Calgon, take me away!

I might let the cats out today. Just to be rid of them. Clark is belligerent again this morning. He keeps getting up on tables, etc. that he knows he shouldn't be on. He won't stay away from my water glass, even though he has fresh water in his bowl and I put a lid on mine to keep him out of it. Lois has been jumping on furniture too, out of my sight. I can tell because she's setting off the "Ssscat" things we put on some of the tables & dressers to scare them off when they jump up when we're not around. It seems that discipline does not work on these cats. We've tried the squirt bottle, the Sssscat things, yelling, throwing things, and as a last resort, grabbing them by the scruffs of their necks and putting them in their cat carrier in the garage for an hour or more at a time. Nothing works. My mother-in-law suggests kitty prozac. I think they're kittens who probably just need to be played with more than we're playing with them. If only I could train Miss Thing to swing the kitty toy (feathers on a string on a stick) around without bashing anything so they could play. But when that toy comes out, she turns into a kitty too, and hogs the toy so the cats can't get any enjoyment out of it. I thought kittens would be so much fun for her. And they are - but I don't know how much fun living with us is for the kittens.

As for life in general... I feel pretty pathetic. We are on such a late schedule, we don't have any set routines, we're not getting enough sleep, we're not eating as well as I could feed us if I were cooking fresh food more often, we don't get outside often enough for fresh air and exercise... I am so tired from not sleeping well (pain in hips due to pregnancy) that I can't see my way clear to establish and get us on a real routine. I often take naps with Miss Thing in order to get what little sleep my body seems to be capable of getting, which leaves me with no time to clean up the house or cut up veggies for a healthy dinner, etc. I feel trapped in my role as a mother 24x7x365, because my hubby works at a start-up (every company he has ever worked for has been a start-up) which means that his hours are many and late. When he *is* home, he is either taking care of non-toddler-friendly house projects (considered un-child-friendly because they involve power tools and big slabs of wood) or so spent from working his ass off all week that all he can muster the energy for is sitting on the couch watching TV, or maybe not even that - often he falls asleep in front of the TV for a large portion of a weekend day.

Oh well... This is our life right now...

****The above was written yesterday. My mood was definitely affected by the weather - hard rain all day. It rained all night too, and is raining again today, but I feel better now. I guess having a depressed day and not getting out of your jammies and just doing the very minimum and watching a Disney movie with the kid is necessary from time to time. Today, though, I have taken a shower and gotten dressed, which is a HUGE step in the right direction. I feel SO much better! Yesterday was the first time I had stayed in my jammies all day for four or five months, and wouldn't you know it, a friend who I hadn't seen in over a year dropped by without warning. Boy, did I feel yucky when I opened the door! Oh well. He lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where the women don't wear bras, so at least I wasn't disgusting him on *every* level. He's used to seeing braless women. ha ha!

Last night I barely slept because my hips hurt so badly. I got up at 2am for a trip to the bathroom and did some exercises to try and loosen up my hips before going back to bed. Half an hour later I didn't feel any better so I got up and cleaned up the kitchen a little bit in the dark (no dishes or cleaning projects, mind you - I just put away the cookies Miss Thing and I had made in the evening so she wouldn't see them first thing this morning and want those for breakfast). Then I went back to bed and tried to sleep until 8am. Had lots of weird dreams so I guess I got a little bit of sleep, but mostly I tossed and turned and complained in my head to myself about how miserably uncomfortable I was. Bleh.

However, just being in bed for as long as I was (9 hours) seems to have done me some good, because I do feel better today.

This evening we have a prenatal appointment and I'm doing the glucose test thing. But I'm doing it the gentle way, which I'm STOKED about. No sitting in a lab with a bunch of sick people for an hour - nope, this time I've been eating extra sweets for a few days ("had" to finish up that Godiva Valentine's chocolate, darn it) and today I'll carbo load an hour and a half before our appointment and then the midwife will check my blood half an hour after we get to her office. Sweet! I hope I pass. Heh. I've been eating so badly this pregnancy... we'll see.

As for potty training? I give up, man. Miss Thing seemed to be doing so well, then she dropped it completely, and then she picked it up again but only half-heartedly, and only when I suggested that she sit on her potty. Hubby thinks maybe we should try some kind of reward system. Stickers or something else she likes. I guess we could give it a go, but right now she's back in diapers and I'm tempted to just wait until she asks to start using the potty again. I want her to be ready so it will go quickly. I am the one who has to deal with all of the cleanup, because I'm the one who is here.

Two days ago I left her barebottomed for a large part of the day. She did not sit on her potty or "go" at all. Later, since she had not gone at all, we got a bit nervous and put some training pants on her. She immediately peed and pooped. I took off the training pants (poopy training pants totally suck, by the way - they're almost impossible to get off without getting poop all over the kid's legs and endangering your clothing and the floor) and thought I had put fresh ones on her, but apparently got distracted because I was on the phone with my mom. Miss Thing, who just couldn't stop playing with her toys, *pooped standing up with no training pants or diaper on!* I never thought she would do that. I know she knows when she's going to poop. I thought for sure that she would sit on the potty if there was nothing covering her butt. So - that's why she's back in diapers.

The trouble lately seems to be that while she enjoys the praise she gets for using her potty, and is proud of herself when she does, she does not seem to want to stop playing in order to use the potty. I was recently told by one of my sisters, "she is totally playing you!" which made me angry. I don't like the implications of that at all. Miss Thing is just a kid, and I do not believe she did what she did out of any desire to piss me off. The feeling I got from her was simply that she did not want to stop playing, and she is REALLY not into potty training anymore for now. Extreme disinterest. So, fine. She's back in diapers. I'll work on setting up a reward system that we can use when she's interested again.

As for what my sister said, I reminded myself that one always has to consider the source. That comment came from the Queen Manipulator of my family. Of course that would seem like the answer to her. Playing people is what she does, and she taught her kids to do that at a young age too, so it probably truly makes sense to her that a 2 1/2-year-old is capable of doing that.

Forgive me if this post sounds completely scattered - it has been written in many different chunks over two days. I need to make the time to actually sit and write a comprehensive, thoughtful post once in a while, all at once. It's a goal. I'd better go make sure the bathroom sink hasn't overflowed yet. Miss Thing is washing her squirty fishies in there by herself.