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Bev did this for her Thursday Thirteen – and I thought it was such a good idea that I’m borrowing it.

Plus, this whole potty training thing has totally sapped my creativity. :-)

But I won’t talk about potty training ANYMORE.

At least not today.

Thirteen Things I’m Thankful For
1. We set the TiVo to record “A Bug’s Life” over the weekend. But “Pillow Talk” came on instead. And I would SOOO rather watch Doris Day and Rock Hudson than animated bugs. Have y’all SEEN all those cute stoles and hats that Doris Day wore? I think I want to be her when I grow up.

2. We have air conditioning. That may seem a little trivial, but I’m not taking it forgranted. Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but OH MY SWEET MERCY it’s hot.

3. We have a fresh 24-pack of diet Coke in the kitchen.

4. Ground chuck is on sale for $1.99 a pound at Publix. THAT NEVER HAPPENS. It makes me want to buy eleventy hundred pounds. But I don’t have a deep freeze. Or $2200 to spend on hamburger meat. But still.

5. WIRELESS, HIGH SPEED INTERNET. Let’s have a moment of silence in honor of that one, especially given the fact that this past weekend I was bogged down in Daddy’s dial-up debacle.

6. When Alex says his prayers at night, he says, “Thank you for Jesus’ name. Thank you for Amen.” And it makes me want to cry just a little bit.

7. Remember me telling you about Emma Kate and Brad feeling led (by God – not with, you know, a leash) to do a new work in Tupelo? Well, things are movin’ and groovin’ with that. And one day, in the not-so-distant-future, when I tell y’all all the details, you’re not going to believe it. Well, yes you will. But I’m telling you, it is gonna be cause for some TESTIFYIN’, and God will get ALL the glory. Seriously.

8. My husband just stopped by the couch on his way to bed and gave me a very sweet hug and kiss. That never, ever gets old.

9. You. I’m thankful for YOU, the person sitting there, looking at your monitor, wishing this post were over already. :-) Writing is great and all, but this blog wouldn’t be nearly as fun for me if y’all didn’t make time to read it. And comment. And email. And call. And come back day after day.

10. Sarah is going to be writing for Lisa Whelchel’s website (yes! BLAIR WARNER! I KNOW!). I am so tickled for Sarah – first of all because she’s one of my favorite people I’ve never met – and secondly because God is providing her with a ministry so uniquely geared to her gifts. If you’re not reading her blog, you’re missing a blessing. I just love her.

11. This person and this person and this person are all coming to visit soon. And we’re going to Paula’s restaurant! We are!

12. I don’t have to cook for the next two nights! We’re having supper at our neighbors’ house tonight, then at some other friends’ house tomorrow night. And I will be thrilled to death if all we have is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich – because I don’t have to plan it or fix it. That makes me happy.

13. God is good. All the time.

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People who know me in real life (I always feel weird when I say that because it implies that blogging is some sort of fake life, which of course it isn’t) will tell you that I have about a 24 hour window for staying at home. I always find that a solid day at home leaves me feeling rejuvenated and ready to conquer the world, but more than that and I start to go a little stir crazy. I start thinking too much, analyzing too much, wondering what “the normal people” are doing at those places where you can shop and eat and work and talk to other adults. I start to feel isolated.

I have been home for over 48 hours now. You must trust me when I tell you that ain’t pretty. Because I have lost all perspective and have turned into a crazy woman. A crazy woman armed with a container of Clorox wipes, frantically wiping the commode after every use. Because let’s just say that the little man likes to quite literally get in touch with his porcelain surroundings when he uses the bathroom.

It is the potty training that’s kept us at home. Necessity, not choice. I’ve determined that one reason Alex struggled the last couple of weeks is because we were on the go a lot, so I figured it might do him some good to stay put for a few days.

Find his potty groove, if you will.

And it seems to have worked. He has not had an accident all day today – and has pretty much run around unclothed because he wants to use the potty every 2.4 minutes. He has had tons – TONS – of chocolate, but that’s okay because I figure we can pay for the dental bills with all the money we’re saving on diapers.

Just look how everything works out!

*fake smile*

So I’m going to turn off this computer and go in search of a better mood. And tomorrow we are GOING SOMEWHERE, dadgumit, come tee-tee or high water. Or high tee-tee, heaven forbid.

OH MY SWEET GOODNESS there’s no turning back, is there?

I haven’t talked much about Potty Training ’06 because, well, it’s been a bit of a train wreck. We moved to Pull-Ups a couple of weeks ago, but any requests / encouragements / demands about going to the bathroom have been met with “No thank you, Mama. I don’t want to go to the potty. No thank you.”

I give him points for being polite, at least.

But here’s what seems to be working (she says, with fingers, toes, and eyes crossed): throw out the Pull-Ups. Put the young’un in some underwear. Let nature take its course. And, despite every pre-parenthood vow that I would not, would NOT bribe my child to bring about a certain behavior, BRIBE THAT CHILD LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS. :-) At least when it comes to potty training.

