A conversation I didn't think would happen yet!

So, last night I was getting Lex ready to take a bath. I had to pee, but Lex came into the bathroom in all his nakedness and proclaimed, "I have to pee!" Well, when your freshly potty trained preschooler tells you that, their need takes precedence over your own. Whatever.

So, Lex finishes up, and I said, "Lex, put the seat down, Mommy needs to pee". So, I proceed to sit down to do my business...This is the conversation that followed.

Lex: Why do you sit down?
Me: because I can't stand to pee.
Lex: Why?
Me: because I don't have a penis
Lex: *aghast* WHAT?!
Me: Yup.
Lex: what happened to it?
Me: Um, I don't have one?
Lex: But where did it go?
Me: Um...mommy wasn't born with one.
Lex: Daddy has a penis.
Me: Yup
Lex: *I* have a penis!
Me: Yes, you do. Let's go play in the bath now.
Lex: *sounding very remorseful* Sorry you lost your penis.

I don't mind talking to him about this stuff at all. I wasn't phased, I answered his questions matter of factly, using anatomical terms and that mommies and daddies are different. He seemed ok with it. He did bring it up later, and I wondered if he was going to go to daycare and tell everyone what we talked about. But I'd rather him hear this stuff from me than the older kids at daycare.

'Say What' Wednesday

The part where Lex exerts his independence and expands his tyrannical reign over his parents.

Lex (sitting on toilet): Daddy, you need to leave my bathroom. You're bothering me.

Lex (to me last night at dinner): I'm in charge, not you.


This week's edition is a little light in content. Most of my comments from Lex are taken over the weekend or when he says something particularly amusing. However, Lex came down with strep throat Saturday night, and he didn't really do a lot this weekend outside of whining, sleeping, and then sleeping some more. It felt like I had three dogs instead of two with all the lazing around.

On another note of interest to me, mostly, is we moved from Lex's convertible daybed to his full size bed. He is now completely dwarfed and about 4 feet in the air. His bed actually sits, easily, 6-8in higher than our bed. He loves it. All he wanted to do was lay around on it last night. And for the first time since Friday night, slept soundly and through the night. It was all kinds of awesome.

And on the potty training front, Lex now only wears his pull-ups for naps and bedtime. On the binky front? Those little things have officially been kicked to the curb.

Walt Disney World (The departure of Bloomington and the arrival in WDW)

I'm going to have to do this WDW blog in phases because it's going to take me forever to get it all out, and format the freaking pictures from our trip.

For Christmas break this year, on a $2000 whim, we decided to go to Disney World. From the first part of November until the day before we left, we talked Lex up on going to "Mickey Mouse's house". We ordered the DVD to watch so that he would have an idea what to expect, and I think he and I watched it about 10 times. I was more interested than he was, as he was too busy playing with trucks or whatever the hell it is that he does 90% of the time.

So, on December 18th we embarked on our 16 hour drive. Lex had a new DVD player in the back seat that I could control from the front seat (epic WIN!). Unlike last June when we drove to North Carolina, he was phenomenal in the car. Nary a complaint, nary a peep. Thank YOU, Mater Tall Tales and various other movies.

Around 6p we rolled into Perry, Georgia, our 'layover' for the night. I had specifically chosen this hotel on the exit for one reason alone. In.Door.Pool. It was the only one. When we pulled into the parking lot, I was a little concerned. The lights weren't on in the pool area. Hmmm...so, Dennis went inside to check in while Lex and I chilled in the car (literally. Hey, GA, last time I checked you were the south. WTF is up with 20 degrees? I could have had that crap in IN). When Dennis came out, he looked a little timid.

Me: What's up with the pool?
D:Umm...I don't think we'll be swimming.
Me: WTF? Why not?
D: Well, it's ummm *scratches head* not heated. And...Ummm...the windows are open.
Me: Are you fucking kidding me? They marketed the hotel as having an indoor pool. That's not an indoor pool. That's an outdoor pool with sides!
Lex: What's wrong, Mommy?
Me: Nothing, Lex. The hotel is a liar.
Lex: Oh.

