This little imp is potty trained! That includes both numbers, and also using the potty at the library and the park. And I have now potty trained five children and am expecting my trophy to arrive in the mail any day. Time to partay!  

I've just got to post about Asa. He's grown up like a weed over the past three months or so. It is so encouraging to see him growing, learning, and mellowing out a little! I can definitely tell they're related. - His vocabulary has at least doubled. As a result, we are now able to reason with him more than ever before. I needed that bad! I think I have some version of PTSD because of past outings with this child. Taking him anywhere still makes me extremely anxious. But he really is getting to be much more cooperative. In fact, I've been ordering groceries online for the past several months in large part because I've dreaded going out with Asa. But for the past two weeks we've gone, in the flesh, to the store, and it has gone amazingly well! I even let Asa walk for part of it! - He is potty trained! Woohoo! I started him on a whim, and he was amazing at it! My easiest ever by far! To this day, he has never once had a #2 accident! - Asa tells jok...

Note the blue bangs. Leah and I have spent a whole lot of quality and quantity time together lately. I suppose we can attribute it to the potty training and school being back in. It has been delightful and maddening all rolled into one bundle. I have decided that being two must just be really hard. In the last five months she's quit naps, had the pacifier taken away, become a big sister, and gone through the potty training ordeal. I think she, like her mother, craves control and routine. And when you're growing and changing as quickly as she is, control can be hard to come by. This sometimes causes her to be, shall we say, less than pleasant to be around. That said, she and I have come to an understanding over those months, and we're pals. It is so great to see her finally figure something out and be able to relax about it and move past it. She's doing a great job. And she is so prissy and girly, I find it hilarious. And endearing. Thoroughly enjoying her...

We interrupt this blissful walk down memory lane to whine and complain about how I am stretched totally beyond capacity and ready to run away to Tahiti. That's right, we're potty training. And Bryn started kindergarten this week. And I'm still nursing. And the bus stop, which I visit three times a day with littles in tow seems like 45 miles from my front door when it's really only a block. And my house looks like an explosion went off in it. Yesterday afternoon I was, you guessed it, in the bathroom. We'd been there on and off for two hours straight. Yep, two. Leah was poised for success on her frog potty and I was sitting across from her on the grown up potty cheering her on by reading books, reminding her that she could earn a smartie and a video, singing, coaching her on body awareness, challenging her to fill her little frog to capacity, you name it. (I myself was not going to the pot, thank you. There's just not a lot of seating options in the bathroom.) ...

Okay folks, here's the deal - Nate is done, as in completely finished, every i dotted and t crossed with this semester of school!!!!! He turned in his final final this morning. YEAH! Let the partying begin. You thought that was the end of the story, didn't you? But wait, there's more! We are potty training at the moment. We've had great days and pretty bleak ones. I have beaten the life out of my mattress in frustration at my three year old (once I misjudged and punched the buckle of the belt that was next to my pillow instead of the pillow. Ouch. Bleeding and swollen knuckles). We have had an extremely hard time with good ol' #2. I've promised rewards, made threats, gently reminded, yelled, you name it, I've done it. But today the stars aligned and I must've given just the right combo of the above. I was in my room folding laundry praying that I would not have to clean poopy underwear again today. I had gone up into Addison's room where he was begin...