What's on the minds of todays Kindergarten kids? Gay marriage, of course!

Yesterday Big Girl got to have a friend over after school for a play date. This girl came to Big Girl's birthday party, six months ago, but hasn't been over since. They're just friends at school mainly. I'll call this girl JJ, which is not her name, for the sake of clarity for this blog post.

JJ walked home with us from school. As we walked, we talked. JJ discussed whether she had had a play date before. The only other play date she had was with her mom's girlfriend. Oh, that's nice, I thought. No red flags yet. I have girlfriends, but they don't go on play dates with my kids. Here's how the conversation went from there:

JJ: My mom is going to marry her girlfriend. Girls can marry girls.
Big Girl: Girls marry boys and boys marry girls.
JJ: Girls can marry whoever they want to marry.
Big Girl: Girls marry boys and boys marry girls. (YOU GO, GIRL!!)
JJ: People laugh at girls who marry girls. But girls can marry whoever they want to marry.
Me: In OUR family, we teach our children that girls marry boys, and boys marry girls.
Big Girl: I can't marry Poppa (my dad). He already has a wife. (That was her main concern... and at least she's also rejecting polygamy!!)

And that was the end of the discussion.

I really would like to know more about the situation, but I didn't exactly find the opening to ask the mom when she came to pick up her daughter. "So, how's that alternate lifestyle treating you?" It just wouldn't have been natural. I don't think Big Girl will be going over to JJ's house. As sweet a kid as JJ is, I just can't let Big Girl be exposed to such things at her age and maturity level. It's one thing for a kid to talk about it (at school or wherever), but quite another for me to give tacit endorsement and let her go into that environment and be surrounded by it.

I know that by sending my kid(s) to public school, I'm allowing exposure to a wider variety of worldly experiences and views, but I never expected it so soon.

I heard a discussion recently on Laura Ingraham's radio show (I'm a huge fan), where a woman who was obviously liberal was arguing that promoting virginity in sex-ed sexualizes women. I got to thinking about that in the context of trying to talk to this other mom about her sexuality. Humans are sexual beings. Being married (to whomever) is a public declaration of sexuality. Saving sex, or not, perverting sex or not, humans are sexual, and that's not a secret, and has never really been a secret. Yes, there have been generations who wouldn't talk about sex at all, but that didn't mean they weren't sexual... obviously generations have come about since them. I don't know that I'm trying to make a point or anything. This is just stuff I've thought about.

And now back to the prayer closet to beg the God of heaven and earth to protect my kids!!!

POTTY POWER!!

Little Girl has finally got it! She's got "POTTY POWER!!!" We borrowed a DVD from our neighbors by that title, and there's a little song about having potty power. It's cheesy and dumb, but it helped!

There have been several factors which have culminated in her recent successes putting poop in the potty. 1- The last time she had put it in her pants, I made her pick it up and put it into the potty with her bare hand. That grossed her out. (Whatever it takes, right?) That was 8 days ago. She has used the potty ever since. 2- Another trick was to set her up with a large mixing bowl with water in it and some kitchen gadgets that she was allowed to play with ONLY while sitting on the potty. These were gadgets she has frequently been tempted to play with, and has been scolded for retrieving without permission. I could do without my egg slicer for a while so long as it was employed in the purpose of tempting her to poop in the potty. 3- The DVD opened another avenue for us to talk about it and give us other words to use. After 8+ months of dealing with this issue, variety was a good thing. 4- I do think praying about it helped. It helped my attitude, and also led me to try the more regimented approach which didn't end up working, but at least I did give it a real honest try.

I have been so preoccupied with other things that I hadn't really taken the opportunity to notice that in the last week or so, Little Girl has not worn a single pull-up, and has not pooped her pants. She has had a few #1 accidents, but most of those were near the potty onto which she was trying to get situated, and just couldn't get to fast enough. She hasn't learned how long she can wait. That will come. I'm not too worried about it. I can wash pee accident stuff without too much distress. The last couple of pooped-in panties found themselves thrown away rather than washed. I'm glad that didn't last too long. My frugal side would have given way to washing them out again, and that would have led to putting Little Girl in pull-ups again, and that would have prolonged the failures.

I can't say enough how happy I am that this potty-training chapter seems to be drawing to a close. It has been one of the longest, most frustrating things I have had to endure in all my six and a half years of parenting!

