My heart is so full of gratitude for my sweet husband tonight and I want to record it.
I spent most of the day deep cleaning the boys’ room. I moved beds and got rid of the dust bunnies, cleaned out everything from under their beds, threw away 3 bags full of paper clutter and old glow sticks and other “collections”. I broke a sweat and made myself sneeze a ton, but it felt so good to be productive. Then I walked out into the rest of the house and saw the destruction. While I worked and worked, the kids played. Not just normal playing….take everything out and make the hugest mess possible-playing. I told them they needed to clean it all up but that went in one ear and out the other. I didn’t have the energy to get on them about it, so I just made dinner and tried to ignore it. When Marcelo came home, I teared up and said, “It’s hard to not feel like it’s pointless. I clean and clean one room while they destroy another. And who’s going to clean that mess they just made? Me.” I’m already at the point of my pregnancy where too much bending down and picking up makes my back ache. Not that this is a big huge deal, but I was feeling extra emotional about it today. We sat down for dinner and Marcelo started talking to the kids about how sad he was that they didn’t want to clean up after themselves. He then looked at me and asked if he could do tonight’s family home evening. I cleaned up the dinner mess while he prepared the lesson and the kids continued to ignore our requests that they clean up their toys.
After a bit, we all gathered in the living room for FHE and Marcelo started talking to them about responsibility. He asked them to name what he was responsible for. They said, “Going to work and making money so we can buy food and things.” Marcelo said yes, but that he was also responsible for helping take care of things at home. He then asked what I was responsible for. They said, “Taking pictures.” It made me really really sad that that was the first thing that came to their minds. I’ve scaled back to 2 shoots a month (except I ended up with 4 in April) so that it wasn’t consuming my life, but to them I guess it still seems like I do it a lot. After a second Diego said, “Oh and making dinner!”  Marcelo asked, “Who takes you to school? Who cleans the house? Who makes sure you have clothes to wear? Who makes sure you do your homework? Who reads to you everyday? Who makes sure you have fun things to do everyday? Who packs your lunches and makes your breakfast?” To every question, they said, “Mommy!” Then Celo grumpily said, “And she also always makes us clean all the time.” Marcelo then asked them what they were responsible for. They said, “Playing, cleaning up our mess, and going to bed on time.” He asked, “Is that hard? Is that a lot of things you’re responsible for?” They both said a very exaggerated, “YESSSS.” So he said, “So do you want to trade? Do you want to take Mommy’s responsibilities and she can play all day like you do?” Diego said no, but Celo is the most stubborn child on earth, so he said, “Yeah!!!” Marcelo started going through what his day would be like and Celo refused to back down. “So you want to wake up tomorrow and make everyone breakfast and make sure everyone gets dressed and ready? And then you want to drive everyone to school and come home and clean and sweep and pick up all the messes?” Celo just kept saying yes. So Marcelo kept it going and told him that that’s what we would do tomorrow and that I was going to get to just play with all of his toys. Finally, he said that he’d rather be the one doing the playing. Marcelo ended with, “Okay. You see that Mommy has a lot of responsibilities. It’s not nice for you to make it harder and not help.”
Then came the game. He brought out a ton of stuffed animals and threw the couch throw pillows on the floor. He made us all get in a line like a train, with me at the kaboose. He would bend down and pick up the stuffed animals and pass them back to Diego and Celo. He told them they could only use one hand to hold them. The boys tried to hold as many as they could, but eventually couldn’t hold them all and started saying, “It’s too much! We can’t do it! We need help!” Marcelo stopped and said, “Is picking up all those stuffed animals and pillows too hard for you to do on your own? Do you need someone to help you?” They said yes. He said, “Well, that’s how Mommy feels. There is too much work for her to do in the house and she needs your help. You need to be responsible for your things and pick up after yourselves so you can help Mommy.” He then told them that tonight’s activity was to go clean up the toy room for Mommy. He sent me off to take a nice long shower and he and the kids picked up the toy room. It seemed like the lesson sunk in a little because they did it happily and were excited to show me their hard work.
I’m experienced enough as a mom to know that this will not last, but for tonight, it was wonderful. I know my kids are very young and that it’s normal for them to not want to clean up their toys. And I am in no way a neat freak who expects the house to look perfect. I love that today they used their imaginations and pulled out all the blocks and built a “fair” and a city. But I did not love that they walked away from it when they were done and didn’t want to put it away. The messes they make on a daily basis are out of control and I do think changes need to be made. So we’re working on it. The way Marcelo tried to help in that teaching process today made me feel so supported. I had tears in my eyes when I thanked him for all the things he said. I said, “It makes me want to go on facebook and brag about you.” He laughed because he knows how much I just LOOOOVE spousal bragging on facebook.
You might notice that Eliana was not mentioned in this post. That is because she is a clean freak who can’t handle a lone piece of rice stuck on her chair. If she sees a spill, she grabs a towel and cleans it up. She has even grabbed the broom and tried to sweep up a mess of crumbs. She helps me unload the dishwasher almost daily. She loves to bring me clothes from the hamper when she sees me washing clothes. When she sees me making beds or tidying up, she says, “Cwean up?” and starts helping however she can. She asks me to “wash hands” whenever she gets even just a few crumbs on herself. She’s borderline OCD, but in the cutest way possible.

