Breakthroughs

So, it seems as though we've had a few breakthoughs around here this week. Like the other night, when Mouse, after staying up until MIDNIGHT! slept until 6:30 the next morning. It totally rocked! Although, tonight she went down for a "nap" at 7:30 and is still. sleeping. I keep checking to make sure she's still breathing. Watch - now she'll wake up at midnight and want to play.

Also, the Bear turned a potty-training corner today. After her nap, I took off her diaper and let her run around nekkid. After a while, she said, "I have to pee in the potty now." So I took her and sat her on the potty, and lo! There was pee! All afternoon, we were on and off the pot, in and out of the bathroom. It was not the cleanest of days - she tried to poop on the potty but got up before she was done and left a trail of poop on the floor, and I caught her using one of her "special" wipes that she only gets to use when she goes on the potty to clean the floor. After she had spent twenty minutes wiping her butt with it. She's very big on doing it herself - the trick was that I switched from her little potty on the floor to a seat on the big potty with steps. She can get on and off by herself, and that's what hooked her. She is All About The Potty right now. Of the 73 times we sat on the potty between nap and bedtime (all of which were her idea, several of which were patent ploys to get another wipe), she peed at least 7 times and pooped once. All in the potty. I left her diaper off until bedtime and there was - get this - no pee on my floor. It was amazing to see her mind work. She could totally tell when her bladder was getting full, and she knew she should go to the potty to fix that. I think our next step might be some big-girl underwear. I don't think she'll be content to wear her diaper around the house after this, although she'll still need one when we go anywhere. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. I have hope.

Hmm... in other news, Stouffer's does not put enough sauce on their french bread pizzas, and Weight Watchers (maybe? red box) makes a much better marinara sauce than Healthy Choice. I'm noticing a sauce-related theme here. Hmmm. I am a picky sauce-eater, I suppose. I have been eating relatively healthily (with the exception of the frozen dinners, obviously) for over a week now, in a pathetic attempt to get rid of some of the excess poundage that I've been carrying since I had Mouse (ten extra pounds, if you *must* know) without having to truly diet or exercise. Lame, yes, but somehow that's about all I can manage right now. I'd like to exercise, but I just can't get out of the house without being made to feel somehow guilty about leaving the kids with Husband. He *says* it's ok, but his eyes and his body language tell a different story. So I don't go to work out on my own, and I really don't have the stroller or the sidewalks to take the girls with me. Our sidewalks are an insult to the good name of pavement, and our stroller is not really the walking/jogging type. It's better suited to a quick saunter more than anything else. Double strollers are so bulky! So, yeah, no exercise, and I don't want to really diet at the risk of cutting too many calories and compromising my milk supply. Eating "reasonably" is my sad effort to control the spread of my ass, a plan instituted when the doctor's scale revealed that I had actually *gained* a pound despite exclusively nursing a baby in the 100th percentile for weight and chasing a toddler all day. Really, I just don't want to stand up in front of a room full of teenagers next month and worry that they're whispering about my muffin top. I'd much rather have them complaining that I'm too strict. I'm very sensitive about my looks, I guess. While I'm definitely no Angelina Jolie, neither am I totally an Ugly Betty. We'll see how this goes. A haircut would go miles toward fixing what's wrong with me, also.

What a random collection of nonsense thoughts. I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.