Adventures in poo

Have I mentioned that I should rename my life "adventures in poo," because I should.  Not only am I about to write about poo, but I'm going to get real deep about it.  Elliott is a charming little guy.  He has the cutest little curls and his giggle is to die for.  He loves to read books and snuggle.  He is a super huge fan of movies and his favorite food is meat. Any kind of meat is the first thing he eats off of his plate.  All that meat makes his diapers fierce. On multiple occasions Richard told me that he thought Elliott needed to go to the doctor because his diapers smell like an out-house. Along with the nasty scent he also was in the habit of pooping a little tiny bit 6 times a day.  I was over the stinky diapers and decided he was getting potty trained (ready or not).  I followed a three day program where they wear only underwear and you pretty much clear the schedule of anything but sitting at home watching him drink juice and asking him if he will tell me if he needs to go potty...oh and cleaning up all the inevitable accidents. At the end of three days I was feeling excited because he was totally dry for a day and all was going well.  Then I realized it had been a while since he had a BM.  Then...oh boy...I realized just how NOT potty trained he was.  He pooped his pants 7 times....SEVEN...in one day.  It was rough.  I was worn out and sick of poop and wondering what to do.  I was feeling super frustrated and sat down to write in my journal.  I was feeling pretty stuck because I was so proud of him for making so much progress on the training.  He was doing great on staying dry.  Even at night he was waking up dry.  He loved his big boy pants. Actually he loves his underwear so much that even now over a month later he is still talking about the day he got them.   Every night at dinner  we discuss our favorite parts of our day.  Charlotte always talks about something she liked and EVERY night Elliott says, "I go to target and get my UNDERWEAR!!" and when he says underwear he jumps.  So yea, he loves his underwear and he has made so much progress.  Anyway, there I am feeling overwhelmed and smelling poo on me (ugh no matter how many times I wash my hands I can still smell it) and writing in my journal.  Then it occurred to me that sometimes that how it is in life.  We start on something that is difficult and we make a whole lot of progress and improvement, but the truth is we are still crapping ourselves. We still have a lot of progress left to make to get where we want to be.  I partially regretted even starting to potty train Elliott, because it was hard and the results weren't perfect and the little failings he was having a long the way were frustrating.  When I think about taking on a new responsibility, learning something new or looking for a job I know that it will start with lots of accidents/failings at the beginning and then I will get more proficient, but I have to remind myself that even once I make some improvements that I doesn't mean that I have totally arrived.  There is no going back to where you were before.  You can't go back because even if you try you are letting go of progress already made.

Alright, I wrote this a month or two back and I believed it.  Still do...sort of.  But it was still a major struggle and on one fateful Sunday Elliott pooped for the 4th time in his underwear as we loaded into the car to go to church.  Richard's brain almost exploded all over the car and I looked like the girl in exorcist with my head spinning all the way around.  We put him back in a diaper.  Holy moly, the guilt a felt about this was major.  I was certain that all I needed to do was keep going.  And gosh this kid loved his underwear so much.  I felt mean...super mean and like I had given up on him and I had even written a blog post about his process for heaven's sake. He was back in a diaper (and we were late for church), but I promised him that if went potty by himself at church I would let him put his big boy pants back on.  We got home and I put his underwear back on and no less than twenty minutes went by and he POOPED in his pants again.  Richard went to the store and bought pull-ups that very sabbath day.  We were done!!!  Now 3 weeks later he is still in the pull-up, but doing better than he was before.  I don't know what that means for my big old allegory of life, but that's where we are now.

In other news, I believe everyone who actually reads this already knows, but we are moving back to Richmond. Richard is doing the endodontics program at VCU.  I am excited that I think I have found a job that is a good fit and now all we need to do is find a place to live and a nanny NBD. Ha!  Maybe all these changes made me get all deep about moving forward and doing hard things and not going back on the progress you have made.  I don't know for sure.  I have a feeling I will write even less once I go back to work.  I like reading old blog posts and remembering the way things make me feel and think. Even my journal rarely gets written in anymore.  But I guess these child raising years are just busy and may just be a big blur with the only versions of what happens recorded in skewed versions in your kids memories.   I suppose I am cool with that and if on a rare occasion I feel like recording my adventures in poo on this little old blog, I sure will do that.

 Charlotte constructed our family and out of snowmen.

 so proud of the cake they made for Doodles.

 Vivian wearing Elliott's T-shirt after having a blowout and that was all I had.

