Rule No. 1482

Hey look at this. I don't blog for 6 weeks, and then it's twice in two days!

I learned today that apparently it's not common sense, and you have to explicitly tell a preschooler NOT to wipe his face against a wall rather than seeking out a tissue.

Hell, even using his sleeve would be more acceptable than walking across the room, pressing his face against the wall and then slowly dropping to his knees.

WTF?

Did you miss me?

Hey there ladies and gents! Long time, no blog! I just checked and see that the last time I wrote was Easter. Hmmmm, I can't say that things have been slow here, as they haven't: We've had a smattering of trips, activities, haps, mishaps and everything in between. I'll try to re-cap the best I can.

Let's see, after Easter we went on a trip to Orlando, but Allison wrote about that so I won't bore you with repetition. If you want to read about it, you can check out her blog over at http://dupreesgal.blogspot.com/ She didn't put any pictures up there, so here are a few of our favorites:

The girls on the monorail, excited for the day ahead:

The boys on the monorail, excited for round 2 (this was taken on our way back into the park after a nap and some downtime) :

The family with a famous rat:

The kids taking on Zurg from behind bars:

Leah, recovering from her drawn out battle with Zurg:

Ian having a blast on the teacups:

The girls relaxing on the Tomorrowland Transit Tram thingy:

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After our trip to Orlando we decided enough was enough with Ian and the whole non-potty training thing. I told Ian to say goodbye to his pull-ups because he was going to wear underwear from here on out. He was pretty excited.......until he heard that there were concequences for accidents.

Yeah, that's right. There are concequences for accidents now. I decided it's time to pull out all the stops as he's almost Four and there is nothing medically that's holding him back: He's just lazy.

Now before you gasp in horror:

a) There are only concequences for pooping in his underwear, not peeing.

b) I gave him a several day 'period of adjustment' window. I think it was 4 or 5 days.

If he pees, there are no major concequence. We just change his clothes, remind him that he needs to pay attention to his body, we give each other hugs and a kiss and off he goes playing again. But if he poops? Well, then all hell breaks loose. Here is what happens:

*He gets a spanking while still wearing his poopy underwear.

*I make him take off his shoes, socks, pants and poopy underwear by himself in a dark room.

*I wipe his body down using dried up baby-wipes so that you really need to scrub hard to get all the poop off.

*I put the poopy underwear up to his face and scream: Is this how big boys behave?
*I then put the poopy underwear on his head and make him do the "I'm a little Teapot" dance, all the meanwhile Leah and I point at him and laugh.

If you STILL have a horrified look on your face and think I'm serious, please close your web browser and never return to this webpage again...thanks for visiting! Okay, so thats not what I do...but it makes what I DO do as punishment seem not so bad!

If Ian poops in his underwear, he gets all his transformers taken away until the next time he poops on the potty. My reasoning for the punishment is as follows: As far as the peeing goes, I totally get that he's not 4 yet, and that he can easily get sidetracked and if he doesn't pay attention it's VERY easy (and understandable) that he'd pee in his underwear. All it takes is the mind to wander a bit, and BOOM, you've got soaked grundies.

But pooping takes effort. It's a deliberate act that requires a combonation of concentration, will-power, determination, breath-holding and (depending on diet) a fair amount of grunting. That is not something that just slips your mind. I say that if you can slip off into a corner of the room behind the lamp and endtable, squat down outta sight and open up and let loose, you can easily say "Daddy, I gotta go poopy". Premeditation, my friend, is the determining factor here.

So before I implimented my hard and fast rule, I drilled it into his head and made sure he truly understood what the concequences were. When D-day came, I let him know it. You know what? It was DAYS before he pooped in his underwear. He pottytrained like a champ!

Sure enough, the first time he pooped in his underwear was his first day at his new preschool (Go figure!). So he got a pass on that one, since I wasn't there. But the next time he did it, which was a good 3 or 4 days later I took his Transformers away and he was SO upset. Rightfully so, as they are his favorite possessions...but I then explained to him that it depends on his actions.

