Fess Up Friday-My Sweet Happy Boy

It's been a while since I did any fessin' up.  It's not for lack of fess up worthy events; just a lack of time and energy to sit down and type them up. 

My sweet Happy.

 1. Out of desperation, I have started to bribe motivate Happy with oreos to poop in the potty.  You poop in potty, you get an oreo.

The ac wasn't working for a few days and the HVAC gentleman was downstairs yesterday fixing the ac while I was trying to encourage said child to poo so he could take his nap.  The need to poo was keeping him awake.  And making me slightly (totally) nuts.  Because apparently if you are withholding poo, it makes you extra wild and crazy and insane-like.

And I reminded Happy of the incentive.  Many times.

Because I knew he was holding back on me. Or, really, on the potty.

And I needed him to nap.

The HVAC gentleman heard all the bribery through the baby monitor that was on the kitchen counter, a few feet from the ac thingy.  I am sure he thinks I am a stellar parent.

2. A few days ago, Happy pooped in the potty 6 times within a couple of hours.  That means 6 cookies.  I held to my word and gave him a cookie each time. 

Maybe he stores up so he can get many cookies within a small time frame?

3. To Happy, everything that is not a standard issue car is either a po-wease car (police car) or a boo bus (school bus).  I try to correct him and tell him whatever said vehicle is (tractor, garbage truck, truck, etc).  He just keeps repeating boo bus or po-wease car until I eventually give in and agree that the bubble gum pink Hummer is, in fact, a po-wease car. He is always super pleased that I have seen the error in my ways and admit my wrongful labeling of said vehicle.

4. Happy ADORES Maranimal's kids, Sassy and Jenksy.  Borderline obsessive.  He speaks of them non-stop, especially Sassy.

To appreciate the following, you have to know that Maranimal is a Sonic gal, just like me. (Here is where I blame her and her mom for my Sonic related issues.)

By default her kids are Sonic lovers as well, as is Happy.

The other day, Happy saw a Sonic cup in our living room (filled with water, NOT my magical elixir, thank.you.very.much) and turned to me and said, "Sassy and Jenksy?!?!"

I think he has figured out that a visit with Maranimal and crew always involves a Sonic drink for either herself or myself.   Usually both.

Here is recent proof.

One Sonic cup spotted.

Two Sonic cups spotted!

Please be sure to visit Kira's Fess Up Friday post.  It is always a treat!

Late to the Party

Hubs says I am late to this party on this, but I LOVE this video.  Have you guys seen it yet? 

When I saw it last night, it had like 700,000 views.  Now it is over 1 million in 12 hours or so.

I am having a challenging afternoon, but I paused to watch this video again and share the love with you all. 

I implore you, watch it.  You won't be sorry.

What a precious and endearing couple.

(And I'm sorry if the video shows up twice, blogger is acting strangely and I don't have the time to figure it out).

Deep Thoughts on My Mind

Why does Thomas the Train live on the ISLAND of Sodor?  Shouldn't he be more mainland where he can import/export items where boats can't get?  For an island, I think boats and canals would make more sense.  Yes?

Do you know the likelihood of a kid having an emergency during the 10 minute window you are making stove top popcorn?  

I'm eating burnt popcorn right now.  For the third day in a row.

It is confusing explaining to a toddler who loves the alphabet the difference between the letter P and the physical pee in the potty.  The first few days when potty training Happy, he kept sounding out, "p..., p..., P?" while looking in the toilet.  I think he was looking for a letter P. 

The term Tee Tee wouldn't work out so well either. 

Do you know the likelihood of a potty training child needing to poo during naptime?  And him being timid in taking care of business?  And it preventing him for sleeping? And causing countless trips to the potty? 

No?  Neither do I.

And, just because I think they are so stinkin' cute, some pics for your viewing pleasure.

 

Rain!  For like the 3rd time all summer!

Chilling out in the swing, enjoying the cooler temps!

Lil Miss sitting up in the tub last night (her first time without the baby tub).  Happy took it upon himself to douse her with water and letters.  She seems unfazed.

 

The Local Nut (Oops, I mean VEGGIE) Stand

I love me some veggies.  I think I have made that abundantly clear in all of my ramblings of cruciferous veggie obsession as of late.  Yes?

I also love me some local veggie stands.  Often, the sketchier the stand, the better the veggies.  That is my personal philosophy, anyways. 

WELL.

