At the Vineyard, Letting the Wine Do the Talking


photo courtesy of Uncle Aron and Aunt Tori

It's Cookie Time!

You know what? I don't care about the Girl Scouts one bit. I'm sure they probably do some good things for their communities and make girls feel special and all that. Or maybe they're just another club for people to join so other girls can feel excluded. No idea. But what I do care about are samoas. Delicious, coconuty, caramely samoas. I want some. Yet not being much of a joiner or a chatty friendly person, I don't know any Girl Scouts.

Guess what. Guesswhatguesswhatguesswhatguesswhat!

It doesn't matter. Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I can make the Girl Scouts come to me! All you have to do is go here, enter your zip code, then submit an email address and THEY will contact YOU and bring delicious cookies to your door. Squeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Technology. It is a beautiful thing.

Yeah!

I'm sure, as usual, I'm one of the last folks in Internetland to see this.



On another note, I'm sorry for the lack of actual writing on here of late. I've seen it happen to so many other people, but...well, I just don't know what to say these days. I'll write more on not writing anything about anything soon, and maybe that will count as writing something about something.

I Am Pro-Musket

I like how the argument about gun control, which I think is largely fueled by silly crap politicians and some folks from the NRA say, has a bunch of outraged people shouting about their right to defend their homes and go hunting, when those of us who want slightly stricter laws and more education on gun safety don't actually give a damn about the rifles our reasonable friends have locked away in their offices or wherever. Grooooaaaaaan.

I also find the use of the second amendment and references to "our forefathers" in arguments about gun laws to be simultaneously amusing and annoying, mostly for the reasons outlined here:



If asked, I think my official stance on gun control is that I am pro-musket.

Real (Funny) Conversations: Retro Kid Edition

Xander: What does the cow say?

Dinkees: Mmmmmmm

Xander: What does the dog say?

Dinkees: Woof! Woof!

Xander: What does the duck say?

Dinkees: Quack! Quack!

Xander: What does Keanu Reeves say?

Dinka: Whooooooaaaaa.

Sunny and 60

Revolution

I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I have found the revolution in Egypt to be rather inspiring. I mean, not that I think we should take to the streets here in America. I'm not one of those people. But I just saw so much beauty in some of the events in Cairo over the last several days. Many of them were captured on camera, and you can see them here.

A Public Service Announcement

I just learned the most wonderful bit of news. Every single episode of The Cosby Show is available for live streaming from Netflix. Every. Single. One. I learned this on the very same day that the grains and hops arrived for my upcoming smoked porter. It was a lovely day.

And if you didn't like The Cosby Show, please don't bother telling me about it. I won't understand.

Thank You Oooooo!

You've seen this video, right?

Well, the kids love the song, and it was on the other day and Dinka started signing "thank you" every time Cee Lo said "fuck you." It was HI-larious.

I see you driving 'round town
With the girl i love and i'm like,
Thank you!
...Ooo, ooo, ooo
I guess the change in my pocket
Wasn't enough i'm like,
Thank you!
And thank her too!

I'm hoping at some point we'll have some video excellence to share with you.

A Modest Wish

Dear Universe,

Don't you just hate "Dear Universe" letters? I do. But I still write them, because as someone once told me there are a lot of people making wishes in this world. What's the harm in putting mine out there, too? So here it goes.

Please please please please send my most excellent husband a job. As adventurous as I am, I would really like to move somewhere and be able to stick around for awhile. I'd like a place to hang my hat, as they say. It would be so amazing to be able to do things like, I dunno, paint a room whatever color we please. To find a school for our kids and know they would be able to stay in it for awhile. To be able to make friends and know we won't be leaving them in a year or two. Or to look for a permanent position myself. Did I mention how much I miss working? I daydream about Xander finding a job in part because it means I know where to start looking for mine.

Don't get me wrong. We have enjoyed our adventures as students, grad students, and post docs. The world is big and wonderful, and I do enjoy exploring it. But I would love to have a place to call home. To have an answer to the question, "Where are you from?" That would be really nice.

Thanks for considering my wish.

Alana

Cloth Diapers to Trainers: Part IV

Holy cow! Both of my kids are now wearing trainers. Still with the exception of nap time and bedtime, but I don't care. That's A LOT fewer diapers for those of you keeping tabs. Dinka took about a month to really get going well. Dinke just watched and learned, and a few days ago just started going dry all day. Just like that. We didn't have to let her run around naked or anything. We did, however, break out the big guns: THE M&M. It was the little push Dinka needed to finally commit, and for Dinke it was the thing that convinced her going dry was worth her time. These kids had never even tasted juice before, so you can imagine what their reaction was when I put M&Ms in their mouths the first time. I gave them each one and said, "Do you want more?" They both exclaimed, "Yeah!" and signed "more." I naturally responded, "Fine. Put your pees and poops in the potty, and you can have more." That was it. My conscience suffered for all of five minutes until I saw the results. Holyfuckingshit. Put your no candy rules aside, people! Do it. Do it. Do it.

