Blocker Boys On the Go!

     How was your Halloween?  We started out normal routine no problem.  Hubby got out the door to work on time, and I pushed play on my workout dvd.  The kids got up and we had breakfast.

     Now would be the time that I would jump in the shower while they are eating, and we would begin our preparation for conquering the day.  Turns out the water from hubby's shower has not drained out of the tub yet.  This is odd so I begin looking for a solution.  Plunger equals no real help with the matter. In comes the trusty coat hanger.  No luck with that even though I got out a large clump of hair. {GROSS}

     The weather has gotten colder here, so I was beginning to notice that the heater was not working.  We are the proud owners of an ancient heated water baseboard heating system.  Last year some one stole all of our copper pipes, so I know it has brand new pipes under the house.  I verify the pilot light is lit, and that the water is being heated.  Everything is a go there so I start googling for an answer.  I tried a few of the suggestions, but nothing really worked.  I decided that it was not an urgent matter, and went back to working on the drain.  It is cool here, but now I know the heater is not working, and I can fix that before we get to cold outside.

     My dear sister-in-law drove over to watch the kids, while I worked more on the drain.  After trying everything I could think of to not crawl under my house I gave in.  I donned one of my husbands old navy coveralls, got a flashlight, and a large wrench.  The good news is that our bathtub sits very close to the entrance to our crawl space.  So after I crawled under it was not long until I spotted the bathtub drain.  By following the pipes I found the location to remove the plug and drain the line.  I get my wrench all adjusted and ready to go.

     Finding a position where I could hold the wrench, and get leverage to turn it is a whole different story under the house.  Once I found a good position I set my wrench, and gave it a good tug.  To my ultimate surprise I broke the pipe in half.  Now I know the pipe was old and rusted, but it really gave me a start.  Needless to say the bath tub now drains, it just leaks under my house.  So now we get to call a plumber to work on these metal pipes.  If we had PVC I would attempt it myself, but our drain pipes are ancient.

     After my day of excitement I did not even take the kids trick-or-treating.  I know they really still do not have any idea what they missed, but I always had fun going out on Halloween.  So later this week I am going to dress them up, and take some pictures of them.  

     Have you ever worked on your own pipes?  Who clears clogged drains at your house you or your hubby? 

 WARNING: Do not read any further if you do not want to hear about potty training type information.  This post includes poop, pee, and frustration.   



     My dear 2 year old is going to drive me off the deep end with this venture.  We started with the typical 3 day training plan.  I stared at his crotch for hours, and we ran to the potty all day for 3 days.  That worked for a bit he would run screaming to the potty after awhile, and there was no mess to clean for a few days.  He began to falter so we added M&M rewards for pee, and little toys like a new matchbox car for a poop success.  Our poop success ratio was very low.  I mean this kid must love pooping in his pants.  We finally got to about 2 weeks with an excellent potty record.  I for one am overjoyed.

     This triumph was however short lived.  I have tried everything I can think of to get him back to where he was.  Now days he just sits where ever he is  and tells us after he pees that he "Pee bed" or whatever may be the case.  Friday and today have me climbing the walls with frustration.  For the first time in 2 1/2 years he has decided to play in his poop, and put it on the wall.  So as to not encourage the behavior by getting upset I remained calm, and placed him in the shower to contain the poop.  Now add to the factor that my nearly 11 month old is every where and into every thing.  Now I have to catch and contain the little man before I can even begin cleaning the poop.

     So now I am asking for advice.  What do I do?  I am terribly tempted to just put him back in diapers, and throw my hands in the air.  This has been over a 2 month battle already.  Am I just rushing the process?  I knew when we started that even when he was doing really well we would still have occasional accidents.  Should I just take a few weeks off, and start all over?  Help I am grasping to the last threads of my sanity here.

     I have received some suggestions from mom friends, but they do not really fit our military life style.  My husband is gone at least twice a week for around 40 hours at a time.  I do not have the ability to just hand him the baby and devote multiple days to potty training.  Our first attempt at the 3 day method was over a holiday weekend when my husband had a rare 3 days off.  Now I know there are plenty of families that have similar situations that are not in the military.  So please give me all of your tips!! I will try anything once in this case. Thank you for reading this much of my insanity.