There is one quite close to my house that I have been wanting to try out, but was a little uneasy in doing so, especially with the kids.  You couldn't see it from the road, but there was ample signage directing you to it.  It was at someone's house.  (As opposed to in a parking lot or something of that nature). I have made many a veggie stand purchase at people's houses before.

The hand painted signage said, "100% Organic. Goat's milk. Eggs. Tomatoes. Corn. 1st House on Right."

Last Saturday, it was just me and Lil Miss in the car. Happy and Hubs were making the familiar trip to Costco and then on to the church to buy and deliver massive amounts of communion grape juice.

Lil Miss fell asleep in the car. Since she has some insane internal signal alerting her to when we are pulling into our neighborhood and thusly causing her to awaken, I decided to drive around a bit to let her sleep some more and ended up at this veggie stand.

I pull up and get out of my car.  It kind of looks like a scene out of Deliverance.  But with no river or canoe, thankfully.

I kid.  Kind of.

There was early 80's easy listening type of music BLARING. Which seems like a contradiction, does it not?

I saw an older gentleman facing the chicken area, with his back to me.  There were goats to the left of him.  Since his back was to me, I wasn't quite sure how to get his attention. I couldn't even yell to him because his music was so dang loud.

Finally, he turned around as he was zipping up his pants! From peeing, I can only assume.

Right by the chickens and goats.  I guess that is where he gets his claim for 100% organic?  Because I know homeboy is not USDA certified organic.  Not that I ever thought that is what his sign meant.  But I surely didn't envision him peeing by the stuff he is selling.

Now, this is where is gets extra awkward.  For me, at least.  He sees me now.  Do I pretend I didn't realize what he was doing?  Do I pretend I didn't see him and just get in the car and get the heck out of there?   

Too late.  He's coming up to me.  I ask for tomatoes.  It took him 5 minutes and a phone call to his wife to locate them.  How do you lose tomatoes?  Especially when you are trying to sell them?  And his house was a simple, small house.  Not many places to put tomatoes, I would imagine.

And he brings out like 15 pounds.  I only wanted a few, especially now that I have seen his fertilization method.  And I have like $2 in change and a $10 bill.  But, he "ain't got no money" to give me change. I give him my $2. He gives me a ton, because, "Hon, I am so dang sick of looking at these things!"

I hop back in my car as quickly as possible. But not before he leans over into my car {please visualize any creepy movie you have seen with an elderly man with questionable dental hygiene doing so} and says, "I've seen you before.  You've been here before, right?"

"No, sir.  My first time."

He replies, "Well, I've seen you somewhere before.  That is for sure.  I NEVER forget a blonde!"

To be fair, he was probably completely harmless and just being friendly.  But the whole experience was just strange and humorous to me.

And I am definitely going to revise my "sketchy veggie stand" visiting policies.

Lil Miss is 7 months!

Lil Miss turned 7 months old recently.  She is such a sweet, happy girl.  She has her unhappy moments, but that is usually because I have not been quick to feed her at her normal times. I take advantage of her good nature, I guess. 

She just recently began sitting up on her own.  There are a few tragic falls every now and then (with a LOUD thud), but she loves her new vantage point on life. 

She loves her jumpy seat and goes nuts in it.

She loves Puffs, as did Happy when he was younger.  They buy me some very precious moments during the mealtime insanity.

She definitely shows a preference for me over everyone else and always has her eyes on me.  She usually cries if I leave the room. 

She is started to express quite a dislike for the bottle.  Thankfully, though, she eats solids when the bottle is not going to be an acceptable option for her and I am not available to nurse her.

She likes to laugh at me making silly faces and sounds.  She is pretty quick to laugh, just as Happy was at this age.  Well, he still is.  

She is starting to "clap" to music.  It is so cute to watch.

She adores Happy and he can do no wrong in her eyes.  He can even fall on her and she rarely will make a fuss.  Happy also adores her and is so sweet to her.  He likes to look after her and always wants to know her whereabouts. 

What a precious addition you are to our family, Lil Miss!

Underwear Blowing in the Wind

Yes. Hello.

Long time, no?

I have been knee-high in potty training.

Both literally and figuratively.

And our dryer broke.

Which is perfect timing considering I am doing a lot of laundry with the potty training shenanigans.

Have I mentioned I also do cloth diapers with Lil Miss?

And that the Hubs prefers to go to work with clean clothes? Or, to be more specific, clothes that are both clean AND dry?

The irony of it all is that I purchased a new washer and dryer for us last week.  Because I knew we were on borrowed time with our current ones. But the washer and dryer were not in stock.  No worries, I said, we can wait a week.

