We switched Laurel from disposable to cloth training pants with waterproof covers at the beginning of the month. It started out well, but it seems like she's wetting herself more as the novelty wears off. If she keeps up at this pace, I'll have to do a separate load of training pants every day to keep her covered. I'm weighing my options at this point:
- buy more cloth training pants and covers locally; or
- order PODS® Potty Trainer pads from the Leaps and Bounds catalog.

I'm focusing on the kitchen this week even though this week's FlyLady zone is the bathroom because the counters are covered in stuff. I'd like some attractive free-standing shelves to sit on the counter facing on the entry to hold miscellaneous lightweight things (e.g., bento boxes, boxed snacks, maybe bottles of flavored oils and vinegars) but the shelving I like is half the height I want and the description doesn't indicate whether they're stackable. If anyone has suggestions, I'm looking for chromed steel shelving at a maximum width of 20", preferred height around 3' and depth 7-10" (deeper is okay).

I'm upgrading my installation of Gallery and installing MediaWiki on castle.geek.net this week, so if anything is off there, it's probably because of that. I know my Gallery pages are currently an eye-gouging scrubs blue; the upgrade reset the previously specified background color. I may have to write a skin since in Gallery 1.5, the top-level albums page has no properties option for me to specify a background color and I like the version 1.4 default skin in gray. Bah.

Most of the swelling disappeared by Sunday. I'm still quite tender under the left side of my jaw, but I can turn my head and look down without much pain. My knees hurt -- or rather, the muscle just above them on my thigh hurts -- but I think (hope) that it's peaked and is getting better now. On the weird side, I have a rash all over my feet and partway up my legs that looks like little blotchy pinpricks. It showed up on Monday (day 5 of 7 on the antibiotics) and looked so bad to Vogon that he woke me up at 0200 to take Benadryl and moved my meds to remind me to read a message he left on my computer to call the dentist in the morning and ask about continuing the antibiotics. I did and was advised to continue taking them unless I develop swollen joints or difficulty breathing or swallowing. So far I'm just kinda tired from taking a Benadryl with my morning dose, so I think I'll make Laurel lunch and lay on the couch for awhile, enjoying the breeze from the patio.

In good news, Laurel is successfully using the potty probably most of the time right now. I don't know what tripped it, but she's probably only wetting herself once a day or so and enjoying having a bubble bath every day she's good about using the potty. I hope to transition her from pull-ups (we're near the end of a package) to cloth training pants soon and then take her shopping for big-girl underwear. (:

I wouldn't recommend it as a weight-loss aid, but I think the clove oil I've been using has helped me lose the couple of pounds I was fussing over earlier in the month. The downside is that it tastes awful and kills my appetite because when my mouth isn't hurting, everything tastes like clove. Bleh.

Vogon offered to go out to Benedict's for brunch on Sunday to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Laurel's and my arrival here, but I wasn't feeling up to going out. On that note, I finally gave him and Biko their own pages in the about us section of my site. There's not much content on his page yet, but it's there. I wrote most of Biko's, but you were expecting that. *g*

Since I am cheap and Laurel can't really tell time yet, I'm stretching out Easter activities across this week. This afternoon we pretended to be rabbits and hopped around on the patio. We have an egg dying kit but I have to buy more eggs, after which you can expect photos of eggs she dyed and eggs I plan to paint to look like ¡Mucha Lucha! characters (Laurel likes to pretend to be Buena Girl).

In other good news, she peed twice in the potty today -- a huge leap from the handful of times she's peed in the potty in the past couple of months. That earned her a potty reward (a light-up Astro Boy figure) and an after-dinner bubble bath, which Vogon thought might be a good incentive for her after she regressed and stopped using the potty after that cold we all had a few weeks ago. We'll see how she does the rest of the week with potty use, but I'm cautiously optimistic again.

Laurel's potty schedule and mine coincided yesterday and she giggled when I told her "You go to your bathroom, I'll go to mine, then I'll come back and help you finish." Good: she's finally peeing on the potty, although it's only about twice a day so far. Less good: she keeps saying it's too hard to flush the toilet and I'm not sure what to do about that. Suggestions welcome.