I have "Monkey Wrench" by Foo Fighters in my head. That's an odd one... I don't know the last time I heard that song.

Cars

Wow, I'm really falling off on my blog. Sorry, people.

There have been lots of things going on, but I can't blog about the things that have taken my attention so completely. It's not time yet. I'll give you a teaser to say that I'll tell you about it when I can.

There is something going on that I CAN blog about. Cars. My husband has been driving a 2001 Hyundai Elantra for the last 5 years, when we traded cars and bought my minivan (yes, I'm one of THOSE minivan moms- I never thought the day would come, but it did). We bought the Elantra new, and I happily drove it for the last little bit of my music teaching career, and beginning of stay-at-home motherhood. Big girl was brought home from the hospital in that car. It's been a servicable commuter car for Hubby, but it's had some issues in the last several years. We went through receipts for the work we've had done on it since 2006 (including a tune-up, radiator replacement, clutch job, brake job) and it totaled over $4000. The car has over 108,000 miles on it. It's been around the block a few thousand times.

Monday the clutch started feeling funny, and the car was hard to shift. Hubby called me and had me meet him at the repair shop we always use to pick him up so we could leave the car there. I was on my way to meet him when my cell phone rang (I had it ON and CHARGED and ON MY PERSON!! - for once). He was having second thoughts about getting it fixed. How much is it worth? How much are we willing to spend to keep this car going? These were questions we needed to answer before we left the car there. So we came home (I stopped off at the grocery store to make it worth going out, and to pick up a couple things for dinner). Within minutes of digging around online, we found out that the wholesale value of the car was only $900. So our question was answered. It wasn't worth while for us to keep throwing money at that car.

The next online journey was to see what was out there. We started with Carmax. We quickly found a 2008 Hyundai Elantra with less than 7000 miles on it for a really good price. All the other cars in that price range had at least 20,000-30,000 miles. It seemed pretty clear what to do. That particular car was in another city. We called Carmax in our city, and they called someone at the other city to check and make sure the car didn't stink like smoke or have some hidden defect that we couldn't determine online. Once we got word that everything looked good, we asked them to transfer that car to our city, which they do for free.

Tuesday I spent a couple hours washing and vacuuming the old car. There's nothing I can do about the hail damage or door dings, but I got it looking quite a bit better than it has looked in quite some time. Then I took it to Carmax to see what they'd give us for it. They appraised our car at $1200!! Looks like we have a deal.

None of that has taken place yet. The new-to-us car should be here tomorrow, and we still have to jump through the financing hoops, but barring some major fiasco we haven't foreseen, tomorrow we'll be trading our old Elantra for a newer one. The thing that excites me most is that the new car has an aux in for plugging in an iPod to the stereo. I'm jealous now... I'm pretty sure the next car I drive will have one of those. It seems like they're pretty standard these days, just like cup-holders and keyless entry fobs.

So that's the news of the week around here. I'll post a picture of the new car when we get it.

Last Week + Happy Easter

Last week's highlights:

• Monday - The microwave went out. That happened as I was trying to microwave a frozen spaghetti meal for Little Girl for lunch because we were out of bread for sandwiches. It was not a good day. At least the microwave (built-in over-the-range type) was covered under the extended home warranty we re-upped thinking our AC was on its last legs. The AC has had a motor replaced this year already (but not the whole dern thing), and now the microwave- the warranty has paid for itself already. Monday night I ordered a new microwave to be delivered Thursday and installed on Friday. (It's not nearly so much of a big deal now that the new one is there, but it was an ordeal last week!!)
  

• Wednesday - I found out about a job opening teaching music at my mom's school. They have a music teacher that teaches half-time at mom's school, and half-time at another school, making it a full-time job. I applied through the district's website within hours of hearing of the opening. The teacher who currently has that job will be leaving because her husband was offered a job in another city. There are obvious pros to me going back to work, mostly financial, and there are cons as well. If I get this job, Little Girl and Big Girl both will have to stay at school extra hours each day at some kind of "after care" situation, which wouldn't be the end of the world, but it gives me pause. Is that right for them? I'd also have to do all my grocery shopping and laundry in the evenings and weekends. I'd have to get up early every day to have myself showered and ready with make-up and everything at a very early hour. These days, when I walk Big Girl to school, I just get up and throw on a sweatshirt and jeans and go. I may or may not take the time to brush my hair before I leave the house. It just doesn't matter right now. But it would if I have a job.

