Mommy and Sweet Pea

Warning: Don't read this post unless you enjoy stories about toddler bathroom trials and antics. Poop is gross - but it's also funny sometimes. I guess I never did that potty-learning update that I promised back in... oh... January I see it was. I guess I was waiting until we were really REALLY done with accidents. They are pretty rare now, but I can now see more clearly that like everything else, this is going to take longer and be more effort than I had initially expected. Not that things are going badly. Not at all. Sweet Pea has maybe one accident a week right now. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I'd say we're 95% there. She likes her underwear, loves picking them herself and even putting the clean ones away in her drawer. She wore diapers again for 4 days in July while recovering from the flu, then seamlessly transitioned back to "undies" with almost no prompting from us. Here's the dirt, though: learning to poop on the potty took a LONG time. L

I had a huge to-do list at the start of the summer, itemizing a variety home improvement, yard improvement, and personal improvement projects that I wanted to accomplish during my break from working outside the home (I am a high school teacher). I like a challenge. My personal motto, besides "Who dares to teach must never cease to learn" (John Cotton Daana), is probably "Go big or go home" (attributed to Eliza Dushku on the Internet, but used by coaches everywhere). I tend to plan big, and believe I can do it. Sometimes I can, but not always. So far, I have gotten a slow start on my list, but I am gaining momentum. I have exactly three weeks left before work begins again, and I think I'm going to get the majority of my list done. This last week has been a big one for accomplishments. So far, I (with Average) have: weeded, pruned, and beautified the front yard built a kind of retaining wall for the flower bed next to our patio bought blueberry bushes and a h

We only took about 100 photos for all of July, and we took three trips and went to a wedding reception. Not a very good photo month for me. I always like to have lots of photo evidence of what we've done, and of course the changes in my little girl, to help me remember in the future what our lives are like right now. Our trips were Eastern Oregon twice, and Ashland once. They were memorable, full of good times and learning (Ashland was a class about teaching Shakespeare's plays and I got to see 4 live performances!), and lots of fun with family. I just wish I had more photos to look back on from them. Even at my dad's wedding reception I only took a few photos, and they all seem a bit out of focus. I think there was some dust on the lens. Also, I am now 17 weeks pregnant, and I have very few photos of my growing belly! New resolution: take more pictures. My other resolutions, to exercise every day and clean up the piles around the house, have not been so successful lately,