 Elliott helped at my dental appointment and may have sprayed water all over my face.

 She started soccer and sadly for her she got my ball-handling skills and aggressiveness.

 We went to a party where we dressed up as a character for a book and we went as Fancy Nancy's parents

 Elliott had a stomach bug on Easter Sunday.So sad.  Charlotte was more than happy to collect his eggs for him.

 A friend bought this for charlotte.  It says, "I'm my favorite princess."  TRUE!!

 Yup...every single week.  It is the worst.

 I may be a terrible mother for taking this picture!!

For two years I have been talking about dying my hair red.  I finally did it. I was super excited about it, until i got home and realized it was more brown than red.   This is the picture it looks the most red in, but mostly it looks brown. How is that for epic life decision?

oh the humanity

I have been writing a post in my head for about two months now.  Clearly the post never graduated from my head the computer and it won't.9009 It was all about gratitude and thankfulness. I have other things I want to write about, but basically the combination of these four things has had me thinking a lot about my ability to be happy and choosing happiness.
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy
http://www.businessinsider.com/a-neuroscience-researcher-reveals-4-rituals-that-will-make-you-a-happier-person-2015-9
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/inside-out-2015/id999607190
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/04/grateful-in-any-circumstances?lang=eng


Alright so coming up to the Christmas season I was feeling a little worn thin.  My eye was twitching (that used to happen during finals a lot) and I my mind felt jumbled and anxious over inconsequential things. My plans were all coming together, though. I was putting together a luncheon for the youth to host for the elderly people in our church and then the next day (Christmas Eve) we were flying to Utah. The luncheon turned out so nice and made me rethink any complaints I had about adding one more thing right before Christmas. I loved watching the youth waiting outside to escort people in. I was worried about getting everything all packed and even though I started packing a week early so much of what we were taking we were still using until the last minute.  Anyway, I got everything packed and got to bed at a decent hour.  On Christmas Eve morning I got up early and went for a run and it felt great. The weather was good at all of our airports and everything was packed.  All I had to do was get my kids out of bed and head out.  We drove two separate cars up to DC and only left 15 minutes later than planned and hit ZERO traffic in DC. The kids were happy and cheerful and we didn't have to pull out any electronics for our 3 hour drive up and that meant they would be excited to use them on the plane. We got to my sisters house and paid her friend to drop us at the airport and park our car at their house. Does it sound like I am bragging? Well I am.  I was bragging to myself in my head. Everything was going exactly as planned and smooth. I was so excited that we were going to get to my parents house and just be excited to be there and not complaining about the amount of work that traveling takes.

We got in line to check in and there was a huge line up that happened right behind us and I thought about how lucky we were to have beat the rush.  I started chatting with the woman in line behind us.  She was flying to Atlanta where the weather was bad and they cancelled her flight.  Her 8 year-old looked near tears. I again was thinking about how lucky it was that we weren't flying through Atlanta and how unusual it was was for the weather to be good in Cincinnati and SLC, but not Atlanta.  I wished the woman luck and walked happily to the check in counter.  Can you feel it coming?  Everything was going too good, right?  Turns out our flight to Cincinnati was delayed for some unexplained reason and we would miss our connection to SLC.  There were no flights out of that airport to get us there AND there was no way they could get all us out together today.  Rich and I finally came to the decision that myself and the girls would fly out of a different airport today and then Richard and Elliott would fly in on Christmas day.  Thankfully, my sister's friend was able to come back to pick us up so we could drive to the other airport. I was still hoping that maybe there was a flight still available out of the other airport for Richard and Elliott too. It was not meant to be.   We were super fortunate that Richard noticed (BEFORE we checked in) that the way they had booked Charlotte, Viv and I was wrong and we would have been stuck in LA overnight, so instead we were all going to be staying at a hotel together. We got to spend a really nice Christmas eve together as our little family.  We went to see Santa Claus (we hadn't had a chance to do this yet), went swimming and went out to dinner at a delicious Mexican place.  So here is the thing, it was crummy and I wanted to be in Utah with my family and I wanted the traveling to go well, but I was happy to be hanging with my little family. But here are the two really cool parts of that day that brought tears to my eyes.  As I was checking in to the hotel I told them we would need to park our car there for 11 days and 7 days came free with our stay so I needed to pay for the other days.  I had been quoted 10 dollars a day, but then they said, "don't worry about it, Merry Christmas."  I got a little choked up and said, "thanks I needed some Christmas cheer because our flight was cancelled today."  Then the really sweet thing was that evening when we were watching Charlie Brown Christmas in our room






there was a knock on the door.  It was an employee of the hotel that had his arms full of gifts for the kids.  They were nice gifts, brand new and bought with each of my kids in mind.  Charlotte got a princess teddy bear with a Sofia the First puzzle, Elliott got a stuffed Spiderman and a truck, Vivian was given a stuffed tiger (that the man assured me they had checked to make sure the eyes wouldn't come off when she was playing with it) and a talking teddy bear toy.  I just started crying.  PEOPLE ARE GOOD!!

