cranky pixels

I’ve been dreading potty training the kid, but it turns out I had nothing to worry about: he did it on his own.

Yes. You read that right. He potty trained himself.

About two weeks ago, Ellison announced that he wanted to use the potty. Nothing new; he’d been doing that periodically for months, but last time I hunkered down and tried to get him to use it reliably resulted in nothing but soiled underpants and tears. So, sure, he used the potty, and then I went to put his diaper on and he was like “No! No diaper!”

Okay. So I let him wear some big-boy underpants, thinking what the hell, we don’t have to be anywhere.

And he wore them all day. And didn’t have any accidents.

And then his diaper was dry in the morning. And he wore underpants all that day, too.

And then all of the next night.

And it’s been two weeks.

DUDE. If I had known potty training would be this easy I would never have stressed out about it. This parenting thing is a piece of cake.

My kid’s breath smells different when he’s sick. Not gross-different, but definitely different. My mom used to say that my breath smelled like rubbing alcohol when I was sick, and it’s kind of like that with Ellison too. It’s cool that the mom nose notices things like that, isn’t it? It’s like an early warning system.

I mention this because today Ellison’s breath smells like rubbing alcohol, and I foresee nothing but doooooom. (Though it does explain yesterday’s foray into Meltdown City, in which a sobbing tantrum was thrown every five minutes or so by my normally cheerful kid.) We all had the flu a couple of weeks ago & are only just now getting back to normal; the last thing I want is another illness! But the kid’s got a fantastic immune system and usually kicks whatever bug he gets pretty quickly. Mommy and daddy, though, are another story…

It was my birthday last week. Yes. I am 35 now, a solid, respectable age. I would have posted about it sooner, but usually I loathe my birthday for reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with age and absolutely everything to do with that one time when I was 14 and no one came to my party, but this year? My birthday did not suck! In fact, it was as lovely as a birthday of mine can be (which, as it turns out? Pretty lovely). Not So took me out for a phenomenal dinner at bluehour, which is pretty much my favorite restaurant anywhere ever, and we partook of the cheese plate, about which sonnets could be written. I also had two lemon drops, and anyone who knows me will recognize that 2 lemon drops = 1 drunk me. (This picture illustrates, pre-inebriation, how ridiculously excited I was to go out on a date with my husband. Behold, the massive smile and flushed cheeks!)