Things Happening Around Here

Posting has been light (OK, absent) because my sister is here, and that means we have been very, very busy. She is not called Wondergirl for nothing. She just wanders about the house, doing the regular things, and then suddenly says, "If we moved this over there, we could put this back here, and then this would be over there. Would that be better?" And behold, it would be better, and she moves it all around and suddenly the house is neater and more efficient and prettier. All sorts of little projects that I've been wanting to get to are suddenly done.

Also we went shopping at the clearance sales at the outlet mall the day after Christmas, and then scouted out thrift stores the next day. Now I know where one is three minutes from DOB's work, and I finally found a brown suede purse that will work for me, as well as the cords I couldn't find at the clearance sales.

D2 is starting to repeat all sorts of words: "Cracker," "Jesus" (On Christmas morning, no less), "Walking." He wasn't too thrilled with all the running around, though, and in general has been rather cranky. Hopefully it's mostly teeth and will go away when these molars come through. We're making slow but steady progress on weaning~last night he made it through the whole night on just water and seems quite happy this morning.

I hesitate to rejoice too soon, but we may be seeing some progress on the potty-training front, too. Of course I read the books and they all said to use positive reinforcements to teach potty training, that wet pants alone were enough negative reinforcement, that punishment just led to power struggles, etc. Well, D1 liked the stickers and candy just fine. But when you're getting stickers and such all day, what's an occasional miss? So, on Christmas Eve, after she'd ruined the second kitchen chair in an hour, I decided I'd had enough and resorted to a more punitive form of reinforcement. She hasn't had a waking accident since, even with hours in the car and in strange places. Maybe she just needed that to be convinced that wet pants were no longer an acceptable lifestyle option.