Had a strange evening Friday after a friend of the nerdsprout's came by in the late afternoon claiming she was there to pick up all of the nerdsprout's stuff. (This is laughable as the nerdsprout left a roughly 150ft²/14m² room knee-deep in stuff and I haven't done the closet or under the bed yet.) Later that night, we were woken up by a police officer knocking persistently that left by the time we opened the door. No matter the cause of the visit, it drove home that I should never answer the door unless I'm expecting someone and I've visually confirmed their identity through the peephole. (Bonus: our UPS delivery guy is cute. I want to put a pointy gnome hat on him and take pictures.)

Laurel and I went to Hancock Fabrics today in search of basting spray, a kind of temporary spray adhesive, called for in directions for a sewing project. I wasn't willing to pay $12 for a small can, so we purchased a few things (mostly sale finds) and Laurel had fun playing with another little girl that was there with her mom. The grocery store wasn't as satisfying. They finally stock the mandarin orange method dish soap I like, but their self-checkout was ridiculously non-responsive (I got "item not found" the first five times I swiped a box of cereal) and an item whose shelf tag indicated a card sale price rang up at full price and the clerk overseeing self-checkout didn't want to double-check the price, so I left it. I got the things I really needed anyway and picked up a bottle of Neutrogena Healthy Scalp shampoo on clearance while I was at it. Whee.

Before purchasing stuff from Wild Ginger (we're looking at PatternMaster Boutique, Child's Play and Stitch-N-Stash), Vogon downloaded Wild Things to get a feel for their software. I've printed and partly assembled a pattern for a tote bag to carry Laurel's playground toys that should be cheerful in bright yellow cotton with a polka-dot lining. It's got some cute hat and bag patterns for those of you interested in tweaking and printing patterns from your computer.

We never took our sushi from Central Market to the park, but eating it and talking to Zuggy inspired me to go in search of plastic bento boxes, which I've wanted since I was introduced to them when we lived in Goldsboro through the lunch specials at Hikari. Lacquerware ones are pretty but too expensive for now so I turned to Froogle, which brought up several Asian specialty stores carrying lidded bento boxes for around $20 each and the bigairplane eBay store, where I scored four bento boxes for $7 each plus shipping. There may still be a few available at that price, but the next lot I saw were $8 apiece.

It's been a strange week but if I shook my virtual Magic 8 Ball, it would say the outlook is good aside from my stubborn sore throat.

Vogon installed the Flip-N-Flush on Monday night. He had the screws holding the toilet seat assembly out in a few minutes by holding the nut on the other side with pliers. Laurel's been sitting on the toilet every half hour during her waking hours since and I'm cautiously optimistic that she "get" it and want to be potty-trained soon so she can have at least a few months of preschool before starting kindergarten.

We went to our local US TOY Company store after lunch on Wednesday. While I didn't find what I wanted (Mom had seen Sesame Street hand puppets at the Highlands Ranch store, particularly Forgetful Jones), we had a lot of fun looking. Laurel got farm and wild animal cloth finger puppets, bubble wands, and a jump rope, I got two Where the Wild Things Are birthday cards on clearance, and Vogon picked up a bunch of small toys to take to work.

Since Wednesday is FlyLady's anti-procrastination day, I finally dug in and cleared a lot in Laurel's room. I filled three bags with trash (over a hundred pounds by Vogon's estimate), collected another two laundry loads worth of clothing to wash and pack, cleared the floor to turn the computer desk to be against the wall between the window and closet instead of next to it and blocking the window, then set the computer up so Laurel can use it, loaded the dresser with Laurel's clothing and DVDs, rounded up all of her toys in the bedroom and gave them places to stay (stuffed animals on the bed or chair and the rest into a cardboard file box), and vacuumed the floor aside from two small patches I hadn't fully decluttered.

I still have the aforementioned un-vacuumed areas to declutter, boogie and sort, then I have to tackle under the bed and the closet. Once that's done, all the nerdsprout's stuff minus a few items we're using (bedding, computer, TV and DVD player) will be packed and ready for storage.