Now, I would never with any seriousness say that what we did would work for everyone or that you should toilet train a certain way, but I did make some observations along the way that I think might be useful to some people. When we were getting started, I was fortunate enough to have a good friend who was willing to share her tips, and so I guess I'm paying it forward by sharing mine. Things you should know include that this all started about a month ago, right as the twins turned 18 months, that we first started telling them about the potty around 15 months--although we never asked them to use it--and that I am a stay-at-home mother. I think if your child/children is/are in daycare, you'll want to talk to someone who has potty trained a child in daycare, because my understanding is that it may require some different strategies. From the few times we had a babysitter during this process, I can say that caregivers are generally not as dedicated to the task as the parent is.

- Potty training early or late doesn't mean your kid is smarter or dumber than any other kid. They all develop different skills at different times. That said, I think as the parent you do get to choose which skills to foster. Our kids can't use forks, but they showed an aptitude for the toilet, so we decided to focus on that. Later on, maybe we'll focus on the fork thing.

- I think it's important to identify your goals before you begin potty training a child of any age. Even if you think you don't have any expectations, you probably do. For me, the goal was to get Dinka (and then Dinke) out of diapers during waking hours. I was even fine with him wearing diapers when we went out, although after a couple of weeks we didn't even have to do that anymore. A simple reduction in the number of diapers used was fine with me. It was a modest goal, and we achieved it. I don't care if it takes months before the kids are dry during nap or years before they are dry overnight. I've already gotten what I wanted out of this endeavor. The rest will come when it comes.

- In our experience, potty training an 18-month-old was not really that difficult, despite the fact that I bitched about it a lot to friends and family. The hard part--the rushing to the toilet every 20 minutes--only lasted about a week or so. And with Dinke we pretty much never had to go through that, because that kid can hold a barrel of pee for hours. It sucked while we were doing it, but in the grand scheme of things it was a small sacrifice for a big pay off. After the first several days you will want to quit, but try to stick it out.

- We started off by letting Dinka go without any clothing on the bottom half for the first three days. Even though it was a little stressful, we're glad we did it. He got immediate feedback about what was going on in that department, and we knew exactly when he peed, which helped us catch on to his cues that he needed to go. Sometimes he'd ask for the potty, but sometimes he wouldn't want to stop what he was doing, so it helped us to know his signals.

- Remember that your child is learning a new skill. If you are training a baby or young toddler who is not accustomed to "holding it," the process will include strengthening muscles they haven't really used before. Whatever the kid's age, they're learning something new and having to build muscle, and that can take time. There will be accidents until they start to get better control. Think of it like you would beginning a new athletic endeavor. You need conditioning and practice, right? With that in mind, our kids are never punished for accidents. The most we do is say something like, "You put your pees/poops in your pants. Next time, you need to put them in the potty. Let's clean up." You want them to know what your expectations are, but there's no sense in making a little kid feel bad about not being perfect at a new skill.

- If you can make your own training pants, great. If you've got some money to spend, check out the QTBunns trainers. They've gotten fantastic ratings from Diaper Pin. A cheaper option, though, is to buy several pairs of Gerber training pants and a couple of plastic covers. Put one pair of cotton training pants inside another pair and stitch them together in a few places along the waist and leg bands. This will hold a decent amount of pee, and you can put on the plastic cover when you go out for extra protection. Those first few days, you'll need a lot of training pants. Like maybe 4 or 5 or even more each day. Eventually you will only need one or two pairs.

- When we go out to places that have toilets, like restaurants, we take the twins' little potty seat. We wrap it in a plastic bag and put that inside a cloth shopping bag along with back-up diapering supplies. When we go to the park, provided it's not freezing out, we take one of our little plastic potties and a cloth diaper. We put the cloth diaper in the potty and let them go in that. Then we wash the diaper with the rest when we get home. If you want something disposable, you could use small G-diaper inserts, which are actually flushable and biodegradable. In our case, we just didn't like the idea of putting them in diapers for going out. It seemed confusing, and once they're in training pants they can be really reluctant to go back into a diaper.

- Do what you want, but we taught our boy to pee sitting down. I have seen what happens when you start out standing up, and I wanted no part of that. Let me just point out that, sometimes, children cannot distinguish between their urge to pee and poop. I'll leave it at that.

- We used rewards in the form of song and animal crackers at first, and then moved on to the M&M. Xander made up a ridiculous song that we sing every time there's a success and each kid got two animal crackers to celebrate. Some kids do better with stickers. Honestly, the song probably would have worked on its own because our kids loved it, but the M&Ms were stronger motivation. We could leave containers of them lying around to remind the kids to hold it and/or ask for the potty. We're still using M&Ms, but I suspect eventually we won't need to. You know your kid. Pick whatever you think might motivate them.

- As I mentioned before, people can be really judgmental about what they perceive as "early" toilet training. But chances are you are not alone. Look around before you start and see if you can find some open-minded people to support you. One of the most annoying parts of this process was having to put up with other people's negativity. Just remind yourself that you are the parent, and you get to decide what you think is best for your family. If someone else is going on to you about how potty training before the age of three will fuck up your kid, chances are they're just jealous because their kid didn't train until he/she was thirteen or something.

- Remember that urine is sterile as long as you clean it up right away and don't let it grow bacteria. A little pee never hurt anyone.

- Last but not least, I found this article to be helpful.

And that's all I have to say about potty training! Good luck!

Flinn Family Pottery

Need something awesome for your kitchen? Or looking for a wedding gift? Or just have a wicked sense of humor? Check out this site. I love these guys. And their pottery ain't bad, either.