Angel (or devil?) of the Morning

One thing I've learned over my parenting years is that when your child is in that 3-4ish age range, how the first few seconds out of bed in the morning goes is a good indicator of how your morning will fare.

Sometimes our little ones are in their sweetest, most angelic state during those magical moments between being asleep and rousing to wakefulness.

Zachary is very predictable. He's usually the first one to loudly pitter-patter out of bed -- you'd think he has Michael Phelps-sized flipper feet the way they echo loud slaps down the ceramic-tile-floor hallway.

I'm usually either still in bed or getting into or out of the shower. With his tossled-about golden bedhead, his eyes still droopy and his baby blue blankie firmly in hand, he has one of two requests:

"I'm hungwee for bekfest." OR "I want to watch Mickeeeyyy Mouse."

Allie, on the other hand, is as unpredictable as the Arizona monsoon season.

Sometimes we call her "Little Miss Sunshine." She'll bounce out of her room, Tigger-style. "Gooood mornin, everrrybudy." Then she'll proudly tell me, "Mommy, I slept good." This after she's grown accustomed to my routinely asking her how she slept.

But other times, and thank goodness it's not all that often, she turns into a little possessed child -- someone else's child, I'm convinced.

Yesterday morning, first thing, she SCREAMED ... "Mommy, I want to watch Monsters, Inc."

Of course, this is one of the movies that's not in our billion-title collection. We DVR'd it once and it erased itself after a couple weeks.

"Mommmyyyy. I know we have it ... I've seen IT. I .... WANT ... TO ... WATCH ... MONSTERS .... INKKK!! Her face is tomato red and she sounds like a crazed NFL football coach whose star player made a rookie mistake.

"Allie, sweetheart," I say, trying to remain composed. "We don't have it anymore. Why don't we eat breakfast," trying the good ol' diversion tactic.

"I ... DON'T ... WANT ... BREAKFAST!!!"

No wings for Allie today.

Our Independence Weekend -- Freedom From Diapers!

This past 4th of July weekend was a quiet one around here. No out-of-town guests, no local parties or barbecues. Just us six, the unrelenting heat, the lukewarm pool, and watching the local fireworks from Sonic, where I savored my Reese's Blast and where it was unbearable to sit outside for even 20 minutes.

But the real celebration in our household is that the last of our four children is FINALLY toilet-trained. Allie mastered the whole potty thing months ago (although she still pees in her pants when she's mad at me, but that's a whole separate story), but our cautious little Zach has been reluctant to go #2. A couple weeks ago we just stuck him in his underwear to see what would happen. And he went in his pants.

I wanted to try it again. Brett reluctantly agreed.

For months we've been telling Zach that if he poops three times in the toilet he'll get this cool basketball hoop we showed him at Walmart. We even printed out a picture of it and stuck it on the refrigerator alongside a Google search image of a toddler sitting on the potty as an incentive.

But on Thursday it all happened just like a fireworks show. Zach announced matter-of-factly that he "feels poo-poo coming." Oooh. He scurried into the bathroom and just like that, did what he needed to do -- in the toilet. Ahhhh. Then, just like the big boy my baby now is, did it again and again and again over the weekend. Just like that -- it happened. Brett and I would look at each other and see huge "I can't believe it finally happened" fireworks in each other's eyes.

So now all kinds of exciting things piggyback from this -- like he gets to move up to the "big kids" room at preschool. Mom and Dad don't have to change diapers anymore. And, perhaps best of all, Mom and Dad don't have to BUY diapers or the diaper-in-disguise Pull-Ups anymore.

It feels like our kids have been in diapers forever. Blake was trained when he was 3 yrs, 3 months. Nick was born 5 months later, so we had a short break then. When the twins were born, Nick wasn't quite trained (what a nightmare that was), so really, we've been doing this diaper thing for more than 11 years. I thought about researching the number of diapers we likely used and how much we spent, but, really, that's just too depressing.

And while it is bittersweet to see so many milestones already come and gone with the last two of our children -- the first smile, the first step, the first words, the first time they call their older brother stupid, this is one milestone we're fully embracing.

Free at last, free at last ...