(HA!)

Even (un)funnier is that I got a call from the appliance store on Thursday saying that the dryer was in stock but the washer was not. I could choose to go ahead and have them deliver the dryer and then bring the washer at a later time or just do it all at once.  I decided to wait and do it all at once. Dude on phone said, "Cool. Got it."

Then, an hour later, another call came from the appliance store saying that they would be delivering my dryer Friday. I told the lady about the conversation I had an hour prior. She said, "Oh, ok, then go with that first conversation. They must be right."

Then, on Friday morn, I got a call from the delivery guy saying he was running early and could he swing by now(?!) to deliver. I told him I didn't want the dryer and washer delivered separately.

(I mean, why destroy the laundry room for one delivery just to do it a few days later?! Right?)

(HA.)

So, basically, I had to shove my dryer back at them until the washer was in stock.  Refuse it, even.

Friday night, the dryer officially broke.  Oh, the irony.

So, we are kickin' it old school here and drying the clothes on a clothesline.

Except that we have no clothesline.

Just lawn furniture.  

And toys.

Classy, I know.

Happy thought it was pretty cool that his "po-wease caaar" had an extra snazzy roof.

There is always a silver lining!

oh.my.word. (oh, and also, CHOCOLATE!)

You know how the simplest things can take the longest?

Well, my mom's birthday is this week.  She is a big fan of both pictures and cards.  So, I wanted to make her a customized card with pics of the grandkids.  Similar to the one I did for my dad.

You know, the one where he was only interested in pictures of his cats, not pictures of the grandkids.

He's a total nut.

I won't go into the horribly boring details, but basically, the 3 minute card has taken over an hour and a half and is not done.

On a website that specializes in making this super quick and easy.

I have done online support chat two different times with this online card company. For a 3 minute card!  And it is still not resolved.

The gist of it was that I did not have the "proper" internet browser. So I downloaded that.  Then, believe it or not, the browser was too new of a version!? And you can't download an older version to install it.  Then, I did not have the most updated Flash player.  So I downloaded that.  And it still didn't work.

I tried another, older, slower computer.  It worked on that.  But, because it is slower, it has frozen on the preview part while I type this blog post on my computer that now has the "proper" internet browser and upgraded Flash.

I finally hit cancel just now to end all of our misery.

I am a graphic designer and Hubs is a IT Computer guy.  If anyone should be able to handle this project and any technical challenges it presents in a snap, it would be us.  This just shows how frustratingly difficult this website is. And somehow Dad's card was able to be done a few months ago on the same computer without batting an eyelash. (???)

I hope my mom appreciates her card if she ever gets it!

---

On an entirely different note, my sweet precious friend, who lives in southern Africa, commented about my chocolate insanity stash.  She has been in her current location for about 4 years or so (without a return to the states) and mentioned that the only chocolate item she recognizes were the toll house morsels.

You just never really think about how the oh so important chocolate landscape changes so quickly, do you?

(And just for the record?  I am not normally this obsessed with food.  Nursing a baby makes me hungry and all crazy like. For chocolate and brussels sprouts. And broccoli.)

(And I also didn't realize how much chocolate I got until I was heading to the cash register.)

(And it was too late to care.)

(I assumed if the check out person was a lady, she would understand.)

(Did I mention we are potty training?)

Moving on...
I just want to tell Katie what she may need to stock up on when she visits the states.

1. Pretzel M&M's. A staple. Just like rice. Or milk. But much more necessary.

2. Chocolate Cheerios.  For when you want chocolate for breakfast but want to feign eating a normal breakfast. Yes, they are heart healthy. In more ways than one.

3.  Nestle Tollhouse Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter. See explanation in #2. Just add the precious morsels to oatmeal and a banana. But don't let the 2 year old see what you are up to.

4. Fiber One Peanut and Chocolate Brownie-ness. Word on the weight watching street that these are yummy. They are not the real thing, but they will do for less caloric intake.

5. Hershey Kisses Cookies and Cream.  Because it is sheer brilliance.

6. Hershey Kisses Dark Chocolate.  Because it is good for your heart, right?  Something about dark chocolate being good for you.  (I am sure someone just like me devised that study.)

7. Bliss Dark Chocolate.  Another word on the street item. Have yet to try them.

And, for the record, I only have opened 3 of the bags.  In less than 24 hours.

Hoarding Chocolate,
'licious