Weekly Will

First, let me thank you all for your support on the post I wrote on Thursday. Having people behind me makes me even more excited to move forward with my plan.

The other day, Cass wrote a post that remarked at the power of the phrase “I will…”. She is so right! Saying “I will” holds much more meaning than saying “I’ll” or in my case, “I’m gonna….”. Hub asks me when I’m going to do something, and my go-to response is “I’m gonna….”. It’s an easy way out. It’s non-committal. It is so me. But it isn’t this renewed version of myself that I’m trying to build.

And so, that brings me to today’s post, and what I’m hoping will be the first in a series of similar Sunday posts. This is my Weekly Will, a list of the things that I will do this week. Nothing drastic, nothing crazy, nothing overly complicated. Just things that I can and will do if I just push myself a little bit.

Here goes:

• I will get my hair cut and colored.
• I will go to the gym at least 4 times (and I will not just slack off and ride the bike).
• I will paint my toenails (or maybe have someone paint them for me).
• I will wear cute shoes instead of boring flats at least once.
• I will clear and wash the dinner dishes in the same night in which they accumulated.
• I will do a good deed.
• I will play a game with my kids without being beggedasked.
• I will focus more time on my job and less time hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.
• I will comment on a blog I have never commented on before.

I think that’s good. Nothing overly ambitious. Nothing that is too vague to be able to gloss over. Here we go people! The week starts now.

16 years

In the Spring of 1994, I sat down next to my future husband on the school bus. We made small talk. I complained about my loser boyfriend. We continued to chit chat on the rides home through May and June, and on the last day of school, we traded yearbooks. In my usual fashion, I scrawled “KIT!” along with my phone number.

I really didn’t give him any thought in those first couple weeks of summer vacation. I wasn’t really aware that he still kept in touch with my BFF Melissa who had moved to another town our freshman year. By fate though, I called her while she was on the other line with him. They had an extra ticket to Darien Lake, our local theme park, and he suggested that I join them. I couldn’t even tell you today how I got my mother to say yes to driving an hour in a car with an 18-year-old boy she’d never met, but I did.

And from there, we were inseparable; the best of friends. I knew that I had feelings for him, but was not sure that he felt the same. My mother, who had said at first “You are 15 years old, Sara. You are not dating an 18-year-old.”, had changed her tune and wondered when we would get together. Still though, I was worried that he didn’t like me like that.

But then, as we spent the weekend at Melissa’s father’s place watching Woodstock ’94 on pay per view, it all became clear. And after he’d left and I stayed behind, the phone rang and Melissa put it to my ear. That day, Ed asked me to be his girlfriend, and 16 years later to the day, we have never looked back.

Happy 16 years to my Hub and me, and here’s to 116 more.

Ed and me in our high school cafeteria, 1994

Begin with the end in mind.

Have you guys heard about The Leader in Me? It’s a program that teaches kids how to be effective leaders, not just in their lives as students, but as adults as well. One of the main components is Dr. Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. As a kindergartner, Bud was exposed to this program as his school piloted it last year.

When we sat in at Parent’s Open House last September, a speaker from Franklin Covey was there, talking about The Leader in Me as well as The Habits. He talked about a lot of things, and to be honest, Hub and I were too busy making jokes under our breath about whether or not the guy could get me a new work planner, and whether he was Franklin or Covey (he was neither) to really pay attention. We ended up hearing a lot about the program throughout the year though, from the mouth of our 6-year-old. Here he was, speaking to The Habits, reminding me (more often than I’d like to admit) to just “Be Proactive”. I started to think, “Wow, these people might be on to something!”, but in true Saly form, that’s about as far in the thought process as I’ve gotten.

I’ve been struggling recently, with the person that I’ve become. I don’t mean that in the sense that I think I’m a bad person, but I realized that I’ve become comfortable, and complacent in my everyday life. I follow the same routines over and over again. Breakfast, drop kids off, work, pick kids up, dinner, baths, bed. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. The routine is necessary; I have a household to run. But not pushing myself, not trying new things, not being that vibrant person that I once was has been taking its toll. I am a shell of that person, on auto-pilot, going through the motions. I manage my routine, dole out hugs, kisses and band-aids, and do everything in my power to meet and exceed the needs of my kids. Of my husband. Of the animals. And really, I am happy to do it. I feel like I was put on this planet to be a wife and a mother. But…BUT! I was also put here to be me, and somehow I have lost myself. And the kids are growing, you know? And once they’re grown, then what? What if I am too far gone to ever get myself back?

