whine and cheese (2024 edition)

it's about time for a good old airing of the grievances. while we have ever so much for which to give thanks, sometimes we need the catharsis of enumerating our woes, big and small. (you can read the 2023 edition here.)

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first up, potty training. I buckled down and trained Greta and Cecilia both around age 2 1/2, and it went fairly well (I'm a big fan of waiting until the kid is practically ready to train themselves). Elizabeth turned 2 1/2 near the end of the school year, and logically it seemed like a great time to buckle down -- we wouldn't be driving around to after school sports and activities and we'd have more time at home. I kept waiting for the day when I'd wake up full of excitement and motivation to strip off the diaper and chase a naked toddler around the house. and ... shockingly ... that day never came. then we were preparing for our trip to Seattle in July and it definitely didn't seem like the right time to train just before travel. then August came and we were busy with day trips to fun places around town. meanwhile, Elizabeth had been pooping on the potty on her own for quite some time (which is 75% of the battle for most kids!), so I did think that once we bit the bullet, it would go pretty smoothly. I went ahead and bought two packs of undies (one Bluey, one Paw Patrol, per her request) and kept waiting for the day when inspiration would strike.

one Thursday morning in September, she forced my hand by refusing to put a diaper on after she had gotten changed in the morning. annnnnd we were off. I set the timer on my phone to go off every 30 minutes and then every hour. I didn't shower or change out of PJs that day. none of my planned housework got done. we read a lot of books and sang a lot of songs. she had just started at a new daycare the day prior (more on that later!), so on Friday I sent her to school in pullups. and now, almost a month later, we're still dealing with accidents here and there, but for the most part she's pretty good. she still wears a pull-up at night and sometimes for naps depending on how much I feel like I can deal with wet sheets (the answer is: not that often). 

as potty training goes, it's been pretty smooth, BUT I reserve my right to complain about it because it is exhausting and adds just one more thing to the mental checklist (how long has it been since she peed? is she peeing right now in the corner behind me? should I put her in pull-ups for this trip in the car or do we chance it with undies?). 

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grocery prices. they're insane, right? I shop sales and do the bulk of the shopping at Aldi, which definitely has better prices than the other chains for most things. I feel like even a small "catch-up" order with produce, milk, bread and snacks (not even ingredients for full blown meals) ends up costing almost $100. it's nuts. I need to keep reminding myself that I'm not going to be able to buy a week's worth of groceries for 6 people in 2024 for the same amount that it cost to feed 2 people in 2012, but that's the number that keeps rattling around in my head. 

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hand, foot and mouth. ugh. we got a notice from daycare that the dreaded HFMD was going around, and the very next day Elizabeth complained that her mouth hurt. she had just one tiny blister on the tip of her tongue and otherwise seemed fine. the following afternoon, she was irritable and clingy. no fever, but just was very fussy and didn't sleep well. it then proceeded to spread to Cecilia and Greta. Victoria, Nick and myself never got it, but we had to cancel plans, the girls missed school and catechism class, and (a corollary complaint), we missed the last day at Antney's so now we won't get to taste their delicious ice cream again until spring. we went through a ton of ibuprofen suspension and popsicles and Lysol. poor Cece couldn't talk at all for a while and communicated solely through writing plaintive notes which she would then wave around an inch away from my face. I felt bad for her but also did not wish to get a paper cut on my eye, not to mention the fact that (as I reminded her many a time), I couldn't read the note when it was moving. everybody was just cranky and not their best selves. it was the worst. 

when Nick saw Cece's first question, he wondered the same thing (he stayed home with all four of them while I went to work on Monday, and somehow they all survived)

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the very, very broken political system. I'm not even going to go into it here but I just wish that there was a viable political candidate that I actually felt good about supporting. pretty much since I turned 18, I feel like I've been voting for the lesser of two evils, and for the past few political cycles, it's been hard to even determine which is the lesser. 

spotted in a parking lot the other day. how I wish these two were actually on the ballot! 

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general toddler mayhem. at 15 months and 2 years 10 months, the babies combined have destructive forces of epic proportions. the destruction can be loud: containers of blocks overturned, a box of crayons knocked off the kid's table, board books dumped out of a backpack. sometimes more calamitous, however, is the silent devastation wreaked by a toddler who has snuck into the bathroom if someone didn't properly latch the door (with its childproof knob): toilet paper unspooled onto the floor, or diaper cream smeared all over the cabinet and the child. Elizabeth often spends naptime emptying the dresser of clothes and diapers. she's usually happy to help tidy up as long as we sing "clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere!" jubilantly as we do so. but sometimes it seems pointless to even pick it up when it's just going to be dumped again the next day. and the worst part is that I feel, after ten years of parenting and having 4 kids, that I should know the perfect solution to this. I keep comparing the two of them to Greta and Cece, who never caused this much consistent chaos (one time Greta dumped cornstarch all over the living room, which I'll allow was terrible). but then I have to remind myself the two of them are three years apart, while the babies are 19 months apart, and that makes a difference. also, when Cece was Victoria's age, we were about to move to Rome, where we lived in a tiny apartment with a fraction of the stuff we have now, so there just wasn't as much opportunity for mess-making. and the dynamics are different. when it's just me with the babies, I know that I know that I know that I latched the baby gate to prevent them from wandering upstairs, and that I latched the bathroom door, and closed the "babyproof" latches on the cupboards (which Elizabeth can open). the big kids aren't always so diligent, so then... mayhem. 

apparently the top of the cupboard is no longer a safe place to store items. 

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finally, I leave you with one of the best memes I have come across in a while. everything about it is perfection. (I once read that men biologically are wired to visually scan an environment in a methodical order, whereas women are more likely to be able to view an area and take it all in at once, so they can then quickly locate something specific in that zone. whatever the reason, it is absolutely true that I am often summoned to find something in the refrigerator or the closet. it's the most annoying superpower ever.)

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Your turn: What's yanking your chain these days? Do you have an annoying superpower?