so many titles to this post...

that I could not pick one:

A tale of the potty.
A girl can dream, can't she?
Poop & the potty - an epic adventure.
If you can use the iPad, you can poop in the potty.

If you have not guessed it, I speak of Sir Andrew, the five year old who is not fully potty trained. Now, all you mercy and patient types, keep your panties un-wadded. I still love him. He is fabulous. He just needs to poop in the potty. It all seems so simple on this side of the keyboard. Until you are cleaning up crap.

If you scroll through the years of blogs (yes, years of potty training, not months, not days, years), you will see that this is not a new fetish. I have successfully potty-trained three other boys. I can do this. We can do this. HE can do this. But he hasn't been. If slow and steady wins the race, he WILL be the champ, but for this instant-gratification girl, slow and steand stinks.

So, I have been recently convicted that I need to pray more for my children. God knows them. HE has a plan for them. They are his. I am just here to do my part. Somtimes my part is deep spiritual wisdom. Most times my part is to keep them alive despite themselves. But, I do know that I must train them to be on their own. With their own lives and their own wives (God bless those women, now them, I DO pray for on a more regular basis - [seriously, I do!}

But I digress. Andrew very rarely pees his pants. I think a 50 year old woman with a good sense of humor and a lot of vaginal deliveries pees herself more than Andrew. Get my drift, here? He wakes up dry and hardly EVER has a pee accident. Ok, so you have that picture. Insert here that he only poops once a day. I could go into life details about myself and family here that you do NOT want to know, but you get the picture. If you miss the one time of day that he poops, you are back to square one. The fun starts all over again. The looking for clues, asking him if he has to go, feeding him chick-fil-a and making him sit on the potty 30 minutes later kind of "all over again."

Insert into this whole story Blake whose eczema has become the bane of my existence. We now have a special spot on the couch that is covered in bath towels where Blake gets his nightly rub down of lotion that costs more than my face cream that is supposed to make me look like a teenager.

Insert Jeffrey. As I rub down Blake, I tell him how sorry I am that he is suffering and that I wish it were me and not him. Jeffrey reminds me of the power of prayer and suggests that we pray together more often for our family needs. Nothing like the mouths of our children to speak truth.

Andrew is already in bed and the other five of us gather to pray. I confess to the boys that I have not been as consistent as I would like to be in my prayer life, and I tell them that since God is the God of the Universe, he can certainly remind Andrew that he needs to take a poop BEFORE he has ruined another pair of tidy whites (which we toss if they are violated). We pray. For our family. For each of them. For Andrew to poop in the potty. We all giggle as we pray because around this boy world, just the mention of poop is funny. poop. poop. poop. (that would elicit roars of laughter here.)

So this is Thursday night. Friday = zero poop. Rats. Lost chance. But Saturday, oh, fabulous Saturday. He pooped on the potty - not once, but twice! The boys were thrilled. Their little faiths were strengthened. And I did not have to clean up poop. It was a banner day. I was happy. I was hopeful. A girl has to dream, doesn't she. Dream of a day when all poop in this house goes in the potty???

Thank you, Lord, for giving us hope. Hope in you.

The funny fabulous males in my life...

I forget sometimes that I am the only girl around here. I get so used to being in "boy-world." Let me tell you ladies, boy-world can be so much more simple than girl-world. This week has been a lesson in it, and has given me the giggles more than once.

Baseball Camp.
I have two children that are VERY into sports. They watch sports. They play sports. They talk about sports. sports. sports. sports. Get the idea? So after the first half of summer being here - and ALL OF US BEING IN THE HOUSE 24 HOURS A DAY - whew, exhausting just to think it, the MAMA (that would be me) gets on-line and finds some CAMPS to ship the little darlings off to.

Baseball is the current passion, and U.T. (my alma mater) has Spartan Baseball Camp. Excellent. It is from 9am to 4pm. The boys are outside ALL DAY - learning baseball skills all morning, lunch, quick swim, then play baseball games all afternoon. My idea of hell. Their idea of heaven. Goodie. I sign them up.

Day One. Jeff takes Blake and Jeffrey to camp. Brantley is smart enough to figure out that 7 hours in the sun =hot, sticky, sweaty, and he declines to attend. Brilliant child. Andrew is in summer school, so out the door the two jocks go.

Jeff takes them on the first day. I am a bit nervous about leaving Blake (who is 7) all day, but figure big brother is with him and the camp was stupidly expensive - losing my kid would be bad for business, so we go for it. Jeff gets home and I have a million questions - does it look cool, was it safe, did you tell them about Blake's peanut allergy, where do I pick them up, what was the drop off procedure and my list goes on and on. Jeff finally says, "honey, I pulled in the circular drive. I got out. There were two dudes sitting a table with a clipboard that looked in charge. They checked Blake and Jeffrey in, tossed Blake's epi-pen in a medical box, and told the boys which dug-out to report to. I got in the car and came home."

So, I go to pick them up. I go the circular drive. There is a concession stand and the moms have begun to swarm. Blake is buying his 12th gatorade for the day. I ask the guy if I need to sign Blake out. "Oh, no, just take him." Just take him??? The guy gives my mini-van driving-self a look like, lady, if you want him and he will go with you take him. But, he politely says, "We are keeping a close eye on them."

Now, we go to a LARGE church where the security is TIGHT. You have to have your claim check or someone is going to pat you down and take your life history before giving you your kid, so this new method of drop off and pick up is a little strange to me. The camp averages 30-80 kids a week and all the baseball players (or it seemed like all of them) from the college team are helping out, coaching, etc. So, the adult to child ratio is HIGH, but still.

The boys LOVED it. They had Wendy's for lunch on day one. Pizza on day two. They are playing SO hard. It is awesome. I think because it is ALL GUYS. The camp is run by guys. The coaches are guys. The kids are all guys. IT is a swarm of male hormones. There is not a mama in sight to baby you or give you sympathy. They are there to play.

Blake also gets a brush with fame. Ray's player, BJ Upton was there practicing batting. Blake had his Upton T-shirt on! So, Upton comes over - and tells him that he likes his shirt! Talks directly to Blake and talks to him again today. It was way cool. I also thought that if I was a baseball "star" - really nothing would be cooler than some little guy to be wearing a shirt with my name on it. More male bonding.

So, today I ask Blake if the coaches know his name - or if they wear name tags. "No." Blake tells me. So, what do they call you? I ask him.

Get this.

"Dude."

Me:"What do they call the other boys."

Wait for it...
"
"DUDE!

Hilarious. How he knows they are talking to HIM, I have zero clue, but he does not seem to mind, so, whatever. Blake looked at me like I was asking the strangest questions EVER - who cares about nametags when you get to play baseball ALL DAY LONG???

I go across the street after picking up Blake (which takes all of 30 seconds because all the boys are waiting out front to get in their mom's mini-vans) to pick up my niece from drama camp (run by women - lots of mom involvement). There is a huge back-up of traffic line and security cards. I am more at home with this procedure, and a bit happier with it.

It took over 20 minutes. Dude. Maybe the guys are onto something?