I’m posting this in detail because I know I will never remember this when baby girl #2 is this age. Not that I expect her to potty train early, too. Eliana is a freak of nature.

It all started on a Monday when Eliana started to act very bothered about her diaper getting wet. Before that point she had sat on the potty copying her brothers before bath time, but that was about it. All day on Monday and Tuesday, she cried every time she wet her diaper. She’d say, “Mommy!! Wet!!” like it was really bothering her. On Tuesday I told Marcelo, “Okay, I can either listen to her whine several times a day when she pees, or I can start potty training her.” We decided I should give it a shot and I went out and bought undies. I told Marcelo from day 1 that I was only giving it a shot and that if it was a horrible experience, I would deal with the crankiness about wetting her diaper. On Wednesday, after I took the boys to school, I put her in undies. She wet them pretty quickly and acted like peeing on herself was the most disgusting thing to ever happen to her. After that, she didn’t want undies, so I put her in just a shirt and nothing else. She had a couple of accidents that day and 1 success on the potty. Her diaper at naptime was SO FULL, like she had held it as much as possible until naptime. The weird thing was that all day she kept telling me, “Potty! Potty!” every time she felt the urge to go. It was clear that she knew what that feeling meant. She’d sit on the potty, but after 2 seconds she’d say, “No thank you,” and would want to get off. It was quite exasperating for me because she KNEW she needed to go, but was too afraid to go on the potty. It was exasperating for HER because she felt like she had to hold it all day and was in constant fear of having an accident. (At least that is what I gathered by her extreme crankiness all day.) By the evening, I put a diaper on her in hopes that she would just go in there. I thought it would put her out of her misery, but she didn’t even want to wet her diaper, so we were in the same exact situation as when she was wearing nothing. So on Thursday, I thought, well, might as well do this again. ALL DAY LONG except for the brief nap break, this is how it went: She’d feel the need to go and would whine, “Potty! Potty!” I’d say, “Do you need to go pee pee?” And she’d look all worried and say, “YES!” We’d run to the potty, I would sit her on it, two seconds later she’d shake her head and say, “No thank you,” and put her arms out to me to get her down. I’d get her down and not 20 seconds later, she’d ask for the potty again. And repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat. ALL DAY. It was quite a miserable day. At one point, she held it for FOUR HOURS. So stubborn. The only time we had success was when I’d convince her to let me read her a book while she was on the potty and she would get to the point where she couldn’t hold it anymore and would go, looking at me with a look of panic. It seemed like she was afraid that she was doing something wrong while peeing in the potty, so I started changing the way I was talking to her. Instead of telling her to pee in the potty, I’d talk about not wetting her undies and I’d tell her to “wet the potty”. On Friday it seemed like that made it click a little. She “wet the potty” a few times that day, but still had accidents. For every success I gave her candy, which is her favorite thing on earth. On Saturday we had friends over and she held it all morning. Right after they left, she had an accident. After her nap she had one success, but again, it felt forced because I had to hold her on the potty until she went. I read books and sang songs, but she cried and still seemed scared. Sunday was mostly a bust because we went to Church and I wasn’t about to potty train during Church. She went in the evening, but it still seemed like she only went because she happened to be sitting on the potty right when she couldn’t hold it anymore. On Monday, I was back it, but with the attitude of, “I’m giving it a week. If it’s still not clicking by Wednesday, I’m done.” Monday and Tuesday went a lot better than the week before and she started going on the potty willingly. The fear of wetting the potty seemed to be gone! #2 came very easily to her and I never once had to deal with that kind of accident. Thank you, Eliana. On Wednesday she had her last #1 accident. I thought it was too good to be true, but Thursday and Friday were accident free and she went on the potty lots of times. She was doing great! No more fear! She would sit on the potty and ask me to sing a song (either Popcorn Popping, Snowman, Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, or Sunbeam) and then she’s just go. She did great over the weekend and I even put her in undies for Church on Sunday. (With a diaper over it to be safe.) She stayed dry and even went potty at church twice. On Monday we went to the zoo and played in the water area, so I put her in a swim diaper. I was okay with her going in the diaper, but she didn’t want to! She asked me to take her to the potty and went! On Tuesday she went at the library potty. Tuesday night we went to Sea World and I told Marcelo, “Okay, if she passes the Sea World test, I’m calling it official.” She stayed dry the whole time. But I made the GIANT mistake of taking her to the regular public bathroom instead of the one for kids and the automatic flusher TERRIFIED her. So now here we are two weeks later and she still hasn’t gone in a public bathroom once since that day. She’ll go at people’s houses, but not at public bathrooms. She just holds it instead. Hopefully she’ll get over that soon. Now she’s staying dry during naps, but I bet overnight will take awhile. Some days she wakes up dry but not every time. When she does, she looks at me while I take off her diaper and exclaims, “DRY!!!” before I can even check it. It’s hilarious that she’s so proud of herself. I am still AMAZED at how easy it was to potty train her. It was basically one week of stress, with the first 3 days being the worst. My boys weren’t ready until 2 and a half, so it has seemed very very weird to me. What I learned from this experience is that 1) She was 100% ready and 2) it really really helps if your child is semi-OCD and finds it disgusting to have an accident. The number of times I had to clean up an accident is under 10, and I really think that’s because she just thought it was so gross.

