Taxes

I've been in Quick Books purgatory today, getting ready for business and personal taxes.

Grrrrr.

Flowers?

Aaaaah.

Tulips. And roses.

I got a little bit of both today.

It almost makes up for the taxes.

Yep, I think I've forgotten about them already.

I am grateful

Today I want to make a non-exhaustive list of things for which I am grateful.

The reason for non-exhaustiveness is because counting ALL my blessings would indeed be exhaustive and I still have a full house of kids and chores to do!

1. A husband who loves me.

2. A small gaggle of cute offspring to make me smile.

3. An extended family that loves and supports me and gives me opportunities for belly laughs and mint truffle bars every once in a while.

4. Lovely mountains to gaze at while I am vaccuming.

5. Blogs to help me (a horrible keep-in-touch-er) keep up on friends and family.

6. Three temples that I can see from Redwood Road (and a fourth I can see from my front porch).

7. Yummy food to eat.

8. An amazing home that WILL BE holy ground (once I get my act together :).

9. Music that I can hear, play, sing, and hum any time I want.

10. Lessons from God in many shapes and forms.

11. Knowledge that I am indeed divine, with Heavenly parents and a loving older Brother.

12. A Sacrifice that makes everything possible, forgiveable, do-able, and worth it.

13. Good in the world. Lots of it.

14. Mostly welcome opportunities to learn to sacrifice.


I thought I'd stop there--considering the number 14 has special meaning this month.

I AM blessed. So blessed. I just needed to remind myself today.

Subtle message

So, if one's mother were to say,

"You have a nervous energy. You would rather work on this family history on the computer than, say, clean the bathroom."

How am I supposed to take that?

She has always been very honest with me. I remember when I came home from my first semester at BYU, and she immediately said,

"Wow, you sure are eating well at school."

Ouch.

Maybe not so subtle.

Obviously I need to change something...

(no pun intended)

So during my Sunday afternoon rest, I hear this:

"Mom, Sarah pooped in her panties."

Ugh, I think to myself.

Then I walk into the hallway, and there is my 3 year-old washing her own panties out in the toilet.

Ouch. I think I have been too hard on her. She didn't want to incur my wrath, so she'd thought she would take care of it herself.

(I won't mention the fact that I stepped in the poop on the bathroom floor and unknowingly tracked it all over the carpet upstairs...)

I think I'll ground myself. For a year. That actually sounds relaxing.

Pathetic! :)

On a good note, there weren't any accidents outside of the house today! Thank goodness for tender mercies!

It could be worse...

I won't tell you what I have cleaned up in the last few days.

Let's just say that I am grateful for hand soap and sanitizer.

But at least today there weren't any training pants to wash out in the toilet...

(sorry, i know too much information)

A sister's keeper

I was blessed today with "mother's genius." If only for a moment.

Yesterday, Lauren died every time I gave Sarah a dum-dum for peeing in the toilet. Every time she would ask for a treat. Quite frankly, I was getting sick of saying no, but even more annoyed that she wanted to be rewarded for something her sister had accomplished. I was undeterred. No amount of whining would break my resolve.

Today, however, was a different story. I didn't want to punish her for already being toilet-trained. I certainly didn't want any regression. So I caved.

And in the cave-in moment, the inspiration came to me!

She would become my potty supervisor.

If she could remind her sister to go potty, she would also get a treat. She had a vested interest in her sister making it to the potty. It became a shared venture.

Brilliant, I tell you. (but it doesn't happen very often) :)

Potty Training, day one

Well, it isn't actually day one because we've started this process about as many times as I have read 1 Nephi 1:1.

But it is 11:30 am, and there haven't been any accidents.

I'm not even going to say yet.

I'm positive that today's the first day of the rest of our diaper-free (during the day) life.

Go, Sarah!