On Thursday, I washed the laundry from the bedroom, pulled the linen off the scroll frame I'm going to try cleaning (Laurel took a writing pen to it awhile back; if it doesn't come clean I'll buy a new piece for the project since I'm only a few dozen stitches in), serged the edges of a piece of Aida and started stitching a project I'd meant to start in December and have been pleased at how quickly it's stitching up. 14-count Aida is downright pleasurable after all the counting for my last few projects on higher-count fabrics.

I've been taking it easy and stitching most of today, but I have laundry to fold later and a few pieces of mending to do. Laurel was remarkably well-behaved at lunch after getting over that we were going to eat at Clay Pit and not the Chili's next door to it, stuffing herself with naan in between fruit salad, cream of tomato soup, and tandoori chicken. She loved the ladies room, too; she was charmed by the foaming soap dispenser, basket of potpourri between the sinks, and the motion-activated paper towel dispenser.

I have flannel washed and ready to press so I can make pajama pants over the weekend, but right now I'm thinking about Vogon's offer over lunch today to go to Central Market tomorrow and have a picnic lunch at the park with sushi. Mmm.

My potty-training order from ZIP Baby arrived today. Initial impressions:

- I still haven't installed the Flip-N-Flush seat because removing the plastic screws that hold the lid/seat assembly onto the toilet has taken ridiculously long and I still haven't gotten either screw out yet.
- Laurel immediately took to the VibraLITE watch and minds the countdown timer's beep/vibration very well, though she keeps changing how it goes off since she figured out which button to press for that. Heh. Also need to either acquire or make a smaller band for it, as the one it came with would be generously sized on me so I'm amazed it's still on her .
- Haven't set up the Potty Elmo yet, but Laurel keeps walking by the kitchen entrance and peeking in at it. The encouraging song is really cute but I think it'll mostly be used while Vogon's at work so the voice and singing doesn't drive him bats.

Back to working on removing the darn plastic screws so I can install the Flip-N-Flush...

I made a few potty-training related purchases today from ZIP Baby that are a mix of easier solutions for things we're already doing and a less-expensive alternative to something I'd like to try:
- Flip-N-Flush, a semi-permanent toilet seat adapter that fits between the regular seat and lid so it doesn't interfere with regular toilet use and lets the lid close normally. It also comes in pink, which is important to Laurel.
- VibraLITE 3, a watch with an automatically repeating countdown timer that can be set to beep and/or vibrate, which should be less frustrating for Laurel than me reminding her to sit on the potty every half hour and easier for me than resetting the timer twice in a given half-hour to remind of the half hour and a 3-5 minute sitting. She's interested in telling time and loves my watch, so we'll see if she wants to wear it and if she doesn't, I will. It's a cute watch.
- Potty Elmo, which isn't a true drink-and-wet doll (the ideal is the Corolle 'Emma', which can hold its water instead of immediately wetting itself and costs twice as much as Elmo) but I think the drink->potty correlation and songs by one of her favorite characters will help. As a bonus, if it's still in near-new condition after she's potty-trained I can sell it on eBay and let her "splurge" on lots of big-girl underwear.

Laurel is coming out with some increasingly amusing lines lately.

She's getting much better with potty use and not wasting toilet paper. When she realized that her potty cup was not in the potty when she went into the bathroom this morning, she hollered, "Where's my potty?" I'll take any small victories where I can get them.

In proof she actually understands what we're saying to her, she uses "Don't say that, try another word!" on us frequently. It's helped curb her parroting of inappropriate words, but she usually says it when she wants us to stop talking in the car. Last week she used it while we were on the way on lunch, talking about something completely innocuous. *shakes head*

One of her favorites is "It smells like a wet dog in here." I'm not sure where she got it from, but it was funny yesterday because it was raining. It was just strange today when she said that to me while I was handing her a bowl of fruit for a midmorning snack.

A few minutes ago, she came out with "This song scares me!" while the Sesame Street theme was playing. I am even more confused since it's one of her favorite songs, so I assume it must be something visual that bothered her. (She runs off and covers her eyes during the opening of The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss because she's afraid of the Grinch puppet.)

Potty-training is coming along slowly but surely. In the past week, Laurel's learned to use a reasonable amount of toilet paper to wipe (she has wiping down without a hitch), has learned to dump her potty cup into the toilet, and is starting to wash her hands by herself afterward without asking for help. On Saturday, she used the potty three times and dumped it into the toilet by herself.