The next morning we were scheduled to fly to Oakland, CA and then connect and fly back to Utah.  To cut part of this story short I'll just say I was extremely anxious and trying hard to get us on a direct flight later that day.  It didn't happen, but sometimes hope leads to more disappointment than if you hadn't had any chance. I decided to go for a walk to keep some of those feelings at bay. As I walked through the airport I saw Charlotte alone on the moving sidewalk and I was mad and confused and kind of worried when I saw her there by herself.  Then she looked up and realized it wasn't her.  Just a look a like in the same outfit.  They turned out to be on the same flight.  The girls became friends (as you do when you have on a matching outfit) and then I became friends with the mom (as you do when your children are the same age).  It was nice to have somebody to hang out with while we waited for the maintenance issues on our plane to be resolved and distract me from thinking about my layover time that was disappearing.  We finally boarded the flight and made sure to sit by our new friends.  As we took off they announced the current time and flight time and I realized we were going to miss our flight in Oakland.  I started to tear up and get frustrated.  Richard reminded that I may as well just relax because there is nothing we could do about it.  He's right, he's right, I know he's right.  We are just chillin' on a 6 hour flight and Charlotte has a special love for airplane bathrooms, because...because they are small??... I don't know but we were on our 2nd trip to the bathroom when the flight attendant asked Charlotte if her new little twin friend was her cousin.  Char said, "no, my cousins live in Utah.  We are going to see them today."  She said, "well you aren't going to Utah you are going to California."  I explained our whole predicament and how not only were we on our second attempt to get to Utah (and this time going through california), but we were going to miss our connection too.  Here's where it gets good again. The flight attendant picked up the phone and called to the front and explained what was going on and asked for them to check on it as we got closer.  As we were getting closer to landing over head they asked "will the family that is trying to get to SLC please press their call button?"  then they said, "will everyone look back to where these lights are.  This family needs to get to a connecting flight and we would like everyone to stay seated to they can get to their flight."  My new friend and I were mid conversation when it happened and both of us started tearing up.  Haha.    The flight attendants took all our bags to the front of the plane and everyone stayed seated so we could sprint to the SLC flight that they held for us.  People are good!

As unfortunate as it was for our flight to be cancelled, I really feel like it gave me a chance to see some great examples of good in humanity.  I know it sounds ridiculous because it wasn't the end of the world to not end up where we wanted, but when people went out of their way to make things nice for us it meant the world to me!

Another people-are-great-moment: we asked my sister's friend to teach Charlotte and Carter a ski lesson.  He was willing to do it despite a super busy schedule and when we texted my younger brother's (19 year old) friend to tell him we were taking the kids ski at the resort where he works he stopped by to say hi and take a few runs with them.  How cool is that!?!

Okay but here is the best part of that ski day.  I wanted to ski, because I only get a few days a year.  When I looked up the prices it was totally not worth it for me to buy a pass since the kids lesson was only two hours.  For some reason I still decided to bring my ski stuff to the resort just in case.  Jennie dropped Charlotte, Viv, and I off so we could get charlotte her rentals while she parked.  I had Viv in the Bjorn and had just walked away from the ticket counter with Charlotte's ticket.  This man walked up to me and said, "do you want a free pass?"  WHAT?!?! Seriously?!? yes I do! Here's the kicker he said, "you looked like you needed a pass,"  Oh really? What in the world made you think that?  Was it my lack of ski clothing or the baby strapped to my chest?  I really can't figure out what made him decide to give it me, but I'll take it.  My mom and I joked that it was "Grandma Jo Intervention."  I wouldn't claim divine intervention, because I'm pretty sure the big man has more important things to do, but my Grandmother...  she would want me to get to go skiing.  How nice of that guy to hand over his ticket?

For my new year I'm really wanting to pay it forward.  Look for ways that I could help people with small things that might be helpful to them.