And so I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately. How to end to complacency. How to start caring about myself again. How to get that sparkle back in my eye that I was once famous for. But most of all, where to start! And in the back of my mind, I kept hearing a phrase; Habit 2: “Begin with the end in mind.” It’s excellent advice, right? What is the big picture here? What is the ultimate goal? What do I want to accomplish in the end, and more importantly, how am I going to get there? I don’t exactly know the answers to all of these questions, but at least I know what I want.

So now it’s out there, and I’m not relying on anyone other than myself to be accountable for it, but I do hope that you’ll check in with me. Change is on the horizon, and I think—no, I know--I’m excited.

Mission Complete

Do you know that the most common search that leads people to my blog is “night time potty training”? I guess I’ve talked about it a lot. It’s been a big deal in our house for a very long time.

Bud was day trained by the time he was 2.5/3. We kept pull-ups on him at night, as I think most parents do in the beginning, but instead of tapering off, the need for them remained consistent. I think we just assumed that at some point, he would stop needing the pull up. We tried once, just letting him go without, a little while before he turned 4. It was a bust. We tried again, more diligently, with middle of the night wake-ups in the months after he turned 4, when I was pregnant with Liv. (those are the posts referenced above) At this time, Lucy had potty trained herself and was staying dry through the night with no effort. It was upsetting to Bud, so we were trying hard, but after endless frustration, again we gave up.

We used Pull-Ups, and then as he grew, Good Nights and Under Jams because he produced more urine, leaking through more often than not. We had conversations with our pediatrician, consulted the internet, and ultimately decided to just wait it out and let him grow out of it.

And then in September, he went to kindergarten and made friends. There was talk of sleepovers (though if I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t let him sleep at another kids house for a few more years). There was talk of his friends not knowing that he was a bed wetter. And there was embarrassment. And so, again after talking with our pediatrician, we put a plan in place to move forward this past March just after he turned 6. We started with him still in the Good Night, and began waking him twice nightly to pee. It worked, however, we realized we weren’t getting an accurate picture of when and how often he was peeing. So we moved to a rubber sheet and no pull-up, at which point we determined 1. He was peeing 3-4 times a night, and 2. He never ever woke up no matter how wet he or the bed was.

It was a sleep issue. He was in such a sound sleep, he missed the “I have to pee” cue and just let it go. We continued to wake him up twice a night, to get him in the habit of getting up to go pee. After a few weeks of success, we tried to let him go it alone, and it was a huge fail. He was frustrated, we were frustrated, and we were all exhausted. TEH Internets told me to buy one of those alarms that sense the wetness and wake the kid up. All I could think of was the episode of Diff’rent Strokes from when I was a kid and that red headed kid wore the pee alarm and Arnold put up an umbrella when it went off to avoid getting peed on. I didn’t want my kid to be traumatized in any way. But what were we to do?

So again, we spoke to the doctor who supported moving forward. I researched several alarms, some where a child would have to wear a panty liner in order for the alarm to detect the wetness, some that involved safety pins and elaborate wiring, others that were so expensive that I nearly fainted, and finally settled on the Wet Stop 3. We talked with Bud about what the alarm was and how it worked. That it clipped on to the front of his underwear and that the alarm piece clipped to his shoulder. That it would vibrate and beep to wake him up as soon as he started to pee. Then we watched a video online, showing a kid using it.

We received the alarm and started using it the first week of June. We tested it and showed Bud what it would feel like if it went off. We put it to use right away. For the first 2 or so weeks, the only person who heard the damn alarm was me. Bud slept right through. Gradually though, through waking him up while the alarm was still beeping and buzzing, he started doing it on his own. He was waking up mid-pee, and then later as soon as a drip hit his underwear he was up and going in the bathroom. It took longer than a lot of the reviews indicated, but finally, he was getting it. And on Monday after about 3 weeks of the alarm barely going off, he finally slept through the night without the aid of a parent, without wearing his alarm, and without wetting his bed. He got up on his own to go pee, and went back to bed.