Seriously, the combination of Superman / Spider Man / Batman underwear, lots of encouragement and praise, and a couple of bags of Hershey’s Miniatures (two pieces of chocolate after every successful potty trip) is giving us MUCH better results. He’s so much more interested in going to the potty now that his underwear becomes a little, um, uncomfortable if he reverts back to diaper-ish behavior.

And the chocolate helps, seeing as how our child considers it The Most Special Treat Of All The Special Treats In The History Of Ever.

It works for me!

For now. :-)

Alex and his cousin M. have always been pretty big buddies.

But on this latest trip to Mississippi, they got to spend more time together than they normally do. And M. is eight now, so in addition to the fact that she CAN look out for Alex, she WANTS to look out for him. Very maternal, she is.

So as I was transferring these pictures from the camera to the computer this afternoon, I noticed a common denominator that I missed when I took them.

In every single picture, she is in some way reaching for Alex. If she’s not reaching, it’s because she’s holding him.

And I think that’s about the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.

My sister-in-law Rose – who is married to D.’s brother – is what you might call fit.

No, Fit.

No. FIT.

She’s a fitness machine, is what she is.

She’s one of those people who has a passion for health and wellness, and as a result she is usually either running or lifting weights or playing tennis or swimming. Sometimes she even runs to the place where she’s going to lift weights or play tennis or swim, so inevitably when I’m around her for more than about three minutes I realize that all my Professional Gravy Drinking is not serving me so well fitness-wise. And then I feel like a bit of a slug.

And clearly, when feeling like a slug, the only response is to drink more gravy and then eat donuts. Which really gets me nowhere in my quest for Rose-like fitness. And since the word “quest” implies that I’m actively pursuing some sort of fitness journey, I think saying “my THOUGHTS of Rose-like fitness” would actually be a much more legitimate representation of the truth.

Anyway, this past Saturday night I ran by Rose’s to pick up Alex’s car seat and sippy cups and other stuff that had migrated over there during All The Swimming, and Rose was on the computer. Now granted, she was still glistening from her late afternoon run – I’m fairly certain that her arm muscles were pulsing (in direct contrast to my arm muscles that were atrophying by the second) – but as soon as I saw her sitting in front of the computer monitor, I got a little tickled because I knew that comedy – BIG COMEDY – was in store.

Because while my sister-in-law can run a mile in five minutes and hit a tennis ball with deadly accuracy, she can’t work a computer to save her life. And when she saw me – her admittedly non-fit but comparatively computer-savvy sister-in-law – she pretty much clapped her hands with glee. And thankfulness.

See, the whole notion of typing a web address in the browser toolbar is utterly foreign to Rose. If she wants to find something, she clicks on the search button, then types what’s she’s looking for.

In this particular case, she was looking for “guy with funny name on food network who had great zucchini recipe.”

I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn that she wasn’t getting very strong search results.

So I typed in the homepage for Food Network, bookmarked it, showed her how to pull up the bookmarks, and then found the elusive recipe (shocking newsflash: she will not be including the cheese when she prepares this dish). And then I helped her find several other recipes, and oh it was all so glorious, until Rose realized that she couldn’t actually, you know, read the recipes because the font was too small on the screen.

At that point I went into her computer settings, changed her screen resolution, went back to the recipes page, and showed her how the type was now much bigger.

And you would have thought, as the gratefulness was practically pouring out of her non-gravy-drinking mouth, that I had presented her with buckets of chocolate and gold, though the chocolate would most definitely have to be fat- and sugar-free, and come to think of it, she doesn’t really like chocolate, so really, I should say: you would have thought that I had presented her with buckets of lettuce and gold.

Only money doesn’t mean that much to her, so let’s try one more time: you would have thought that I had presented her with buckets of lettuce and pretzels. Yes. That’s better.

And all I could think was that it’s too bad that blogging doesn’t result in rock-solid abs.

Because I’m telling you. If it did?

I would be RIPPED.

I bet you hate that you missed hearing Alex yell say some variation of “I DON’T WANNA GO HOME; I DON’T WANNA GO TO MY HOUSE” throughout our 2 1/2 hour drive this afternoon, huh?

It was LOTS of fun.

Apparently staying with grandparents and having Coke and pancakes for breakfast agrees with him. He doesn’t mind the pound cake for lunch, either. Or having an aunt and cousin around the corner who want nothing more than to take him swimming every single day. Or staying up so late that I’m embarrassed to tell y’all a specific hour.

But suffice it to say: laaaaate.

So the toddler was not at all excited about returning to The Land of Boredom, Home of Ye Olden Routine, though he did get a good bit better once he saw his daddy and had an “OH YEAH – that guy! I LIKE that guy!” moment.

Anyway, now I have laundry to do and phone calls to return and blogs to read (oh my sweet goodness at the blog reading – I need two days of solitude just to catch up). And a Bible study post to write. And a husband who hasn’t seen his family in about five days.

See y’all tomorrow.