One of These Days

Today was one of those days when I kept thinking, "One of these days..."

Today I raised the white flag and surrendered to potty training Gavin.  I told myself, "One of these days he will be ready.  He won't go to kindergarten in diapers."  For 6 days I told myself he was ready; that I was ready to this for the long haul.  But after the poopy underwear followed a few minutes later by the wet underwear (and wet carpet) - that I didn't find out about until I said, "Gavin, time to go potty," and he replied, "But I went pee pee in my underwear." - maybe he is not ready since he never tells me when he has to go.  And if I try to stretch beyond the 30-35 minute marker it usually ends in a watery mess.  Today's accidents coupled with his silence did me in.  I was ready for this to happen but I guess it isn't up to me.

When I rolled over and looked at the clock this morning and saw that it was a few minutes past ten I realized I slept too late and we missed church.  Then I begrudgingly got up and went into the living room to relieve Ryan since I knew he had a very big basketball game to watch - he's been looking forward to it all weekend and since he is not the kind of guy who is obsessive and obnoxious about watching every televised game (except during the Olympics.  Seriously, he will watch curling.  Curling.), I went and started to play with the boys so he could concentrate his eyes on watching the Huskies come really, really, really close to winning and making it to the Sweet 16.  I think.  Basketball is not something I would call a passion of mine.  Not even remotely. 

One of these days Theo will tell us what's wrong instead of screaming.

One of these days Theo will sleep through the night.

One of these days neither boys will be in diapers.

One of these days I won't ask, "Is that the dog or did one of the boys have a poopy?" and set out on a diaper checking mission. 

One of these days the announcement of dinner time won't be met with demands for "little bites,"  "medium bites", screaming, spoon throwing (Theo) and the Thank you, thank you Jesus song/prayer. 

One of these days getting dressed won't be an epic feat that defines the entire morning.

One of these days I will not remember having ever talked about myself in the third person.

One of these days I will sleep.

One of these days I will feel human again.

And when "one of these days" ever gets here I'm sure it will usher in new conundrums that will cause me to weep and wail.  But when those glorious days arrive I hope my boys are not too old to snuggle with their mama and give hugs and kisses.  As much as I'm looking forward to a quieter house I am really going to miss being super awesome in their eyes.  One of these days they will also realize how human and fallible I am.  We will all be ok so long as they know I love them to the moon and back.  At least that is my prayer.

Why

Before having children I didn't realize firsts (words, steps, smiles) were not always obvious.  It seems silly to question a first smile, word, crawl, step until you witness one.  Or think you witness one.  The first smile is blamed on gas.  The first crawl looks something like a dying sea creature trying to beach itself.  The first word may resemble a word but only a little.  Theo is a lagging in his language acquisition but that's fine.   Gavin was the same and yet he knew most of the alphabet by his second birthday.  I'm not too concerned.  I like to hear Theo babble and I get all sorts of excited when he graces us with one of his words, "Buh buh" is bye.  Banana is something along the lines of yaya.  My favorite is Mamamama.  Ryan's is probably Dadadada.  I think he even tried to say dump truck but only managed to say duh truh.

So to see a first, or in our case tonight - a new stage, and to realize you are in fact watching a first is something quite spectacular. 

Here is how this new stage played out in our house tonight.

Ryan was in the kitchen getting his plate ready for dinner.  Theo was in his highchair eating broccoli with cheese sauce (with a ratio of 1:2, that's one part broccoli and 2 parts cheese and if the ratio switched to 2:1 it was quickly rejected), Gavin was doing his best to avoid trying the broccoli and cheese sauce, the salad, the cucumbers, just dinner in general.  It was late and he had toys to play with.

Between shoveling food into Theo and coaxing Gavin to sit down at the table I was inhaling my salmon.

***Tangent:  it was the BEST salmon I've ever had at home.   Yum.  YUM!  YUM!  King Salmon is delicious.  It is such a fatty fish.  Mmm..... fat.*** 

I told Gavin he needed to sit at the table.

"Why?"

"Because we are a family and we eat together."

"Why?"

"Because we love each other and like to spend time together."

"Why?"

"Because....."  I don't remember what I said but it was clearly not a satisfactory answer to Gavin because he asked, "Why?"

Then to make sure we were knew he wanted some answers he said, "Why, why, why?"

My mouth dropped open and I turned to look at Ryan in the kitchen who turning his head with his mouth agape to look at me. 

"It started!" 

Ryan has been dreading the "why" stage.  Well, it's here, baby.   Oh, boy is it ever here.