Yesterday was a day where “CRAZY” was a leash around my neck. It was dragging me everywhere and I felt like I couldn’t get a moment to stop and take a breath. Well, let me rephrase. There were many moments where I began the inhale for a deep breath, but the words “JOHN KELTY!!!!” butted into my exhale as I darted off to the next big intervention. From big wet circles lingering of nursing home aroma soaking into my sofa to finding John John playing “Kick you in the face” with his baby brother…to finding that someone…hmmm…. found a couple new surfaces for his crayola friends to break dance. The kitchen floor and the stairs are looking very lovely. This was a day when both Mom, Kristen and Chris each had the privilege of picking up some of my pieces and tried to put me back together again. Oh Humpty Dumpty…I feel your pain! My supporters tried to reassure me that 2 would be better than 3, that indeed John was a hand full and that I am an excellent mother even though my heart and mind are making very good prosecutors. Any of my readers that are mothers feeling me on this???? I am so glad no one was here to witness my moments of impatience, the gritting teeth, my sharp words, my mounting emotions and the conversations I was having with John as if he was my age and could reason like an adult. Did I forget all lessons taught in Mothering 101? We all had that in college, right?

I went to bed last night with an incredibly sad heart. I felt like I was crawling into bed with pajamas made of boulders. I just felt heavy and afraid to wake up tomorrow to have another…yesterday. I actually dreamed last night that I was taking care of an incredibly obese adult man that kept having diarrhea everywhere…the second part of that dream was me falling into a river that was filled with trash and all the trash I saw around me was stuff from my house. Wow, I think these dreams may be alluding to the fact that I feel like I am living in chaos, mess and poop. I woke up surrendering it ALL to Jesus. As I asked for God’s help I remembered that he loves to give help and in fact that’s the whole point of the Christian life…for him to live his life through me. I had a sudden burst of hope that I wasn’t a lost cause and that I could take on another day with God as my parenting companion. On my own, I will always fail to be the mom John Kelty needs. With God’s assistance I can slow down and be the patience and tenderness he really needs. With “God’s mercies are new every morning” and “Love is patient” and “I can do all things through God who gives me strength” scrolling again and again in my mind, I soared through the day. My mother even called this morning to say she would come over and give me a break and I told her no. I wanted to spend the entire day relying on Christ to enable me to be the person I want to be and can be by his strength.

We had a great day. Coincidently, there were no arguments today, there wasn’t a single poop or pee accident and there was lots or grace, lots of freedom, lots of laughing, lots of playing and lots of peace. There was a spanking mingled in but it was smooth and not a volcanic eruption from me or my feisty one. It was a good day. I know John is John and tomorrow I can choose and pray to be the patient, loving, fun, mom I want to be and he may do everything wrong. But at least for today I definitely see how my mood and choices and tone affect my children. The day ended with 2 naked boys laughing and splashing in the tub and Chris and I watching in awe that they get to be ours….Did yesterday really happen? How can I feel such pride and love for these boys when yesterday had me wanting to hide under the bed like our dog Mazie.

I am just so grateful that I am not ever stuck being the me I don’t really want to be and that God can save my children from years of therapy and dysfunction if I trust in him to help me grow in the areas where I am weak.

Good luck mother friends…especially to those of you who have self willed children! Tomorrow is a new day, a fresh start to take a deep breath and to trust God to give you what you need for each parenting moment instead of just doing what comes naturally.

The picture at the top of the page is a picture of a bouquet of zinnias John picked for me at Sharon’s garden when we were in Louisville this summer. I was so touched by the gesture and by the smile on his face when he gave them to me. Apart from roses they are my favorite flower ( my mom’s too) they are so simple and so bright. I couldn’t bring them home and so I took a picture of them instead. Tonight before I go to bed I will be framing it and putting it out where I can see it as a constant reminder that in the moments that feel so hard, the heart of this little boy is so very precious and I have been given the privilege of shaping it.

From this tired, frazzled and yet smiling mama…. I’m signing off. Chris is waiting for me to help him make some “Classroom Rules” posters for his room! Hmmm….maybe my classroom could use a few as well. Sleep well friends.

Today was also the UK Uof L football game. Unfortunately we lost something bad! But we are still huge fans. John wanted to wear Chris’s sweat shirt. Ben was completely enamored by John’s big red cloak and couldn’t stop laughing. I am documenting this as well because I know Maw Maw and the rest of my cardinal loving famiy will get a kick out of it.

