According to My Watch, It's Potty Time!

Today should have been met with a big Saturday breakfast and a sense of humor. Instead, I prepared myself with a sleepless night and herbal tea for our potty adventure. To say I was ill prepared would be an understatement.


Ariel showed some interest in the potty over the summer, so Eric and I borrowed videos and books from the library. Ariel loved watching and reading both, and soon connected the words “pee” and “poo” with the toilet. She wasn’t quite ready for the big leagues, so she had a few hits and way more misses while we waited. This also included some frustration for both of us. Mainly because Eric and I had no idea what we were doing. This potty training stuff isn't the easiest concept to get across.

It wasn’t until recently that Ariel had the dexterity, strength and coordination to pull her pants (and her diaper) on and off. Now we were getting somewhere. Since my mom was kind enough to help ease our potty woes, she bought a watch for Ariel. Every 30, 60, or 90 minute, the timer goes off and plays some cutesy music to let you know its time to potty. Pretty neat and informative.

So this morning began with a front row potty seat to “Toy Story” for 30 minutes before breakfast. Her diaper was warm and full when we pulled it off, so we weren’t expecting anything to come around for awhile. And it didn’t. For three whole hours! Eric and I were mostly passed out when she finally peed ¾ the way through the movie. Ariel looked into the potty and declared, “Candy!” (We reward her with M&M’s. I know its probably bad parenting, but it gets Ariel to go. Everyone has a motivator).

This was awesome. One victory at a time. So before we laid her down for her nap, she went three more times. I know, so cool. She even climbed down from the table during lunch so she could go.

After nap was a challenge, as Ariel decided she wanted to wear her diaper again. Well since we “threw them away,” she was left with bare bottom or Big Girl underpants. Given those choices, she went naked. Two more hits in the potty before dinner. One after dinner. And all day long, she didn’t have a single accident. Yeah, I’m a proud mama.

Right before her bath, Ariel managed to place quite a smelly #2 in the pot. Wow. I didn’t think she’d do that on the first day of training. Lots of song, dance and high-fives for our little slugger. I didn’t expect this adventure to take all day, but it has and I couldn’t tell you what I did other than listen to the potty watch and dole out chocolate candy all day. It's been a long and exhausting day, but full of success.

I’m hoping we can nail this potty thing down before Christmas and then we can spend the diaper money on a date night.

A Super All-Star

I'm going to take this entry to brag on my husband for a little bit. Not only is Eric a terrific person, he is driven and self motivated.

Within the last month, he was named Employee of the Quarter (EOQ) at work. EOQ is based on co-workers observations and acknowledgement of hard work that goes above and beyond the black and white job description. Way to go!

Eric also competed in the Salt Lake City Marathon. Now, he had three main goals for his 5th marathon:

1) qualify for the 2010 Boston Marathon (he needed to post a time of 3 hours:10 minutes). That's 7 minute, 15 second miles. Wow!

2) run his race in under 3 hours

3) return home with his daddy-to-be status (that means I wasn't supposed to go into labor early while he was out of town)

Well of his hard training paid off. He meet all the goals he set out for himself. We're going to Boston! Eric posted a time of 2 hours:58 minutes:14 seconds. Very impressive. You can get a more detailed account of the race on Eric's blog http://www.ironeric.blogspot.com/.

And as of this posting, Shortstop is still tucked away in Hotel Mom.

As one of our last date nights (without needing a babysitter), Eric, his brother, David, a friend of David's, and I went to see X-men origins:Wolverine. Since Eric has taken a liking to growing out his "mountain man" beard, he thought he might embrace the X-men energy. He shaved his beard to look like Wolverine's. He even styled his hair a bit to get that "wild" look. David thought Eric looked ridiculous, but I have to say, Eric could pass (especially if he had a leather jacket) for the popular mutant. He just might have to re-create this look for Halloween.

I thought the movie was a bit disappointing, but we had fun.

Screaming Hallelujah!

So I'm going to borrowing ( modify) lyrics of Paramore for this entry.
"This time I didn't give,
I 'd thought it last forever.
Now screaming hallelujah.
I didn't last forever."