Future goals: flushing the toilet, using the toilet instead of the potty, and peeing in the potty or toilet. I'm getting real tired of pee-smell.

Laurel is such a girl sometimes. Now that she's gotten the hang of using toilet paper, she uses way too much and I've had to plunge the toilet twice in the last two days. It gave me flashbacks of college, only it smells much better here.

We rented Shrek 2 over the weekend. Laurel ignored it when we all sat down in the living room to watch it, but proceeded to watch it two or three times before we had to return it (two-day rental) in her room, where she glommed onto the songs. I didn't realize how much until she said "I like your sexy shirt, and I really like my sexy shoes!". I replied that she should try another word, like soft shirt and new shoes, which she interrupted with "I'm a model and I do my little turn on the catwalk". It took me a second to realize she was imitating Prince Charming singing "I'm Too Sexy".

Speaking of shoes, Laurel got new ones over the weekend. She fell for a cute pair of red Mary Janes, but we could only find them in larger and smaller sizes. We picked up a pair a size up for her to wear later and found a pair of brown t-straps with Winnie-the-Pooh on them for now.

While showering, I commented that her shower stuff, kids' peach shower gel and cherry shampoo, smells really good. She replied "I smell like fruit salad!". I wonder if there's a Febreze for people, because she smells really bad in the mornings with a wet Pull-Up. (She's got pooping down, but she shows no understanding that sitting in a wet pullup is uncomfortable or that her body will tell her when she has to pee.)

We had lunch at Clay Pit yesterday. Their buffet is much smaller than Pasand's so there's less chance of me having a Bad Allergy Experience (I'm allergic to an enzyme found in several tropical fruits), but I really need to do some reading so I can pick things to try based on more than looks. *wry grin*

Today we tried another new to me place -- Freeb!rds World Burrito. A little pricey to my inherent frugality, but I could live on them for days. Laurel adored having refritos and rice _in_ her quesadilla and all but inhaled it, which is great for her getting into the habit of actually eating lunch at lunchtime, instead of picking then and eating the leftovers at home later. One of Vogon's coworkers commented that the cycling Lady Liberty made him feel slightly dirty because he could see her bare legs. Heh.

Laurel's potty use has gone down this week but she's not pooping herself, which is good. I think the stickers are really keeping her motivated -- she really likes to count her stickers on the calendar and she was thrilled to see reward stickers in the latest package from my folks (1.5" square Sesame Street and assorted shape/sizes of Belle). She currently has 25 minutes of unredeemed reward minutes, which she'll be able to use on video games tonight after dinner. (I could use some time to watch Y Tu Mama Tambien!)

Just in time for PMS, I've gotten a yeast infection. This is annoying since I shouldn't use my cup until the infection clears (thank goodness for one-day OTC treatments), but it's the impetus I need to finally make some cloth pads. I would be a good little consumer and use disposables, but something in them makes my skin unbearably itchy. So far, I've looked at corniecorn's cloth pad pattern, Debi Elrod's pattern at diapersewing.com, a DIY Cloth Pads Tutorial at craftster.com, and diy_pads. I'll post later with what I wind up making.

Two of the nerdsprout's friends stopped by yesterday to pick up a few things she'd asked for. What they actually took was a bit more, but the important thing is that they let themselves in before I could get to the door, so we're going to start locking the door during the day and I'll have a housekey.

It's too early to predict whether the current potty reward (a sticker on the day's calendar square for each use, redeemable for five minutes per sticker at the pool, playground, etc.) is successful, but the midget's had at least three potty uses daily and no poop messes since we started.

Today is the last day for the buy 1, get 2 coupon for Albertson's store brand frozen waffles, so yours truly dropped $2 for thirty waffles (20 blueberry, 10 apple cinnamon). Laurel is thrilled and looking forward to breakfast tomorrow.

There was more kicking around in my brain, but I'd like to keep packing up the nerdsprout's stuff while I'm motivated.