Want to hear the laughing?

Now for a Benny Update… He is now standing alone for a good 5 seconds before falling down and he is walking across the room while pushing different objects! He says mama all the time (yeah!) He has 3 teeth and he is working on three more all at once…it’s been a rough week for Ben, bless his little heart! He is getting to be so big…Check him out!

It’s a Potty Party Day!!! Yep…the day when parents around the country cross their fingers for the success the book, “Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day” promises. The day when you joyfully toss the dipaers in the trash can with the expectation of a clean break, a smooth transition from pants to potty. With the beautiful sounds of flushing and clapping, the look of pride on your face and the grand babyhood graduation celebration in the background! It’s 24 hours of training, leading to a lifetime of excrement success!!! Or in our case, the day when all of efforts were followed by a week of sticky #1 and smelly # 2 finding it’s way gracefully to the carpet and every other square inch of our home! So what exactly is a potty party you ask? Let me explain….

A Potty party is an entire day devoted to the joint parental efforts of potty training. The concept was developed by a frustrated mother who couldn’t send her son to pre-school because he had extreme diaper dependence….or incontinence. So, she developed a method of giving your kid the funnest day of their life, better than birthdays, to help resistant children conquer potty fears by transforming their life for one day into their wildest dreams come true. In John’s case, when he woke up, he was no longer John Kelty, he was SUPER JOHN…the adventurer, resue hero. The bathroom was no longer a bathroom but a super hero recharging station. Beverages were not simply thirst quenchers, but juice became jumping juice and lemonade was flying-ade. Snacks weren’t just nourishment, they were fuel for all the necessary tasks of a resue, super hero. The theme was accompanied by every Dora and Diego product made, within our budget which kept getting extended. Super John’s rescue outfit was a Diego shirt, Diego underwear and a cape with a rescue belt with cell phone, flash light and other super tools. The hamper became a resue car and rescue boat. We were exhausted by the end of the first hour of hype and couldn’t wait for John’s nap….I mean superhero slumber for important recue refueling! Ben spent the day with Aunt Tris which gave John all the attention he craves. We borrowed a doll that wets from the Ramsey girls that John named Akis…. (Ah-Keys) the made up name of his imaginary friend.

The idea was to model and assist John in teaching “Akis” how to use the bathroom until lunch. Lunch time would then become a celebration for the doll who had been potty trained. After naptime you transfer all the teaching, lessons, praise, stickers and sugary rewards to the kid with the promise of a huge party with proud supporters at supper time if he could have the same success as the doll. We had a very productive day and a fabulous family party….followed by several days of intense rebellion. I should have known better than to expect such an easy transition with my spirited, intense, independent little boy. It has to be John’s idea and in John’s timing for anything to work. I should have expected him to follow his normal pattern with potty training as well.

I have had many of you ask about the potty party and I have been unable to blog until now because I have been so frustrated. Frustarted at all the money spent, the time it took me to read the entire book, the emotional energy invested in the potty day and my ignorant expectations…. all for a week of rebellion? Urrrr….But we were persistent. I thought about giving up. I was tired of scrubbing poopy underwear and slipping in pee puddles and tired of fighting with John who would joyfully tell me he had the poopy feeling and then proceed to show me his poopy fingers, the proud dislay of his work. But we kept on keeping on and I am proud to report that after a long week and a half, Super John is a BIG KID and very proud of his new tricks. After many peeing contests with daddy and trying to beat his personal best record of “how many seconds can you pee” he did it! One day he woke up and decided he didn’t like the gross feeling of smooshy crap in his underwer and pee peee trickling down his legs. I stopped giving him the reaction I think he had been previously looking for and when he decided to get BIG…it worked. The peeing came first. There was major hesitancy about popping on the potty but after promising a blizzard (or lizard) last night he took the plunge and we raced to DQ for his reward.
I of course rewarded myself as well!

Can you hear me taking a deep sigh of relief? I am so so proud of him. I expect I’ll feel the same way when he graduates from college. This was a huge burden and I am still shocked that it’s working. everytime he runs to the potty I feel like crying and clapping and singing in the streets… “John John puts his stuff in the POT!”

So Would I reccomend the book? Absolutly. However, I might try more simple measures to begin with before you extend yourself and your pocket book to see if you have a kid that doesn’t require such measures!

