The Smell of Victory!

I have been meaning to post an update on the potty training.  You may be tired of hearing how often my daughter pees on the floor rather than in the potty, and I can sympathize with you because I am tired of it too.  If you don't want to read any further, feel free to look at the slideshow I just posted below.  However, if you are the tiniest bit interested, check this out:

Slideshow

Last Friday, I took a series of pics of the kids. Voila! Here is a slideshow to entertain you! The pics are grainy because they were taken on my iPhone, so please excuse the quality. And because I am new at this, I forgot to add music. So perhaps you can hum a little tune to yourself to add some background noise. Enjoy!

Thank You, Pathmark

Today, I needed to go out and buy groceries.

"With two children under the age of 4? By yourself?!  It has never been done … by you!"

Well, yes, this is true.  It was going to be a new experience for me.  But I was comforted in knowing that other people did this, even did this with MORE THAN 2 CHILDREN, and they were able to survive and tell the story.  So I set out with a plan in mind:

1.  I needed a grocery store in my direct vicinity that has grocery carts with a fun toddler/kid attachment, preferably something with a steering wheel.  I knew that grocery stores had such contraptions, but I did not know which one so I would need to scope out a few stores before I committed.

2.  This grocery store could not have waist-high metal poles that would prevent carts from leaving the front area of the store.  If I shopped at such a store, I would then have to hold my daughter's hand while shouldering several bags of groceries and Isaac while crossing a parking lot and preventing anyone from hitting us with a car or anyone from running away from me.  Not cool.

Confession of a Normal Mother

Monday was a very hard day.  For some reason, on that day, something changed inside of Isaac and he needed something different to fall asleep for naptimes.  So instead of just fussing a little bit and falling asleep on his own, he would full-out scream, thrash, pinch, scratch his head and face until he was bleeding.    Laying him down in his bed did not work.  Holding him and comforting him did not work.  I was completely at a loss as to how to help him.

Isaac's 3.5 month update

Isaac had his 4 month check-up this past week and I am happy to report that our little buddy weighs 13 lbs., 5 oz. and is 24 inches long.  He remains in the 25th percentile in all his growth charts, and is hitting all his marks in development and maturity.  What a big boy!

Keeping Score

To: Anyone who knows how to pray
From:  A Mommy who is tired of cleaning up pee in all the wrong places
RE: Potty Training Saga 3 day Update.

Scoreboard--
Potty: 3
Floors/Area Rugs/Booster Seat at Dinner Table: 4.5

Operation Potty or Bust

Tim recently accepted a call to pastor a small church in an area outside of Philadelphia known as the Mainline.  We are excited to be part of their church family, and we will be moving to their parsonage in July.  There are so many thoughts, issues, natural anxieties and welcome excitement this change will create and has already been creating.

Props and Mad Love

No, you're not dreaming.  This blog did not use to look like this.  It was rather blah before.  And no, I didn't do it.

Last Night...

Last night, Tim was checking on the kids.  Suddenly, "Doris!" he bawled, "yougottaseethis, yougottaseethis!"  I walked upstairs to see my husband propping himself up in the bathroom doorway to keep from falling over laughing.  What was so funny?  All he could do was gesture at Evie's room.  Then I saw it.

I'm Three Years Old!

Evie is three years old now, and this fact still shocks me to no end.  How did she get this big?  How did she learn all that she tells us on a daily basis?  Why is she incessantly talking?  This post is all things Evie.  Here is what she is up to now.

Introducing...

So the biggest piece of news since this blog was last alive in 2008 is that we now have another Dalton with us.  Isaac En-Lin Dalton, born December 26, 2009 at 2:26 a.m.  He missed Christmas Day by a few hours; nevertheless, the specter of Christmas and all its outlandish commercialism and uninhibited present-giving will remain over his little head for the rest of his life.

Easter Resurrection!

I remember reading a story about Rev. James Forbes, a renown preacher and pastor of Riverside Church in NYC that I have always loved for its simplicity yet depth. He was on a flight and was just meeting the passenger sitting next to him in that traditional "Hey, I am going to be within your personal space for the next xxx hours so we might as well be civil" conversation. The man goes on to ask, "So, what do you do?" Rev. Forbes said, with great drama and excitement, "I raise people from the dead!"

More Bathroom Business

This picture is of my BFF Angie and her two girls, Ellie and Emma, when they came to visit Evie and I last August.

Angie and I were chatting one day recently when she told me about how much her little girl Emma (now 3 y.o.) loves loves loves cupcakes. So every now and then, as a treat, Angie will let her pick out a pack of cupcakes from the bakery section at the grocery store. Once, Emma picked out some cupcakes with Bright Blue Iceing. The entire next day, all of Emma's poops were BRIGHT BLUE. And, disturbingly enough, Emma's little bottom obtained a faded blue coloring as well.