A few days ago we spent the day at Disney and I knew it was going to be hard to get her to go in the public bathrooms so I didn’t even try. I put her in a diaper and took her to the bathroom a few times, but she refused to go every time. When it got to the point where she couldn’t hold it anymore, we were standing in line for a ride. She started doing the pee pee dance and saying, “Potty!” over and over again. I felt so bad for her and would have loved to run her to the bathroom, but we were so far from one and it was almost our turn for the ride. She started crying and was just so worried, so my mom picked her up and I held her hands and said, “It’s okay. You can wet your diaper. It’s okay. Go pee pee in the diaper.” She was clearly horrified at the thought, and said, “Uh oh!” when she started going. I just said, “See? You did it! It’s okay.” She laughed nervously and said, “I did it!” but still had this super worried look on her face. I wish I could have taken a picture. It was so sad and so cute at the same time. She went in her diaper 2 more times that day and had the same reaction every time: asked for a bathroom that was nowhere to be found, gave me the look of extreme concern, and then said, “I did it!” I thought it might be a setback, but the next day she was back to undies like nothing had ever happened.

So little Miss Independent is doing her part to save us money on diapers. THANK YOU, ELIANA!

I made this for a Relief Society meeting last night and people seemed to enjoy it, so I thought I’d post the recipe here. When I made it, I felt like it was too oniony, but now I’m blaming pregnancy taste buds because I ate it again today and really liked it. I started with a basic recipe from allrecipes.com, but added all the stuff at the end and substituted regular tomatoes instead of canned tomatoes. This is what I ended up with:

 

Corn, Black Bean, and Cilantro Salsa

 

1 (15oz) can yellow corn, drained

1 (15 oz) can white corn, drained

2 (15 oz) cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 bunch finely chopped cilantro

5 green onions, finely sliced

Half a red onion, finely chopped

Half a red bell pepper, finely chopped

2 large Roma tomatoes, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced

1/4 cup of lime juice (juice from 2 limes)

To taste:

1/4-1/2 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp chili powder

2 to 4 tbsp Sun Dried Tomato Dressing (I used Ken's)

drizzle of olive oil

salt to taste

 

Stir the corn, black beans, tomatoes, cilantro, green onions, red onion, bell pepper, and garlic in a large bowl. Mix in lime juice and avocado. Add cumin, coriander, chili powder, Sun Dried Tomato dressing, salt, and olive oil to taste. Serve with tortilla chips.