How to Grow a Schneider: The Dondi & Matt Way: It's Mother's Day, Please Stop...

"Please stop touching your penis."

"Do you have to potty?"

"No?"

"Then stop touching your penis."

Is there anything funnier than waking up to a Marching Chief?

It was Mother's Day.

There wasn't a gift, but rather the promise of one that I could pick out myself. My husband is practical and logical, that way, but I'm more emotional and non-logical about so all I knew was that there was no gift.

So, to Church we went....

"Stop touching your penis. It's still there, I promise."

(How long does this last??)

See....Mass is right in the middle of Beau's morning naptime, so it's always a bit of a struggle, but today - on Mother's Day - he decided to really let me earn my title. See...he doesn't cry as much as he yells at you when you don't do what he wants you to. And he squirms and rolls and wriggles until you want to SNAP.

"Stop touching your penis."

"Do you have to potty?"

"No?"

"Then stop touching your penis."

"Please don't roll your cars up and down the pews. Stop banging the dinosaurs on the back of the pew."

We finally make it out of Church only for the whining to start from Jack....

"I want....I need....Momma, do this....Momma, do that..."

OMG.

*It's Mother's Day*

We arrive home and I immediately put Beau down for a nap only to find one poop disaster after another from here on out. The conversation generally goes like this:

Me: Who has poop in their pants??

Matt: "Not me!"

Jack: "Nope!"

*stop touching your penis*

Lucky??

Nope...Beau....poop everywhere.

*It's Mother's Day*

We to go lunch....Jack proceeds to literally poke Matt 4000 times during lunch causing Matt to ALMOST snap...and we get back into the car....same conversation:

Me: Who has poop in their pants??

Matt: "Not me!"

Beau: "zzzzzzz"

Me: "Well, Lucky isn't here"

Jack: "I have poop!"

*It's Mother's Day*

Post lunch....No one naps...least of all me....so we go in the pool, where? You guessed it! Someone poops! (not Matt, not me, not Lucky)

*It's Mother's Day* And even though I cleaned up more poop than I wanted to, listened to more whining than necessary and never got around to picking out my gift....it was all good because Beau said "ma ma."

SOLD.

So, potty training is a real hoot -- but here's the good news: WE'VE TURNED A CORNER.

The potty training is 98% complete - complete with dry naptimes and dry night times!! Jack has really turned it around and I can't say enough good things about his (previously undesirable) great attitude. The kid is READY for preschool and we are excited to see him thriving!!

The fun did continue the morning after Mother's Day....

Jack can now get up by himself to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. He also gets up in the mornings, goes to the bathroom and gets himself dressed (sometimes on backwards and not matching, but we have to start somewhere).

Imagine my surprise when he arrives in our room at 4:50 am, shining his flashlight about an inch from my face...in his loudest possible "whisper voice":

Jack: "MOMMA. MOMMA. The nightlight out. You fix it."

Me: "Babe, we will just use your flashlight as the nightlight for now so that we can all go back to sleep"

Jack: "MOMMA. FIX THE NIGHTLIGHT."

I sense that unless I figured this out, no one was sleeping.....and after searching for 15 minutes, I had to steal Beau's nightlght bulb to keep the peace.

Jack: "I knew you'd fix it, momma."

That kid pushes me to my limits but then makes me realize that I'll do just about anything for sleep.

He'll be a great people developer one day....pushing people to rise above their previously determined limits. LOL. (one must try to always find the positive, right?)

For the love of God, please let us always keep nightlight bulbs and batteries of all shapes, sizes and quantities on hand for all of eternity.

Amen.

That time I wouldn't let Jack eat the blueberry on the grocery store floor and he gave me this look. #GRUMP

Since our last update, little Beau Bear turned 8 months old...and he's a BIG BOY, even bigger than Jack was at his age, so I have to assume that he'll be tackling Jack in no time.

Beau was baptized this past Sunday and we had a ton of family and friends in attendance. It was a great day - and went remarkably smooth considering how many people we were trying to please over the course of 5 days!