After that day, Emma would check all of her diapers to see what color her poop had become. Smurfette, smurf that smurfy smurf!

Catch-up Post #59: For All Ages and Species to Enjoy!

Aunt Diane and Uncle Greg gave Evie her first baby pretend-I-am-like-Mommy piece of furniture for Christmas. It is a baby changing table, complete with a mobile over the changing table area and cabinet space underneath. The changing table top comes off to reveal a handy baby bath tub. We all thought, hey, Evie will really like this!

When we set it up in the living room, the first one to begin playing with the changing table was not Evie. It was Smokey the cat. The changing table became his favorite perch and resting place. I like how he has slung his front leg over the railings with such catty attitude. Notice Evie doesn't care about the changing table; she is more interested at the moment in knocking over the Santa gourds.

Then she went shopping with the shopping cart....

Then called up her bff and chatted about Pastor Gene's sermon...

Meanwhile, Smokey is peacefully enjoying the view from his new favorite changing table spot. Until ...

Evie discovers the mobile.

Smokey becomes alarmed and begins to fear for his safety.

After Evie victoriously helped Smokey vacate the premises, she begins to enjoy the toy that was hers from the beginning.




Thanks Aunt Diane and Uncle Greg for giving us a Christmas present that appeals to all ages and species in our family!

Catch Up Post #58: Late Friday Night Gumbo

No, you didn't miss posts 2 to 57. I just decided that since I am finally back to normal (I was decommissioned for a week after Evie's birthday with some bad bug that did lots of things to my consciousness), let's just post lots of pictures!

These are early to mid-December 2007.

We just got home from a long day at the sitter's and she is a worn-out snowbunny.

Evie tried orange juice (more like water with orange juice flavor) for the first time. She liked it.

AHHH! Drama and chaos ensue when she ran out of her orange juice flavored water.

Naked bathtime pics. Tim did her hair.

She looks like a very sad kewpie doll here. (It's okay if you point and laugh; I just did it too.)


That's all the random pics for now, folks! Next post: something special for Aunt Diane!

Catch-up Post #1: Thanksgiving Family Pictures

Yes, I know I am failing in the class of How to be a Proficient Blogger (Rule #1: Please post, and post often). But I am ridiculously busy for a Just-Started to Stay-At-Home Mama! I used to rely on 2 naps per day, like clockwork. However, ever since Christmas, I believe Evie's clock has transformed into a new clock that defies a realistic sense of time and a physiological need to rest. One day, we have two naps. The next day, no morning nap but a long afternoon nap. The third day, one nap for only 45 minutes all day long. And then next week, she takes her afternoon nap at 5p.m. Of course, while she is awake, she is all quick fingers, lightening fast crawling (or very determined cruising), and constant demands to walk her to the other end of the house, read books, or feed me broccoli NOW.

So, I have decided that I just need to start the Catch-Up Posts Series, and then catch-up to the Series whenever I get a moment to post more Catch-Up Posts.

Therefore --

My sister Lillian is a fabulous photographer and has a great eye for seeing things. She is starting up a great little business (mostly through word of mouth) of taking family portraits for families. You can see her work and her baby here. After a Thanksgiving brunch at Lillian's house, we had family pictures time. Here is a small sample of the 180 pictures that Lillian took of the Dalton folk. By the way, these were taken in her backyard.




Evie and her cousin Ella Reese.




By the poor picture quality, you can tell that this picture was taken on my Kodak Easy Shoot. We were trying to do a sister picture with offspring, but the girls were super squirmy by this point and either wanted or did not want Ella Reese's shoe.

Happy Belated Pre-Thanksgiving!

Yes, I know. Thanksgiving was ages ago, so of course anything Pre-Thanksgiving is like looking back to something from The Land Before Time. Now here we are, only 4 hours away from 2008, and how, HOW, gentle people, can I possibly deprive you of pictures that have been sitting on my hard drive for over a month before the clock rings 12:00 midnight and then my hard drive wipes out? In fact, all computers will crash and all communication, public utilities and government infrastructure on the Earth as we know it will self-destruct because computers don't know what to do when it becomes January 1, 2008.... oh wait. That was Y2K in 2000 and nothing happened.

Then consider these pictures as a belated pre-Thanksgiving present. Happy belated pre-Thanksgiving, everyone!

One morning, Tim stayed home later than usual to file some reports from home. After a delicious breakfast of oatmeal and yogurt, Evie joined him to try to delete the stuff he had just written.


It's cold here. That's why a puppy hat makes sense. It's really a pity that they don't make puppy hats for adults, too.