The latest tack on potty-training: five minutes in the pool for each potty use. We put a small sticker on the calendar for each use and in the afternoon, she gets to go swimming for the earned time. Today she got fifteen minutes in the pool and will hopefully earn another ten before bedtime. *crosses fingers*

She loves the new swimming bag -- a grocery-sack style bag (I'm still working out the bugs, so most of them are muslin) in a large-scale fish print I had a remnant of large enough for two bags. I'm thinking about ripping out the serged finish around the edges and finishing them with the sewing machine since I need a lot more experience serging around curves before they look half decent.

I need to draw the line on no animal behavior other than noises. We've been working on not licking (she licks people, her toys, tables and counters, etc. despite regular reminders otherwise), but today I caught her after she dumped a handful of tortilla chips on the floor and was preparing to eat them off the floor. Later, she tried to throw her beach towel over the cat. *sighs*

I'm thinking of making a GIR icon for Laurel posts. Picked up a bunch of screenshots but the one for "Let's make biscuits!" (ep. "Planet Jackers") wasn't as crisp as I'd like. I'm debating whether to make one of my own since we currently have the volume of episodes it's on checked out from Blockbuster. Suggestions welcome.

I received an e-mail from Robert Hayden today about an album he bought. I'm really touched that Vanessa-Mae reminds him of me.

In lieu of real content, here's some commentary on what I've been reading online lately.

• In High-Risk Patients, MRI Detects Breast Cancers That Mammograms Miss
  SciAm article, further nudging me toward finding out someday whether the BRCA mutation runs in my maternal family line.


• Wacom Intuos 3 press release
  From Digital Photography Review (digitalphoto). And now you know: my soul's estimated street value is US$450.


• The mini course (free registration required) from ThePottyTrainer.com
  I'm seriously thinking about buying her book because the midget can't start preschool until she's potty-trained.


• Why specs matter
  diveintomark post; the excerpt in the archives reads "Most developers are morons, and the rest are assholes."

And because I'm too lazy to make a separate announcement post, August 2004 photos were posted to oddharmonic.org a few days ago.

I took the plunge and joined FlyLady. Between the regular e-mail motivation and giving myself the reward of the Office in a Bag and Control Journal package if I stick with FLYing and stay on track for a month, I think it's going to work out well. Feel free to call me out on it at any time.

While setting up Laurel's water table today, I repaired the hanging loop for the shorter chile ristra, which broke when Vogon went out to move them after it started raining in the wee hours of Thursday morning. I moved the smoker out of the way for the shorter ristra to hang straight down (the longer one is looped up over another hanger so it doesn't drag on the ground; it'll shorten as it dries) and dumped a surprising amount of water out of it in the process, then scooted the turkey fryer stand Vogon used for the last batch of tamales up against the column separating the runs of railing to make it easier to sweep the patio after I empty the water table. Still have to bring the tamale pot in to wash, though. Whee.

There's something really funny about Laurel asking to listen to "Get Busy" while she sits on her potty.

Laurel's had trouble not losing sunglasses this year, so we picked up a Chums Original retainer for her sunglasses. In addition to holding them more securely than sunglasses retainers we've tried before, they make her sunglasses easy to find if she decides to take them off in the car.

In the past month, she's started drawing things I can recognize without asking her "tell me about it" when she shows me a drawing: a cat toy on a string, a sitting cat, a lobster eating a goldfish (Spike, our blue prawn, eats feeder fish) and several airplanes (we live near an airport). I'll scan some of her best drawings in the next few weeks and stick them in a Gallery album for anyone interested in seeing them.

Out of water-conserving habit, I dump the ice from takeout cups after I finish drinking from them. Tonight, Laurel took my empty cup and dumped it in the sink. I was so proud of her I did a little celebratory dance with her in the kitchen and thanked her for being so considerate. A few minutes later, she took the stepstool into the kitchen and I heard... crunching. I went over and pushed the remaining ice down the disposal, then gave her some ice from the freezer in a bowl to play with.

Laurel had three successful potty sits on Monday, then failed to sit until after she started going Tuesday and today. I think this is linked to that we bought her Pampers Feel 'n Learn disposable training pants over the weekend and I forgot to pack them when we returned to Dallas, so we're using up the end of an open package of regular disposable training pants before buying more Feel 'n Learn pants. She really liked the Dora the Explorer pattern and had fewer soiled pants with them, so it looks like they might be part of the impetus she needs to become potty-trained.

