Tales from the toilet...

We are in week two of potty "training" with Jackson.  But there really hasn't been much "training" at all.  It pretty much consisted of suiting him up in his underwear and telling him to let us know when he needs to go.  At the risk of jinxing him, he has not had one accident yet.  Not one.  Well, except for when he was taking a bath and I was taking a shower, and I looked over to see an arc of pee streaming from the tub to the floor.  In his defense though he was standing there saying he needed to go, I was just a bit slow ending the shower to take him out of the tub.  And besides, if it's in the tub or shower it's still going down the drain.  Or at least that's what George Costanza taught us.

(Planting our new tree)

We are still going back and forth with him standing or sitting, and in either case trying to teach him how to control the power behind that stream is a challenge.  Note to self:  Don't stand in front of him if he's sitting down. Riley took a blast to the leg and so did I a couple of days later.  Overall though we can't believe how awesome he has done with this.  And of course he gets a kick out of making bubbles in the water when he's standing up, but who doesn't?  I can't wait to show him one of the coolest things about being a boy:  We can pee our names in the snow.  Sorry Riley.

(Feeding our new "pets")

Speaking of Riley, she's a never ending source of funny comments.  She's had a few good ones recently, among the best was when I was trying to convince her to eat her carrots with her pot roast one evening.  

Me:  You need to eat your carrots, they help you see better in the dark

Riley:  So do flashlights

Me:   .

She pretty much shut that conversation down without even thinking about it.  But that was nothing compared to possibly her greatest line ever last week.  Melissa had killed a wasp in the house and tossed it in the toilet. A short while later, Riley needed to go take care of business.  Upon finishing she looks back in the water and sees a wasp floating there.  Her reaction was naturally the one all of us would have: "Mommmmmmm!!!!!!! Look what came outta my butt!!!"  

That one will be hard to top, even for her.

(among the favorite activities right now)

Over the weekend we took a trip out to Shelby Farms.  Great park.  Huge, with lots to do.  But the people there, at least on this particular day...yikes.  We saw some of America's...finest.  We apparently stumbled upon the men's room of terror, overhearing (from the outside maybe 15 yards away) not one but two men flat-out berating their sons over what we had to assume are potty-training issues.  One fine upstanding citizen pretty much launched into a five-minute, expletive-filled tirade, f-bombs included.  What a guy!  I'm sure what we witnessed was just a tip of the iceberg of what happens within that classy guy's home.  Not more than a few minutes later we heard yet another episode, which on its own merit would have been bad enough, but coming on the heels of Worst-Dad/Human-Ever, it was relatively "mild" in comparison.  We will probably go back to Shelby Farms, but not sure about the playground.  And even less sure about the bathrooms if we do.  I think I'd rather just have Jackson, or myself for that matter, have an accident rather than encounter that in a restroom.

 Before leaving though we did get treated to a lesson on duck reproduction methods.  And apparently ducks have quite the method.  It all started innocently enough with us walking over to the ducks hanging out.  But then, with Riley not more than a few feet way, one of the males (I assume) made a run at the female (I assume)...climbed on...pinned her head down with beak, and commenced with making baby ducks.  Within seconds, two or three other ducks all charged them, biting the wing of the male duck and basically just creating quite the commotion.  Luckily we didn't have to give the Ducks and the Bees talk afterwards.   Jackson was naturally amused by it all.