the sweet spot

The sweet spot is that time in every parent's life when they realize they don't have to haul as much crap around with them. They don't have to take an entire duffel bag with them just to go to the market. All those extra clothes, diapers, wipes, pacifiers, a shirt for you if you're going someplace important, slings, blankets. All that crap. I forget when it happened with us. It was definitely post-blowout risk, so maybe around the time she started solid food? I just remember thinking oh my goodness, I could just carry a purse! Albeit a fairly large purse.

Fast forward oh a year and a half and we're back at the beginning.
The culprit?
Potty training. And winter.
Or rather potty training in winter.

We're back to the diaper bag. It's not that Guthrie has many accidents - in fact she's had surprisingly few since we got serious about the potty a few weeks ago. It's the possibility of accidents. The possibility of being caught without a pair- or two- or warm, dry pants in wicked cold weather. Her clothes have gotten kind of big too. Much bigger than the requisite few diapers and wipes. So, I'm going to drag out the old bag because my purse really doesn't need some pee soaked jeans in it - wet bag or not.

With this potty training business I think we've closed the door on our cloth diapers - at least until the next one (sorry John). Gus is only wearing a diaper at night and one diaper a day doesn't warrant a full load of laundry, but saving them until we do have a full load? Well, that's an ammonia nightmare you would not believe. Well, maybe you would.

We've always tried to keep an emergency pack of disposables around. Until we moved to Davenport we'd mostly used Seventh Generation brand, but it's surprisingly hard to find here. And they get a little expensive, so it's been Luvs for awhile now. Yesterday I bought what I hope to maybe be one of our last packs of diapers and finally found some Seventh Generation ones. I know, right at the end. So bedtime last night Guthrie is shocked and appalled that they don't have a dog on them. That they're just khaki. I explain that khaki is good. Neutral, goes with all your pjs, etc. And I ended up drawing a puppy on them just to get her to go to bed.

That's what I get for being environmentally savvy isn't it?

potty training

I've had this little conversation with Gus numerous times in the past few days so it's time to share:

Gus: Oooh hello poop! *giggle*
Mom: Oh do you need to use the potty?
G: No, hello poop! Ha Ha.
M: You sure? Do you need to poop?
G: No ma. HELLO POOP! *impending hilarity*

M: Oh. Is your bottom talking to you again?
G: Yeah. Hello poop. *giggle*


Did you know when you fart it's your bottom talking to you? Did you know my girl has a special friend who talks to her sometimes . . . and it's her ass?

Also sometimes we think she's from New Jersey because when she yells at me from across the house 'ma' she sounds like someone from the Sopranos.