I love to experiment in my kitchen with everything. I will take a new recipe and twist around to make a new dish. I take my old recipes and twist them around for a new taste. Today I am going to attempt the latter. I am going to take my classic oatmeal peanut butter balls and coat them in white chocolate. I will post the recipe for ever one tonight if it works out to my liking. Really what could go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate. Well I am off to experiment with my two year old in tow. I hope you all have a great day with the weekend blog hops.

     Well we moved.  When we arrived the people who had rented our house trashed it. So that turned into a clean up / kitchen remodel.  Then I took the boys on a three week trip around Texas to see family.  Now we are back home and getting in to a new routine.

     I am planning on attempting to start home pre schooling my 2 year old that should be a great learning curve for both of us.  We are currently in the middle of potty training so one step at a time.  I am compiling collection of resources to teach from and getting supplies.

Now that we are all caught up hopefully I will get back to the blogging.

Well in the midst of culling stuff out to move.  I have been trying to get all the forms needed to move filled out.  The military is trying to go with all online forms.  The only problem with this is the website they are using has some major issues.  I got logged in once, but had to get off because both the boys needed something.  Then I could not log in for a day and half.  Evidently every time you log out you need to go delete all your cookies/ internet history to log back in.  So I filled out most of the forms only to get to a question neither B nor I could answer.  So hopefully he can get the question answered at work in the morning so the forms can get submitted.  I would really like to have the dates we are moving available for a little planning.  My dear husband lives in a world where planning is not a necessity.  I however need to plan for sanity.

Also we are trying to prep things at this house for when we move.  Like getting the things B will need to fix up the house.  We plan on returning it to our friend in better shape than when we got it.  This means doing some painting, and general touch up work.  Also putting a little work into the lawn and flower beds.  I need to have the flower beds done before the boys and I move because B does not really have a background in yard work type stuff.  Now mowing and general care he has down.  Picking out plants for different light areas of the yard no.

I also have the pile of things I am cleaning up to put on craigslist.  Hoping to get that pile to decrease over the coming week.  Then there is the growing list of things we will need to buy for the new house.  Some stuff we have given away along our way while moving, or the things our room mates had when we lived there before.  I am however excited to see what all the money we put into the house over the years we have been gone has done for it.  When we did our taxes turns out there was a $12,000 plus loss on the house just this year.

To sum it up I am excited and nervous about the coming move.

Let's see it has been a really long time since i posted anything here.  However I really needed to vent today so here we go.

Baby number two will be here within the next 6 weeks.  K just went for his 18month check up and is still at the top of all the charts.  The dogs are lazy as ever, and the cats are driving me up the wall. In fact I think everything is currently driving me up the wall.  The house is never as clean as I want, my husband plays his video game every night when he gets home to unwind.  He takes the weekend off, and my job just continues to roll on.  He still refuses to change a poop diaper if I am home, and he only cleans out the cat box when he feels like it.

We have guest coming this weekend, and I guess everything is good enough for when they get here.  If i spend every night after K goes to bed cleaning until I am ready for bed the house should be close to where I want it to be.  The yard is not mowed, but B will probably wait until the neighbor kid comes over to cut it.  Speaking of the neighbor kid last time he just cut our grass and expected to be paid with out asking if we wanted it done or not.  I was going to tell him to eat it his fault not mine.  However B went and got him money for doing it!!! I was freaking PO'd.  

Alright so thanks for reading this if you got this far I am impressed.  Feeling much better now after my little rant so back to some house work while the little man is sleeping

Let's see it has been a really long time since i posted anything here.  However I really needed to vent today so here we go.

Baby number two will be here within the next 6 weeks.  K just went for his 18month check up and is still at the top of all the charts.  The dogs are lazy as ever, and the cats are driving me up the wall. In fact I think everything is currently driving me up the wall.  The house is never as clean as I want, my husband plays his video game every night when he gets home to unwind.  He takes the weekend off, and my job just continues to roll on.  He still refuses to change a poop diaper if I am home, and he only cleans out the cat box when he feels like it.

We have guest coming this weekend, and I guess everything is good enough for when they get here.  If i spend every night after K goes to bed cleaning until I am ready for bed the house should be close to where I want it to be.  The yard is not mowed, but B will probably wait until the neighbor kid comes over to cut it.  Speaking of the neighbor kid last time he just cut our grass and expected to be paid with out asking if we wanted it done or not.  I was going to tell him to eat it his fault not mine.  However B went and got him money for doing it!!! I was freaking PO'd.  

Alright so thanks for reading this if you got this far I am impressed.  Feeling much better now after my little rant so back to some house work while the little man is sleeping