycles. Racist slurs really get me fired up. So fired up I usually say nothing, occassionally cry, then think for HOURS what I could have and should have said and done.

Today I was up in Scottsdale, playing with the kids in the playground, while Chris and James played flag football. A beautiful day to be out! There were tons of people all over the place. I was having a fine time with my babes, when all of a sudden two girls, about 13 years old I would say, started singing a song: "ching ching chong chong..." Really?!?!? This is the same 'song' I have heard sung all my life! It was my theme song when I would go play in the playground at school. Over 20 years ago! C'mon people! We can't come up with something better than that???

Anyhoo, my blood started to boil, but I calmly looked at these two girls and said: "Hey, you guys wouldn't happen to be singing that song cause you think I'm Chinese, would you?" I don't have a problem with CHinese people. So this is not a statement against them. If I were Chinese, I would be proud to be Chinese. And I would probably be a part of voting Yao Ming into the All Star game's starting line up every year. (except for this year!... is it cause he's injured? I've not been up on my NBA news this year.) Anyhoo, the girls looked at me in surprise and said: "Uh no. It's a song on YouTube." Clever, and yet still so ignorant...

I don't want my kids to be the victims of racism. No one should be. Race is not something you can choose. Just like you can't choose the parents who genetically created you. Or how you can't choose skipping dessert even though you are full. It's impossible! If someone sings terribly, but thinks they're amazing- sure, laugh at them. That's what American Idol is for, right? If my kids have a stupid looking hair cut that I gave them- sure! Yuk it up! It'll give them thicker skin. But don't make fun of someone because of the color of their skin. There's just no point. They can't change that!

Chris tells me I should not let this kind of thing bother me. Easier said than done my love. I have to say this incident has bothered me less than other times- but I think it's cause I said something. I know you can't cure stupid. My comment may not have enlightened these young girls at all. My running those two high school boys over with my Jeep 4 years ago probably wouldn't have taught them the lesson they needed to learn. But what is the lesson that needs to be learned?
-If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?
-Don't judge people by the color of their skin?
-Don't assume every Asian person is Chinese, even though there are about 1.3 billion of them in the world, and about 3.5 million of them living in North America?

What do you think the lesson should be? What would you, or do you say to people if you have ever been racially slurred at? I am very interested in knowing what you think the 'proper' response would be. I am working on proper responses every day, so this would help me out a ton. Thanks.

this is why...

chris is why, actually.

chris is why the kids have crazy poops. and chris is why the kids are crazy- cause he's crazy.

my beautiful husband got home from work at about 8:30pm. which is the time i was expecting him. the kids stayed up a hair longer to see him. and boy were they happy to see their old man. hugs, kisses, chaos ensued. finally the kids were in bed.

chris ate the leftovers from dinner while catching his breath on the couch. my poor husband and his crazy schedule. i had some work i had to do, so i encouraged my husband to go on the run he had been talking about since yesterday. dang it, maybe some of this is my fault... anyhoo, he digests for about another 5 minutes or so, takes a work-related phone call, downloads Glee Volume 2 to his MP3 player (with the happiest look on his face. i just got this for my birthday and he could not be happier about the gift that he did not give me.) then he was out the door.

about 15 minutes later i get a text from him: "Yikes!! Poop attack."
i respond: "Don't poo in your pants! Lily will be mad at you. So will I."
he responds: "I might go in a field."
i respond: "Wow. Eww. I still love you. Don't get arrested."
(we aren't on twitter. cause we don't unerstand it. and no one would follow us cause all we would do is talk about poo. like i do on this blog...)

then silence. for about 30 minutes. no response from the running pooping fool. and as i work at the computer, beside the window, i can hear the rain starting to fall. gingerly at first. then it really starts coming down. and all i can think of is my poor husband with his pants around his ankles, listening to Glee, pooping in a field with a bunch of cows staring at him, rain pouring down, police lights flashing. A mix of terror and delight (just from the music. it really uplifts the guy) flood over him.

finally i stop working/thinking about chris and decide to just call him. "where are you? are you ok?" i ask. trying not to sound panicked, but also listening for any sirens in the background. chris is ok. he's actually still running. he's 15 minutes away from home. he found a gas station. how anti-climactic. and that's the end of this terrible story. but at least i don't have to clean another poopy butt.

