I’ve been neglecting this blog for 6 days.  Unfortunately, I have not been giving birth.

*  On Thursday evening, I fell.  Hard, road-rash style, stomach first, right in the middle of the road.  My darling, angel-pie Eirinn was running away from me and I was trying to run after her with my arms filled with toddler paraphernalia and I, being ridiculously front heavy, fell whilst in full speed.  I scraped up my wrist and palm, earned a giant bruise on my knee, but am otherwise fine.  The baby is also fine. 

Eirinn was a brave little trooper when this happened (we’ll overlook the fact that this wouldn’t have happened had she not been running away from me).  She immediately stopped running, flew back to me, screaming “Mommy, get up!  Mommy, don’t cry!”  I told her to go and get Babba (we were right in front of the house) and she did.  She ran up to the house like a big girl, banged on the door as hard as she could, yelling “Babba!  Mommy fell down!”

While I was in the washroom, cleaning myself up and poking at my stomach to make sure the baby was moving, my mom and Eirinn discussed the importance of her staying with me when we’re outside and holding my hand.  When I got out, Eirinn apologized and promised she will never run away again.

Even though it was her fault, I’m still proud of how she reacted.

*  The whole Tornado family went shopping on the weekend.  How is it possible that we exit Zellers, having spent $175, and the only thing for me was a $9.00 pillow?  That, my friends, is called Motherhood.  Oh, and don’t let me forget my share of bed sheets.  I retract my bitter sarcasm.

*  Eirinn has a new obsession.  She seems to just replace obsessions with new obsessions.  See the progression from Dora to Diego to Alice in Wonderland.  Now she dedicates her life to The Wizard of Oz.  Or “Wizaboz”, if you’d like to pronounce it properly.  She likes it best if you fast forward to the Munchkins and her favourite character seems to be the Tinman, because that’s who she asks for.  As in “Where’s the Tinman?” while eating breakfast this morning.  Um…in the movie.  Am I being punked?

She knows all the songs and will sing them to you or with you on cue.  Her favourite song is “The Lollipop Guild”, which tends to be neverending because the ending is kind of tricky and she usually just starts again at the beginning.

*  Eirinn is in Big Girl Underwear full time, except for bedtime and naptime.  She hates having to wear baby diapers to bed, but we insist because we’re not sure she’s ready to start trying underwear all the time.  Mostly because I’m not ready to stop using the baby gate at her doorway.  Although, she did wake up this morning with a DRY diaper, which earned her a great round of applause plus a big hug. 

*  I have been experiencing some pregnancy symptoms and side effects that I didn’t have the joy of experiencing with Eirinn.  It’s getting to the “adding insult to injury” stage here and I’ve just about had enough.  Ok.  So I had “had enough” about a month ago, but still.  If you haven’t been able to tell, I’m ready to be not pregnant now.

At 35 weeks, I am currently Googling “Performing your own c-section”.  Strangely and disturbingly, I actually found something…

Eirinn started wearing big girl underwear yesterday.  Not by choice, but as a natural progression from Pull Ups.  Because my mom has a week with no other kids, she has dedicated her time to Intensive Potty Training Boot Camp.  This includes asking if she has to use the potty every 10 minutes, the wearing of Disney Princess big girl underwear, and the occasional accident so she can feel the wet pants.

As a first day, it went pretty well.  There were a couple of accidents, as is to be expected, but she went on the potty several times.  She is resistant, as Eirinn is with every type of change, but with a bribe of chocolate or a great round of applause she can usually be convinced to at least try to use the potty.  And a couple of times she even asked if she could use it.

Yesterday before dinner, while I was washing the dishes from the day before (shut up), Eirinn left the kitchen and pulled her potty from the powder room to the front door (she likes to watch the construction vehicles and her potty is one of those potty/stool hybrids).  She was content and thankfully not wanting to “help” with the dishes, so I left her on her own. 

After a couple of minutes of silence (rarely a good thing with an active toddler), I peeked to check on her again.  She had flipped the lid of the potty and was sitting on her throne like a little princess.

“Whatcha doing, Eirinn?”

“Going pee-pee!”

“You are!  What a big girl to go pee-pee all by yourself.  Did you do it?”

“Yes!  A big one!  Come see.”

She had, indeed, peed a great deal into her potty, temporarily located in our front foyer.

“Wow, that was a big one!”

One snag though.  While she had in fact recognized the sensation of having to pee and she had taken the proper steps of opening the lid and sitting on the potty and peeing like such a good girl, she had forgotten one incredibly important part.

She hadn’t pulled her pants or underwear down and had peed straight through them.

But she was so proud, we’ll still give her an ‘A’ for effort.

It’s only 2:00pm, but thus far, today has been mighty unusual.  Eirinn has decided, on her own, that she is potty trained.  Or at least that it is high time that we get our acts together and potty train her, for Pete’s sake*.  As I sit and type, she has used the potty at my mom’s house, successfully, a grand total of five (5) times today.  Wait.  That sentence deserves more grandeur.  Like a ! or even a !!!.

She has sat and made good use of the potty five times.  I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself, I just can’t believe it.  To put it into perspective, she has successfully used her potty at home a grand total of 3 times since we bought the darn thing way back in August.  In the past few weeks, when asked if she’d like to use the potty, we’ve been consistently given a polite “No sank you.”  And the odd time she does sit on it, she gives us no action.

While I’d love to believe that this is some giant milestone I can document in her largely neglected completely ignored for well over a year seriously, I don’t even know where it is baby book, I’m a realist.  I also know my daughter.

I’ll summarize my feelings for the entire day by relaying to you a conversation via email I had with Anonymous Husband. 

***

Me: Eirinn has used the potty successfully three times today! She and my mom just came in to my office to tell me. (sent at 11:17am)

AH:  Awesome! (sent at 1:47pm)

Me: And she’s used it twice more since I sent you that.  My mom is giving her a chocolate egg every time she goes, but who cares?  It’s working!

AH:  There go our chocolate eggs.

Me: Bag of chocolate eggs: $3.99.  Bag of diapers: $18.99.  I’ll buy you more eggs.  I’m just worried about the permanent sugar high she’s going to be on.

AH: She’ll end up going to bed at midnight.

Me: Maybe I’ll see if they have some sugar-free chocolates at the Bulk Barn.  Although, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  This is Eirinn we’re talking about.  Probably by tomorrow she’ll refuse to be in the same room as the potty.

AH: I think you’re right there.

***

*Who is this “Pete” and what’s he got that I don’t?  Why don’t people do things for my sake?  I like the sound of “For Jen’s sake…” much better.

*UPDATE*

Yesterday she used the potty 7 times at my mom’s and once at our house and she went again this morning before we left!  Even if this is just a passing novelty, I’m so proud of my little big girl!