So, no swimming. I guess while Dennis was inside, he asked about restaurants in the area. The receptionist suggested Applebee's. When Dennis asked for something with a little more local flavor, she suggested Longhorn. :-/ Um, lady, that's a chain too, but whatever. Anyway, she finally suggested a local Mexican (score!!) joint, and we went over there. After that, we hit Wal-mart to buy Lex another cheap pair of pants so that we had a back-up in case of accidents (we needed them later on).

After Wal-Mart we went back to the hotel to relax and sleep. The next morning, we packed up and headed to Orlando. We were only about 6 hours from our destination, and considering how wonderful he was in the car on the way down, we knew we were going to be fine.

Six hours later (approximately 12:30p) we rolled into the WDW resort area. Now, I will tell you one thing. The map they give you of the resort is VERY deceiving. This place is EXPANSIVE. Dennis and I had 'talked' about walking to places. Im-fucking-possible. I don't think I would've even dreamed of walking down to the next couple of hotels. It was HUGE. We pulled into the check in lot, and I asked Dennis if we should wait in the car. He said no, and I'm glad he did. The line to check in, I'm NOT shitting you, was easily an hour and a half long. I spent an hour and a half trying to entertain an almost 3 year old by letting him walk around the hotel's Disney Store. It had its OWN fucking Disney Store. You name it, they had it. And then some. They also had an arcade (which became a place I grew to HATE after 1 damn day). In the 'gift shop', they had a package of the three types of buses you could see there (the resort bus, the airport bus, and the cruise bus). I conned Lex into pooping in the toilet by telling him we would buy these $14 buses. Yes, three pack of buses for $14. Welcome to the most expensive place on earth!


After checking us in, we went back out to the car to move it to our wing of the hotel. We get in the room, and there is ONE king sized bed and a shower stall. Apparently, when Dennis told the woman at the desk that we had a 2 year old that equated to "You all only need one bed, and your kid can stink for a week". Now, some kids might enjoy showers, but mine loses his shit. He accidentally turned the shower on in HIS bath once. It took me almost 2 weeks to get him to NOT scream taking a bath. So, yeah, the shower wasn't going to work. So...back to the main building to the desk to move us. And move us they did. To a completely different building on site. So, we had to trek all of our stuff from Fantasia 2000 to 101 Dalmatians. Yay, a room with 2 double beds and a bath. Score!



At this point, the rest of the day is kind of a blur. Lex started melting down because he was so excited but couldn't calm down enough to take a nap. Needless to say, there was a lot of screaming and crying while Daddy spent time on the phone trying to sort everything out with the resort. He was displeased because he felt like we were too far from the main building where the food court is, etc. It resulted in some awesome Fast Passes.

When Lex finally woke up, it was time for our dinner reservations at Fort Wilderness. So, this would be his first of MANY bus rides. Now, if you know my son, you'll know he LIVES for buses. I wasn't sure how he'd take to riding an actual bus, and not just riding a bus, but at night. He took to it fine. In fact, he loved it. When we got to Magic Kingdom, we had to hop a boat to ride to the other resort. He LOVED this too! He wanted to look out the window and watch the water, he loved seeing the lights at the ends of the docks. When we got to Fort Wilderness, he was able to play on a playground for about 30 minutes while we waited on our reservations. Lots of fun.

When dinner was over, we were full, and had a light up Buzz Lightyear that came with Lex's drink ($5...again, the most expensive place on earth!)We hopped the ferry back to MK, and hopped a bus back to the 'Star Hotel'. We passed out on our respective beds to wake up for our 8:35a call time at Hollywood Studios. Breakfast with Handy Manny, June and Leo from Little Einsteins, and Agent Oso.

'Say What' Wednesday

Relayed to us by our daycare provider - Lex: Jordan, you have a bright, big penis! (where does he GET this stuff!?)

Lex (repeated at a rate of about 10 times an hour): *whines* I don't WANT TO!

Dennis: And what do we do to people who drive through our yard?
Lex: Kick 'em in the HEAD.
Me: Merry Christmas to all!

Lex (on the monorail in Disney World): *robotic voice* I. Am. A. Robot.