Got Pony?

does anyone have a pony i can borrow?

ok. i was just joking about promising the kids a pony if they pooed on the potty. but yesterday, topher pooped on the potty all by himself!

we were just hanging out in the living room. i was doing something. lily was chillin. topher was hanging out. then he saunters over to the potty, which is strategically placed in the middle of the living room, drops a deuce, then yells out: "Mama, I did pee pee!" I walked over to my boy, very proud of him already, and was so surprised to see the most beautiful little poop sitting so pleasntly in our little green potty.

"Topher! You did a poo poo! You get a cookie!" I say with a giant smile on my face.
"Cookie? Yeah!" All Topher ever hears is: "Cookie".
Then Lily chimes in: "Topher, poo poo? I'm so proud of you! She is not jealous or embarrassed by her little brother's achievement. Nothing in her makes her want to poo on the potty.

She has now pooped twice on the carpet. Fortunately for me, they were very solid and did not leave a mark on the ground. Fortuntaly for her, though the poops were solid- they were neither the size of babies, nor were suppositories involved in prying them out.

So Lily is 100% in undies during the day. 100% in Pull-Ups at night. And butt-naked when she has to poo. On the floor. Topher pees and poos on the potty, and often tells us when he has to go, even when we are out and about. But he also still pees in his undies, which is the main thing we are working on with him. I don't know if it's comfusing for him to be in undies/free-ball/Pull Ups during the day, and then Pull Ups at night, but he is doing pretty well in our books. (and yes, I said 'free-ball.')

working on it...

'it' is not poop in this post.

i am going through my many posts and trying to label them. this is going to take awhile... i'm working on it.

i am also working on trying to post more stuff about our crazy and wonderful week in potty training last week... i'm working on it.

i have a gigantic list of things to do today. i am very very slowly working on it...

but one of the things i have on my list is to post about a geat conversation i had with my co-worker yesterday. she was giving me some 'tips' on having quiet times for a friend of mine who is leading high school girls and wants to encourage them in their quiet times. since my friend and co-worker is a pastor's wife, this kinda makes her a 'professional Christian', so i knew she would have something great to say. and she did!

she was telling me about how her church is going through the book of Mark in a year. YES. a year. there are 16 chapters. i'm not sure how they are going to do, it, but it sounds very interesting.

anyhoo, so she has been reading Mark chapter 1 for quite some time now, and she made an observation that she had never realized before in all the many times she has read Mark. This is right when Jesus is being baptized by John the Baptist:

"And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him." Mark 1: 11-13

the thing that struck my friend was how God said He was please with Jesus and IMMEDIATELY threw Him into the desert to be hungry, alone (well, he was with the devil, but you know what i mean) and tempted. This was a blessing. This was God's will. Sometimes we look at people who have it all and we think:"wow! that person is blessed! they have it all." Then we look at others who don't have it all, who look like their lives are very long desert experiences, and we tend to think: "what did they do to vex the Lord? what sins could they have committed to make the Lord so mad at them?" and this isn't the right way to think at all! and i do it all the time! so shame on me. and shame on you if you do it too. God is blessing us by bringing us through the desert- cause He is the one bringing us there, which is something we tend to forget. His angels are there to attend to us, if we would just let them.

i finished reading Job on my reading schedule, and at the end of Job's trials it says: "All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring." Job 42:11

i love it when things just fit together like a neat little puzzle. if you are hurting, or feel like you are in the desert, don't go it alone. don't let the devil tempt you into thinking you are alone, or unloved or forgotten by God. cause you are not. He has brought people around you to comfort and console you. let them do it. let them feed you. let them pray for you. and if they have it- let them give you pieces of silver and gold rings. (i've got the former two, but the latter two i am fresh out of!) this is definitely something we can work on together.

"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!