* when my eldest was the age of my youngest *

The Middler has had a big month! Lotsa firsts going on here for Miss Anna. She learned to ride a bike without training wheels, finally graduated to chapter books and reads more ferociously now than her big sister, she cut off her long flowing locks of hair, and she is pretty much able to swim. I told her she can just take the next year off from learning things; she's good.

Luigi tried to potty train himself this week. Weird. I am not prepared. The kid doesn't even talk yet and he wants to pee like a man. He does say a few things now, 'uh0oh!' 'yeah!' and 'uh-uh!' Those three phrases actually cover just about anything so I'm not sure when he'll feel a need to add on to his verbal aresenal. But back to the potty training. Lately he's been telling me when his diaper is a little ripe by waving his pudgy little hand in front of his wrinkled up nose and saying, 'phew!' Oh wait, there's another word. So a couple days ago when he did this I was pretty sure it was before he soiled all over his Huggies, and not after. So I said, 'hey, kid, poop goes in the potty!' He looked at me and then proceeded to walk to the bathroom, lift up the rim of the toilet, and then attempt to pull his clothing off. Mike was yelling excitedly, 'go with it, Lyss! Go with it!' which was less than helpful since I didn't know what the hey I was supposed to do; plop him on the toilet just to see him fall in? Let him stand and aim? Have I mentioned I'm not ready for this particular milestone yet? He is a very clean, bordering on OCD child (when he isn't chewing on dirt) so maybe the fear of potty training a boy won't be the nightmare I've been invisioning it to be. He picks up everyones shoes and puts them away, he throws any and all garbage away in the proper receptacle, he organizes his bedroom instead of napping... last week he took off running at the park as fast as his sumo wrestling legs could carry him and when I gave chase thinking he was just doing a typical "I'm-almost-two-catch-me-if-you-can" escape and caught up to him, he was actually just heading for a trash can with which to toss his fruit snack wrapper in. Anyway, all you who have toilet trained a small, fastidious man, please leave a helpful comment for yours truly below.

Cora is swimming mightily these summer days. She has meets every Friday, and this past one was at and against the country club swim team. Yeah. They wiped the floor with us, but not in her two races! That's right! The only two the Orcas won were the two she swam! When I think country club I just think Dirty Dancing. They are a posh team. It probably helps that their coach is over the age of 13, but I'll try not to whine.

Life these days has been too, too busy. We did have a bit of a respite with the arrival of some company, our friends, the Weavers from Boise. Jennifer is my friend that causes my other religious friends to pray for my soul. This all stems from a certain birthday party where she and I drank a LOT of red wine. The next morning my loving and evil husband did everything short of banging pots and pans together and singing loudly in my ear. All the way to church he was telling the girls the meaning of a hangover and laughing at me. After a sermon through which I managed to sit through without my hands over my ears and chugging coffee in the back room, we asked our offspring how sunday school was. 'Good!' Anna cheerfully replied, 'We did prayer requests in my class!' 'Oh that's nice. What'd you pray for?' we asked. 'I prayed that Mommy wouldn't get any more hangovers and would stop drinking alcohol,' she answered gravely.

Ahhh, children, they do keep you humble.