Me: Lex, what are you doing?
Lex: I *might* be pooping.
Me: Well, then let's go potty!
*head upstairs* *get to bathroom*
Lex: Mommy, the poopie went back UP my butt!
Me: Good! Keep it there until you're on the potty!

Weekend Wrap-Up

This weekend was, hmmm, uneventful for the most part. I always take Lex to the Monroe County Public Library http://www.monroe.lib.in.us/ on Saturday mornings to give Dennis a chance to work on the textbook that he's writing. It gives him a good two solid hours to be in the house alone (christ, I'd KILL for that!) to work on geometry, proofs, and all the other icky crap that goes into writing a textbook. The remainder of Saturday afternoon was spent watching crappy tv (Intervention and 16 and Pregnant...yes, I will watch both of them...I realize how lame I am).

Saturday night, I drove up to Indianapolis to one of my very good friend, Kara's, house so that we could drive up to Noblesville to go to a Pure Romance http://pureromance.com/ party. Holy shit, those things can get SERIOUSLY out of hand. I've never heard another woman say, in all seriousness, "Hey, I got some Coochie (a product, mind you!) on my face!" Or my utterance of, "Excuse me, um, I think I broke your cock ring."

Sunday was spent lazing about the house and convincing my son to use the toilet. He managed to stay dry ALL day (he still gets a pull-up for naps and bed), and he used his little toilet for his major transaction. We were very proud, and I think with this recent turn of events, after Thanksgiving we're going to tell the DCP that he's off pull-ups at her house too. I think being forced to be in underwear all day every day will really help us. We know he'll still have accidents and that it won't be perfect, but I think we are all excited (including Lex!) that things are starting to progress. It's funny how just about a week ago I was moaning and whining that we weren't getting anywhere! I guess bitching DOES pay off!

Serious potty training day 2

Ok, well, it might not be 'serious' considering he's only in undies between 4p and 8p, but I feel like we're actually making some progress. The first night we had 3 accidents and 3 new undies. Last night, no accidents, and a lot of positive praise and prizes. For every time he pees (regardless if I ask him to or not) he gets 2 mini M&Ms. Last night, because he stayed dry all night he was able to choose a prize out of the prize bucket. Today, he's already asking for his prize, and I keep reminding him that as long as he keeps going potty in the potty and keeps his big boy undies dry, he'll get his surprise. The best part is, he doesn't scream like I'm murdering him when I put his undies on him now. The first day I physically had to HOLD HIM DOWN to get them on. And Dennis said, "He doesn't like them; don't force him!" I was, like, "Seriously?! Christ, if we let him NOT do all the things he finds discomforting, he'll never get up in the mornings or go to bed!" Apparently, yesterday before I got home, he actually ASKED to put them on, so I feel like that's a check mark for me.

I'm not getting my hopes up, and the real test will be the weekend when he's home with us all day to see if he'll stay dry. Soon, we're going to have to have the DCP having him wear the undies all day (except for nap times, I guess). That's when the real test is going to begin I guess...

Potty Training

Wow, potty training is a total bitch. We've bought big boy undies, mini M&M's for when he does go, prizes for the prize bucket for any trips to the potty that aren't nagged out of him (see below):

Me: Do you have to go?
Lex: (barely looks up from whatever inane thing he's doing) No.
Me: Are you sure?
Lex: Yes.
Me: I'll give you two M&M's if you go
Lex: Ok! I want candy.
Me: *slaps forehead*

We had to change out of Mac underwear and black Lightning McQueen (well, not an African-American...never mind...) undies, and one time he made it to the bathroom, but couldn't pull his drawers down fast enough. So, I reminded him that he was to either go without me or tell me he needs to go to the bathroom. And when he doesn't, and he pees in his undies, we have to go ALLLLLLL the way upstairs to get a new pair and put the old pair in the washing machine.

He loved the M&M's, and I don't feel too terribly guilty since he's only getting 2 at a time (which is the equivalent of 1/2 of a regular M&M). It seemed to work because in the past he's always 'half-ass' peed, which is him sort of going and cutting it off mid-stream when I know damn good and well he's not done peeing. He just doesn't want to waste anymore of his time.

So, I'm hoping that this will be the turning point. I don't want to rush him or pressure him, but I know that if we keep up with good habits, it will click for him.