He is so proud of himself (as evidenced by the burying of his head in the couch when I congratulated him), and we are ridiculously proud too. He stuck with it, and conquered it—my amazing little man.

And this my friends, is the official end (finally) of night time potty training.

Birthday Fun

I am tired. TIRED. The girls’ joint birthday party was on Saturday and I feel like I’ve been going non-stop since Friday. I left work on Thursday and Hub and I split up the kids to get the shopping done. Hub worked all day on Friday and I took the baby to daycare so I could do all the cooking. The big kids were home with me, and were crazy, of course, but I persevered, and actually got to bed at a reasonable hour. I think this is the most prepared we’ve ever been in advance.

And party day was perfect! The weather was awesome; not too hot and no humidity. The guests were happy, the food was good, there was much playing and talking and laughing. It may have been our best party yet. The girls both got a ton of gifts and Lucy loved her Justin Bieber cake. When she hugged me and told me how much she loved it and that it was the best day ever, I almost cried. Yes, it was a fabulous day.

The good thing about having a party in the park is that you need to be out by dusk. We were home soon after 9, all 3 kids filthy and exhausted went to bed immediately. And they were all up by 7 on Sunday morning, crabby and hungry. Hub and I were pretty tired too, so we made an executive decision and all went back to bed at 10:30 and slept until 1. It was pretty awesome. We spent the rest of the day cleaning up and putting party stuff away. I broke down gift bags and opened gifts and got that all organized, had some leftovers for dinner, showered the kiddos, and had everyone in bed by 8.

I spent some time uploading photos because I promised a lot of people photos of the Justin Bieber cake. Then I spent half the night lying awake in bed because I couldn’t shut my brain off…which is why this post is a rambly chain of events type post with no actual content…

So I’m going to stop typing now and show you some photos.

These are from my camera:










And these were taken by Hub’s cousin K with a fancy type camera and lens:

Wordless Wednesday

My Girls and me eating s'mores at The Taste of Buffalo a few weeks back.

Party Planning Extravaganza

The girls’ combined birthday party is this weekend so I must commence running around like a crazy person for the next 5 days to ensure everything is ready to go. We’re starting earlier this year, making it an all day affair at the park, so everything needs to be done before Saturday morning. (uh, not that I’ve ever been up, say, at 4am preparing for this party before..cough cough.)

Hub and I planned the menu and I made my preliminary, or what I call my crazy list, which houses everything we need to buy regardless of where or when. It looks like this:



My lunchtime task is to split this in to probably 4 more organized lists of items by store. Can you tell that I angrily wrote “CORN” on the list last night in a fit of rage? Hub and I decided on Saturday that there would be no corn. It doesn’t make sense. We will have snacks, involving a deli tray, around noon. Dinner around 3, and cake around 5. Throwing in a corn course just throws everything off. But at a party yesterday, my SIL mentioned how much she loved it that we had corn last year. LOVED IT! And so Hub told her that ‘of course we were having corn!!’, and well, now we’re having corn, despite the fact that I threw out more than half of what we cooked last year. Hub says to only buy half of what we bought then. I say KAPOW! because my head has just exploded.

Anyway, I took Friday off to get everything ready, and Liv and I are going to the farmer’s market near my mom’s tomorrow for produce and the Italian sausage. I feel like we’re in pretty good shape here. This is the 5th big summer party we’ve thrown, and we are starting to be pros. We’ve tweaked it year after year, and I think we have a really good handle on things. Our families talk about our summer bash all year long. (they still talk about what a great party our wedding was too--I guess we *are* good.)

I do need to come up with a better system for the girls opening their gifts though—last year was complete chaos and I had no idea who got what and from whom. Hub does all the cooking at the party, so by the time cake and gifts come around, he’s off playing with the boys. I’m also a little bit worried that with it being earlier in the summer than we’ve ever had it (in an effort to have it right in between the girls’ actual birthdays), that we’re going to get a lot of clearance summer clothing as gifts, instead of fall clothes. I always tell myself it’s not about the gifts—and it’s not—but I can’t help but to be infuriated when they get something they won’t even be able to use. Last year was good though. So I’m sure it will be fine.

Nevertheless, I will worry and stress about it all week. And undoubtedly think of numerous things that haven’t made it to my list. Like tablecloths. TABLECLOTHS!! Frick.