The Paladin of Mariposa is D-O-N-E! Stick a fork in that baby!
So here are my crazy stats.

Date started: 5/7/2007 Date finished: 8/11/2008
Total time on project: 1 year, 3 months, 4 days
Longest chapter: 13,096 words, 49 double spaced pages
Shortest chapter: epilogue- 338 words, 1.5 double spaced pages
Average length of a chapter: 24.2 double spaced pages
Most words written in one day: 3,537 words
POM's total word length: 117, 978 wordsPOM's total length: 435.5 double spaced pages
I ended up with a prologue, an epilogue, and 16 chapters. All these numbers and chapter set ups are subject to change during revisions. Especially since I have an itty-bitty epilogue, I may combine this into the last chapter.

I thought that when I got to that last period, I would give a big sigh of relief, but it was like, "Shoot, I'm done." That means there more in me for the sequel.

What a journey! I have learned so much about writing and reading and the power of one's own mind. There were days I wanted to set my computer on fire and on other days, I stayed up until 2 in the morning because I was having an inspiration surge.

Two things have to happen now. 1) get minor corrects and clarificationst taken care of, 2)let the darn thing simmer for 1-2 months. Hands off completely; it'll be torture I tell you.

Now comes the fun part of trying to get this puppy published, but it can't be as hard as writing a novel. Right?

Here is the Paramore video in case you were interested.

Eric, you are an Ironman!

So, I'm just getting around to posting our trip to Couer d'Alene, Idaho for Eric's first ever Ironman triathlon. We drove through Wyoming and Montana. I just fell in love with Montana! It was so green and it seemed that if you just reached out, you could touch the mountains. It is more "wild" country than Colorado, which is why I gravitated towards this state.

Anyway, after two days of driving, we arrived in Idaho and barely had time to unpack the car, before we were off again.

Eric is part of a triathlon blogger community so we met up with like 30 people in an already crowded brew-pub. His crazy online friends were super nice and I must say, super sadistic. The highlight of the evening was when an anonymous benefactor paid the bill for the entire group! What a way to support Ironman athletes.

If you ever have the opportunity to be part of a Ironman athlete's "support crew", bring a chair, a cowbell, plenty of drinks and snacks, and good cheering voice. Race day, I got to hang out the the Bloggers' mass support crew. We spent the day searching, cheering, and photographing our athletes. They were an awesome bunch.


Eric finished in a time of 11 hours and 38 minutes, which is a great finish for a first-timer. He was very pleased with his performance, but after he crossed the finish line, Eric said, "This is my first and last Ironman." I seriously doubt that. Maybe in a couple of years. The Tri Bloggers had a post Ironman bbq on Monday and a good time was had by all.

One the way home, we decided to sight see through southern Idaho and northern Utah. While it was very pretty and scenic, it added 3 hours to our total drive time. Yikes! We'll plan better next time. Despite my grumpy, irritated days on this excursion, it was fun to be around so many goal driven individuals and their totally rocking support crew!

PS. If you want to see more pictures and view the video of Eric crossing the finish, visit Eric's blog at ironeric.blogspot.com or click on the link under "blogs we like."

The Week of Sabotage

Here's the scoop. I have decided that I want the first draft of my novel completed by the middle of June. In order to do this, I have been diligently writing 2,000 words a day (about 7-10 pages)! Yeah it's crazy, and yeah it's super hard, but I've got to get this thing out of my head. The Kids (Vaila & Cenric) are driving me crazy.

So this is how the week of writing sabotage came to pass.

So, I wrote Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, totaling about 5,000 words. I really wasn't feeling the writing vibe, so I struggled all three days. I was getting so frustrated I just wanted to shut the computer off and say the heck with things (self sabotage). I went grocery shopping on Wednesday, the zoo on Thursday, Friday I spent all morning at the spa and Saturday I went to the reservoir with Eric, so he can practice his open water swim (all external sabotage).

Life is a saboteur to the things we have planned, but if we were not living, there would be nothing to plan for.

So, instead of beating myself up about not writing for 4+ days, I've been telling myself the Kids are on vacation at Grandma's house. They'll call when they're ready to come home.