Alert: There is a story behind these pictures of a car. So one day during the time of pre-Thanksgiving, I was driving around town in my worn-out 1994 Altima that I only paid $8,500 for back in 1999 and had over 143,000 miles on it, when my car began to shake violently. I mean, really shaking and it didn't matter if I was rolling or sitting at a light. I felt like I was being made into a milkshake. I started to get a little nervous. About an hour later, I discovered I could no longer accelerate beyond 40 mph. I called Tim and told him I was witnessing the death of my beloved car. On Saturday, Tim was out jogging and passed this car for sale on a dealer's lot. On Monday, we went in after work for a test drive. On Tuesday, I was driving to work in our 2004 Subaru Outback. We traded in the Altima at the time of sale and the dealership very graciously gave us $400 for my milk-shake dying car.

In this picture, you can see that the length of the car almost matches the length of our itsy-bitsy backyard.

Okay, this picture is kinda cheating because this picture is actually taken during the time of Thanksgiving while we were in Tennessee. But you can never get tired of Evie with Food On Her Face pictures. This time, it is Evie a la Banana.

Bathroom Business

Warning: This post contains graphic details about poop and pee. If you are even slightly squeamish, I would like to invite you to spend your next five minutes staring out the window and think of beautiful flowers and sunshine.

I know we are behind on posting, but I just HAD to post this latest event.

This past Saturday, we were returning from a lovely jaunt up to New York City. Dad had been in town to visit us and we were returning him to NYC and spent some time with Grandma and Aunty Kay. We had a wonderful time, ate a quick dinner before we left and then drove home to try to catch the end of the Tennessee vs. LSU game.

At some point after we got off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I began to sense a strangeness in the air, as if something was off. I discovered it was a strange smell, but thought maybe it's the Chinese food that Grandma gave us to take home, it could be leaking. No worries, we are only 20 minutes from home.

When we got home, we quickly learned that the strange smell was coming from Evie's diaper. When we got inside the house and extracted Evie from the car seat, we discovered that her diaper had burst its banks and she had leaked all over her jeans and the car seat. When I got her upstairs for a bath, I discovered something more deadly.

After I took off her jeans began and lifted up her onsie, I discovered that Evie had had a massive poosplosion that had exploded up her back and had left long strips of poop stuck to the inside of her onsie. Since I did not want to wipe poop into my daughter's hair and face, I began to remove the strips of poop with toilet paper and tossed them into the toilet.

Then I took off Evie's diaper, which she immediately stepped in. Now she had poop on her foot, which she planted onto the bathmat. While I held her over my knee to wipe the explosive poop from her butt and foot, poop fell from somehwere off her body onto the bathroom floor, smearing. My knee landed in the poop on the bathmat. There were flecks of poop on the toilet seat and Evie was trying to wriggle out of my hands. I felt like I was laying in poop. I began to laugh because I was afraid I might throw up.

After I had removed poop from my baby, I stood a naked Evie next to the tub so she could watch the water filling her bath and I could finish wiping up the poop from the floor and the toilet seat. I looked up at her in time to see her peeing directly onto the bathmat, making two little pools of pee. I started to laugh harder. Her face had a look of wonder, "Where is this liquid coming from?" I began to snort hysterically with laughter when Evie leaned over and used her little index finger to swirl the pools of pee on the bathmat.

At this time, I would just like to add another item to the "Things They Did Not Tell New Mothers" List. Item #72: They did not tell us that we would be so intimately acquainted with our child's bathroom business. Perhaps if They had shared this precious bit of information with us, we would have thought differently about babies and their bodily functions. And folks, we are not even to toilet training yet. Please continue to pray for us.

What's Hot, What's Not

Ms. Pat said that Evie's face is showing the "wisdom of discovery." Indeed. She is also showing the understanding of preferences, and readily exhibits her frustration if you cannot deliver "enh, enh" quickly enough. Here is a current list of What's Hot and What's Not in Evie's world.

What's Hot: Cooked peas; must not be cold. (very tasty with cubes of cheese and chunks of bread.)
What's Not: Cheerios.

What's Hot: Putting food in her own mouth.
What's Not: Anyone else putting food in her mouth (however, there are exceptions if the food is truly tasty).

What's Hot: Walking, with the aid of taller people.
What's Not: Crawling.

What's Hot: Pictures of cats lounging around.
What's Not: Smokey lounging around.



for Smokey: What's Hot--being outside. What's Not--Being forced into a family pictures.

Baby Day Out

Recently, the mommies of my church had a Baby Day Out at my house. Actually, there were supposed to be three mommies, but Keima called me the night before to say that Sebalah was sick. So it ended up being an Evie and Harmony playdate.

Car seats are much more interesting that the twenty baby toys laying on the floor.

Both babies are crawling now; it was SO HARD to get a picture of the two of them sitting still!




When they found Harmony's bib in her diaper bag and began to argue over who could hold it, Jennette and I decided that their playdate was over. Time for naps!