Even though we've had some accidents here and there, generally I think Ian is doing pretty well. Granted, he's at the stage that he should have been at around 3 or even 3.5 yrs old (he turns 4 in less than 2 weeks!), but we're certainly seeing progress. Knock on wood, lets hope this continues!

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In other news, I got a new tattoo a few weeks ago. I decided to get this most recent one commemorating the impact running has had on me over the past few years: It has helped me to lose 60lbs (keeping all 60 off is another story!), which has greatly improved my self esteem & self image. It also commemorates my ability to complete a flippin' Marathon. That still floors me to think that I was able to achieve that, by the way.

I chose the image that i got because it depicts how I feel during my long runs on the weekend: It's just peaceful, quiet and I'm out there all by myself enjoying what I am doing. The tattoo is a silhouette of a runner against a multi-colored sky (sunset or sunrise, you decide). You might recognize the image!

Here is a picture:

I have a Half Marathon in 2 weeks that I am SO not prepared for...but believe it or not, I'm starting to get the itch to do another marathon. I told Allison I wouldn't do one anytime in the near future, but I'm looking at all these upcoming races and get to thinking "Hmmm, I could train for that."

We did agree, however, on one marathon that I will do. We're going to go to Hawaii for our 10 year anniversary and while we're there I'm going to run the Honolulu Marathon. I gotta get training though, as it's only 31 months away!

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I recently got back from a 'guys' weekend. The plan hatched at a wedding reception last July, but first a little backstory: Allison and her roommates from college get together every summer and go somewhere for a weekend. They've been doing this every year since we graduated and I think it's great.

Well, anyway so the husbands/boyfriends of all these rommates were at the bar (go figure!)during the reception and it was decided that we were going to have a guys golf weekend. We decided it was going to be a long weekend of, well, golf. I ran out on the dance floor to where Allison was all alone doing the funky chicken...or was it the electric slide? Anyway, and I checked with She-Who-Brings-Home-The-Bacon, and she gave me the green light. Silly her thought it was a drunken plan that would be forgotten about by morning!

Anyway, as plans do, they changed and it morphed into a trip of 4 guys to Myrtle Beach. We were all excited because none of us had ever been there before. We ended up playing 5 rounds of golf in 4 days, and we all did well at some point or another.

The most memorable part of the trip? Nope, not either of my birdies, nor the slew of pars I got. And not even the fact that I was able to keep my drives in the fairway for a majority of the rounds.

It was the fuckin' squirrels.

I kid you not, these things were bullies. They would walk right up to you, and I mean right up to you. I think it was Phil who first held out his driver to shoo the thing away and the motherfucker came closer! The little bastards had deathwishes as we'd even resort to yelling at the things and they'd still inch closer taunting us.

And this was not an isolated instance, as these creepy little fuckjobs were everywhere the first 3 days. You have never lived until you've seen about 900lbs of homosapiens fear for their lives due to 3lbs of fur. Someone took a picture of it, or maybe it was even a video with their cell phone...but I'm not going to say who, as I'm pretty sure you can hear me scream like a schoolgirl when the thing lurched forward at us.

In case you can't even fathom what the Devil himself looks like in such a small package, I found a picture online of those menacing little freaks-of-nature. If you cross paths, steer clear, my friends, if you value your life:

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This past weekend we went camping, as Allison put in her blog. Again, I won't bore you with the details as she already has (typed out the details, not bored you...well, maybe she has but I won't tell her you said that). You can go to her blog to read about it if you haven't yet.

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That really is about all that has been going on...as if that isn't enough! I'll leave you with a few pictures I took yesterday while at a playground. The kids went down to a stream that is nearby and we usually throw rocks in the water. Well, it wasn't very deep and there was a line of rocks that Ian wanted to cross. At first I said no, but then realized it wasn't cold out, and I had a change of clothes for both kids in the car. So I decided to let them go hog-wild. Please note that Ian had just been riding his bike and often forgets to take off his helmet. Who am I to tell him, especially if he's stomping around on wet and slippery rocks!