• Friday (Good Friday) - Big Girl was home from school, and we went to a bouncy-house place for her $1 prize. The one we usually go to has closed, so we had to find another one. It took us driving around for just over an hour to find it. Actually, we had two possible places, and we went to one, couldn't find it, went to the other, which only does parties, and then went back to the first one armed with the phone number and got directions twice on the way there. It was such a nightmare. I never want to go back to that place. My mom wanted to take the girls to an Easter egg hunt at her church Saturday morning, so she and dad came and took the kids for the night Friday night. Hubby and I got to go on a date after the Good Friday service at our church. That redeemed the day from the bouncy-house disaster.

We had a lovely Easter with my parents. The girls were absolutely adorable in their Easter dresses. For a mom like me, Easter dresses are what having little girls is all about. It's what you think about when you're getting that sonogram to find out the sex of the baby. I got to live it times two yesterday. Here's my girls in all their Easter dress glory, from behind so you can see the curls and the gorgeous backs of the dresses.

Coronation Day

I'm getting crowned today. If only that meant something royal... I just get my permanent crown put on my tooth today. That means the temporary one that came out twice over Spring Break will come out today, and I don't have to worry about not being able to floss or chew things like a soft pretzel. That's good. It also means that I have to go back to the dentist's office today. If you've read my blog before, you know that's not exactly my favorite way to spend an hour.

If only that were all I had going on this afternoon. Why does it seem like there's always so much packed into one day? It's OT day for Big Girl.

An OT update: Big Girl is now riding her bike. That was one of the goals I had for her when we started. She rode around the driveway yesterday afternoon for a little while completely on her own. It wasn't completely smooth sailing, but she did it. This is a very good thing! Yay for her!!

Back to my busyness... I'm hoping I can get in for a hair cut after my dentist visit. Unfortunately I forgot to call and make an appointment, so I'm not sure I can get in with my girl today.

I haven't had my hair cut since November. In years past, I wouldn't be due for another cut for at least 6 more months, but in the last 18 months, I've been keeping my hair shorter. Hubby really likes my hair to be somewhere between chin-length and shoulder-length. In my heart, I've always been a long hair person. I used to go through a cycle of cutting off my hair (like he likes it) and then growing it out long until I couldn't stand it any more (headaches from the weight and such). Until September of 2007, when I donated my long hair to Locks of Love, I hadn't ever had a short hair cut that I really liked. Unfortunately, that cut that I love so much was done by Yvonne in Albuquerque, and I can't exactly go back to Albuquerque every 6-8 weeks to get my hair cut. I came home from helping my brother and sister-in-law move with my hair short. Hubby had no idea I was doing it and he got a fun surprise when he picked me up from the airport.

Anyway, long story short, I need my hair cut, and I'd love to get that done today while I have someone watching the girls for me. I've had my hair cut with the girls there, and it doesn't work out so well. The girls are well-behaved, but they distract me and the girl who does my hair, and I get myself in the "I wanna get out of here" mode, instead of scrutinizing my hair cut to make sure I'm happy before I leave there.

Setback

Whoa, there. Don't get too excited. She pooped her pants again today.

WHY?????

I'm feeling pretty emotional. I didn't get all angry at Little Girl, which is good. I'm just feeling so completely at a loss... she was doing so well for a while there. Why must there ALWAYS be steps backwards after progress? Why not just continued progress??

I keep hoping that her pottying or not is tied to something I'm doing, so that I when figure out whatever it is that I'm supposed to do, she'll get it. If I knew what that thing was, then I'd do it. But this doesn't work that way.

I'm really struggling with my success/failure as a mother being tied to this. If I were judged on it by someone on the outside, I'd be failing for sure.

I'm tired today. Quite tired. The place that I take Big Girl when she earns $1 on her penny chart has closed. I kept waking up last night having nightmares about that. And it just closed March 24. If she had earned her dollar about a week sooner, then we'd not have this problem now. (I'm not blaming her, please don't misinterpret.)

I need a nap.

Last night, on the way upstairs at the end of the day, Hubby mentioned that he had the theme song to Ducktales in his head. I know that wasn't the song in my head, but that's pretty way out there. I thought it blogworthy. Hubby claims he didn't even watch the show. He prefered Thundercats, and it was only his sister who watched Ducktales. Sure. I believe him.