hoarding hoarders

Dammit. I may be addicted to yet another tragically bad reality show: Hoarders. Watching the show is now one of our guilty pleasures. It's just so...gross. People who started with a couple of animals, a little collection of old magazines, a penchant for shopping the sale racks, a feeling that you have to keep things because you may use them "someday."

It makes me think...am I a hoarder? I mean, let's face it. I have a lot of shoes.
A LOT. And I don't like to get rid of them. They may come back in style, they may go with that one future outfit, they may get more comfortable. I have over a hundred pairs of shoes. This picture is just of the boot closet...the brown boot side. Hoarder.

Let's talk about Nature's Seasoning. Best spice EVER! It's THE secret ingredient in Mom's famous potato salad (which I now pass off as my famous potato salad). And over the years it's become harder and harder to find so when I see it at the store, I buy lots of it. Sometimes all of it. I probably have over 20 bottles of it. I like other spices too. If the apocalypse comes, I should be well equipped to barter with my Mormon pantry-loading neighbors. Trade you some oats and rice for some spices that makes your stuff taste good! Still...Hoarder.

And then there are bikinis, books, MAC eye shadow and lipsticks, photos, recipes...yep, I am a hoarder of many things. I'm not alone. Scott hoards boat stuff - ropes and fenders and life jackets, and motorcycle stuff and old Wasatch Marine logo t-shirts. And we both hoard episodes of Hoarders on Tivo.

So the question is, at what point are you an official hoarder as opposed to just a collector or a regular human being? Apparently, it's when your shit overtakes your life. That's it, shoes! You stay in the closet!

Footnote: I started this blog as a bit of a joke, and then when I saw the photos I thought...Oh my god! I may really be at the front end of a problem! Some serious closet cleaning is happening as we speak. And I need to organize my suits.

look-a-likes

I posted a new picture of Sloane on my Facebook account and several friends were like - oh, she's so cute! She looks just like you!

It got me wondering, because I think our kids look like us but does she really? So I pulled up some old photos (and I'm talking really old).

That's Sloane, my niece Harper (my brother's daughter who is 5 weeks older than Sloane), and me on my 1st birthday about a hundred years ago.

I think the answer is yes! There's a definite resemblance. I guess maybe that Chinese parable is true. Your family is connected by a red thread and it pulls at your heart strings until you are all together.

The funny thing is that it doesn't really matter. Does she have my eyes, or Scott's laugh, or grandpa's toes. It sure makes it a little easier since we don't have to field a lot of awkward questions because our kids don't look dramatically different than us (we expect that to change when they're both like 8 feet tall but we're good for now!). And some days it's hard when you see your friends theorizing about whether their little boy has mom's eyes or dad's, or where their daughter got her laugh. Our conversations are a little different. Unlike a lot of adoptive parents, we're lucky to know who and where our babies came from so we can answer some of those questions but, in the end, these are our children, our family, our heart and soul and like it or not they'll inherit things from us that go beyond hair color and a laugh.

So today, I look at these pictures of three little girls with the same lovely, clear blue eyes and I know that they may be separated by decades but they are bonded by love.

poop in the potty...please!

I was just re-reading my blog from December where we started Tagg on potty training. I actually said the words "potty training is pretty fun so far." Oh you silly, silly girl. Three months later and we're in pretty much the same exact spot. Except that Tagg won't wear his diapers or pull-ups during the day anymore so it's only underwear.

Sounds like we're making progress right? Well, in some respects, we are. He's peeing in the potty pretty regularly (by that, I mean he's also peed on the carpet, the couch and the stairs at different points during this adventure) and will even tell me when we're out and about that he needs to go potty. He's got the hang of getting his own pants on and off so those are all good things. He loves to wipe, flush and wash his hands. I'm feeling very proud of myself as a mother. If I could just ignore the poop.

Problem #1. Underpants on head, not bum.

He still refuses to poop in the potty. As a matter of fact, he's a stealthy little shit about it (no pun intended) I'll ask him if he needs to poop, or wants to try while we're peeing. "NOOO, mommy. I don't need to go poop in the potty." Got it, buddy. We'll try again in an hour. Please tell me if you feel like you need to go. And then I go put some clothes in the laundry or something. Two minutes later, he walks up to me..."Mommy, you want put my poop in the potty?" WHAT?!?! Are you kidding me? Sure enough, crap in the pants. Which he wants me to take off and dump in the toilet so he can flush it. You can see the disconnect here, right?

I know, I know. They (whoever "they" is...I'd like to meet "they" sometime and discuss their credentials for all of this parenting advice) say that you can start potty training boys at 2 and finish at 3 or start training at 3 and finish at 3. So I guess we've chosen the long road. We've tried bribery - stickers, candy, toys, movies. We've bought three - count 'em, three - different types of potty chairs, potty chair inserts. And I think we're on package 6 of little dude underwear. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes when the mess is just too crap-tastic, I just chuck them. It's gotta be better for the environment than diapers. At least cotton is biodegradable.

What else can we do? Nothing. Except have a ton of patience with a good dose of humor, and remember every time we're washing a big turd out of his Lightning McQueen underpants by hand that our poor, poor parents had to do this for us for years when cloth diapers were the only option.