I thought you might like to see some Potty Party pictures of our house…I mean our Super Hero Diego, Dora, Party Cave!!!

The house was completely decorated…transformed when John woke up. He was so excited. He said, “Mommy Daddy, look, it’s my birthday!” Here is a Super John sign I made and put on the mirror over our sofa!

The Treat tray with lots of different special drinks and snacks….M&M’s, mini marshmallows, cheese cubes, grapes and mini cookies!

The sticker potty charts for Akis and John! The Bathroom…or Recharging Station. Chris is reading John a potty book!

The actual potty party celebration…Yes that would be John blowing out the candles on his Diego cupcakes after we sang, “Happy Potty Day to you!” Some decorations. I put fun pictures of John on all the picture frames in the downstairs. I used four entire rolls of streamers and lots and lots of Dora wrapping paper!
The proud Big Boy on his Big Day!!!

Thanks for holding your breath and for all the potty inquery. I’m just glad we have a little time before we have to have Ben’s Potty Party. I’m sure it will take us the full 2 years to recooperate!

Life thoughts…

I’m having one of those life is moving so fast and it’s so sad…I mean so exciting… I mean so scary… I mean so amazing sort of moments. I opened my eyes this morning to see 2 huge blue eyes staring into my pupils…If you are thinking the words “big boy bed” you are right. We no longer have the 4 walls of the crib to keep John John’s energy bound until we’re ready to unleash him into the day…look out world- here comes JOHN! How did my little boy become a kid? He has stopped asking for Baby Einstein and Sesame Street and is on to Diego and Dora the Explorer, and walks around counting to 10 in Spanish. Move over Little People and Mr. Potato Head, we’re on to bigger and better things…adventures like pretending to be pirates and rescuing people…what? How did this happen? The other day he asked me to do something and he said, “Mommy say, ready… set… hit it!” Yep- he’s a kid!!! He also said, “Mommy, we say nursing, we don’t alk about boobies…okay mommy we don’t say boobies”, and he proceeded to say that word and how we shouldn’t say it over and over. Are you wondering why he even knows that word? I wish I could say he learned it from a neighbor kid but it has to do with exhaustion, getting elbowed, and a bad parenting choice…oops. I need to cherish every moment he still asks me to cuddle with him. The day is coming soon when that will no longer be cool!

My baby has become a toddler…2 teeth, crawling and pulling up all in the same week, whoa! He chuckles with pride at his new developments and is getting bigger by the second…and by bigger I mean he wore 24 month pajamas to bed last night! He’s a CHUNK!

I think about my mother-in law and how at one time in her life she was chasing 4 boys around the baseball field and now she is getting ready for us to come and she will be chasing after 2 grandsons. I was watching my mom hold Ben tonight and I was thinking, how can my mom be “Nellie” when she’s “mama”?….Oh wait I’m 29. I’m thinking about my sister-in-law Kelly and how she and Derek are expecting in February and it just doesn’t seem possible that they are at that stage in life…and yet they are because they are married and have a house and so on and so forth.

On Sunday night Chris preached a sermon…yes, a sermon at church. It was a big moment for me. I kept thinking “I’m sitting here listening to my husband talk about the importance, and the struggle of trusting God.” At one point he listed things that could have potentially been “trust busters” in his 28 years of living. At the end of his list he said, “And we have a daughter Anna that we never got to know…” to which I thought, “are we at that point, the point we used to ache for three years ago when we would say, “I just can’t wait to be several years down the road and beyond this pain.” I didn’t have to run out of the room in tears. Of course the tears surfaced, but quickly disappeared because life has moved on it has brought healing and new joys and new struggles. Sometimes I just feel like life has moved so fast these past 4 years that I have to rub my eyes to make sure I am seeing my surroundings and my life correctly…and I am.

As John was dancing and singing at bible school tonight and I was having a conversation with someone about pre-school- I just couldn’t believe that I am about to enter a whole new stage of life. I don’t want to be sad about what is behind or what I have lost with past stages but to be excited about what is ahead and ready to embark every new adventure with faith, with trust, with joy and with a “come on life… whatcha got” kind of an attitude.

Okay I feel much better now…the bursting sensation has subsided and I am left with one resounding emotional declaration…”I am Blessed!!!!”

I promise the next blog will be simple and fun….maybe????