After yesterday's poopfest, I do have good news about Laurel. Her eyes are noticeably less crossed, so now she rarely looks cross-eyed in photos and is coloring in the lines _without_ wearing an eyepatch. She's doing fine detail coloring, too -- today at lunch she very carefully colored a boat oar with a handle barely the width of a pencil and proudly showed it to us.

A colorful incentive has helped her sit on the potty -- a sand/water wheel from my family. It's sitting on the counter facing the living room so she can see it from anywhere in the kitchen, living room or dining room. I'll report later on how well it helps her.

I'm making headway on tidying the nerdsprout's bathroom and bedroom so the former will be presentable and the latter will be tidy enough to tuck Laurel into bed in while nerdsprout's away. Fear my leet organization skills.

In other news, I am in search of empty mint tins, preferably about the size of those used for Altoids, Penguins, Zingos and the like, but larger, smaller or round are fine too. If you've got empty tins sitting around you'd like to send to a good home instead of throwing away, drop me an e-mail and I'll give you a mailing address to send them to. Danke.

edit 1900: Dad e-mailed me to remind me KBCO's annual Studio C cover contest is open. I'm still angry that Clear Channel bought them, but... *sigh* It's BCO and I have nothing to lose except the cost of shipping an entry to Boulder. Must convince myself again that I can draw.

Laurel's had a hit-or-miss week for using the potty -- she started out with an average of three or four sits and two successful uses a day and now won't sit except for after dirtying a pull-up. Next week will be better, especially with the standing offer of a half hour in the pool (hot tub for now, but pool more as it gets warmer) for two successful uses a day.

She was happily indulged earlier this weekend by the presence of kids at a get-together last night followed by Vogon's nerdsprout and friends taking her swimming earlier this afternoon.

I got the Mother's Day cards out earlier in the week but not the envelope of photos to my family, mostly because I haven't gotten the urge to cross the busy intersection just before the shipping store *much* closer than the post office.

On a personal but public note, Vogon's cat has accepted me. That's not quite the word I'm looking for, but she's gone from like to approval (by giving me gentle love-bites, which she apparently only gives to a handful of people) to acceptance (kneading me when she's happy). Definitely fits her breed. (:

On the potty-training front, we discovered the sprayer head on the hose attached to the second sink in the master bath removes poop from Laurel much more efficiently than the handheld showerhead and, more importantly, Laurel spontaneously sat down and pooped in her potty today. V. proud of the latter.

I want to start liking the metallic thread I'm finishing New World Discovery with. It feels like a third of the three-ply Kreinik cord I couched on a piece in the past, but it tangles like nothing I've ever seen. If I can just hang in there for the remainder of it (several hundred stitches around the border of one strand each of metallic and floss), I'll be in the home stretch of three strands of floss half-stitches, backstitching and french knots, but today I put it down instead. I am amazed at myself, but I need to get my hands on an appropriate-sized scroll frame to work on Amy's wedding piece.

I finished Laurel's flannel pajama pants today but am too lazy to photograph them now. You'll laugh your butt off when you see the waist detail. I could stand much more practice with narrow hems; the stitching at the top of the waist casing is less than 1/4" from the top of the garment and I could not keep it evenly spaced from the top to save my life so it varies up to 1/16" as it goes around. Must get used to straight stitching faster than I treadle. (:

Laurel is playing naked on the patio today in an effort to both use fewer pull-ups and make it easier for her to sit on the potty (outside with her) when she feels like she has to go. In the hour hour she's been outside so far, she's pooped on the patio (scooping it up with toilet paper a little hot soapy water took care of it) ans sat on her potty twice afterward. I'm glad she's finally sitting on her own, although it hasn't been fruitful yet. When it is, she has her choice of shiny adjustable rings, press-on nails or candy as a reward. Here's hoping.

I helped her write letters home yesterday -- one to the family and one to Abby and Gracie, the neighbor's golden retrievers. Included are a couple of drawings, one of which is her nearly legible attempt at writing Abby's name. I am v. impressed although it nags me that she might be doing better if we'd had corrective surgery on her eye muscles. *sigh* I know I can't change that now, but in a few years she'll be old enough for visual therapy and that should help her overcome whatever's left of her eye-crossing after a few years or regular patching.