Victories of One Kind and Another

March Madness hits our house every year in a big way. Which is interesting because I'm not a huge sports watcher. I like to watch the Jazz play every so often, and I'll watch Utah State whenever they are televised; sometimes the World Series can capture my attention if it involves a team we like; very rarely I'll watch a football game. When the SuperBowl is on every year, Kalen calls me in when the commercials come on. But the college playoffs are different. We LOVE March Madness. A few years ago we started filling out our brackets to see who had the best picks--the kids chose their teams too. It has been so much fun. The overall winner gets to pick a fun family activity of his or her choice, and the person who ended up having the most teams in the Final Four chooses a special dessert. If it happens that the overall winner also had the most teams go to the Final Four, that award goes to the second place winner. (We had to add that rule because more often than not, the overall winner who has been Me pretty much every single year, usually has the final picks too). There is also a booby prize for the lowest scorer who gets to choose what music we listen to on our family activity trip. We all look forward to this every year. And every year Kalen determines that he will win this time. He doesn't. It's actually kind of funny. I don't really ever know anything about the teams so I just look at their season record, allow for a few upsets and pretty much just guess. It's been working out pretty well that way. Taylor and Kendall tend to choose teams based on cool mascots or if we have lived anywhere near that school. Lynnsey and Spencer choose their teams completely at random--usually if it's an unusual name that's fun to say, they'll pick that one. Then there is Kalen who is an avid sports fan and watches all kinds of games and knows many facts about each team and can probably tell you their past records for the last decade or so plus who the players and coaches are and were and maybe even what they all had for breakfast...okay, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but you get the idea. And somehow he has yet to pick them better than I do. I told him it's because he analyzes things too much. But he continues to do it his way and the rest of us do it our way. And it is really a lot of fun. So far I'm in the lead but actually Kalen is catching up! Kendall is in 3rd, Spencer and Taylor are tied for 4th and Lynnsey is last the best of all the game. We'll see how the next set of games turn out. This time we're counting each win as two points, so a win can really help and a loss can really hurt. I actually wouldn't mind if someone else won this year. I'm running out of ideas for fun family activities. I can always think of desserts though!

But now on to the biggest (tentative?) victory: Spencer is really, actually, amazingly going potty! Can you even believe it? I always comfort myself with the thought that my kids won't go to the junior prom in diapers, but I was starting to have my doubts with this kid. He is 3 years, 7 months and 23 days old. Most of the kids we know who are his age have been potty trained for a year already. I was starting to despair. But I am also one of those parent's who believes that if you try to potty train before the child decides to do it, then the child ends up training you. I've heard all the stories about the kids who were potty trained at 15 months. I recognize that this world actually does have some prodigies who may really figure it out at that time. But for the most part I don't buy it. If I were willing to haul my babies in to the potty after every bottle and meal and at half-hour intervals in between, they might use the potty at the right exact time. I don't call that potty-trained though. When a kid can come and tell you that he has to go potty and when he can play at least some role in the procedure like pulling up or down pants and climbing up on a stool to reach the potty, then I think you're getting somewhere. So my kids have all been past their third birthdays before they figured things out. But by that time we have had to deal with very few accidents and they seem to become independent at it all much faster. And finally, at long last, Spencer is jumping on the band-potty! (Ha, ha. See I changed the name band-wagon to band potty...get it? Ha, ha.) It happened last Friday. After dealing with such sick kids all week long I woke up with a combination cold and stomach bug and was feeling really awful and wishing that Kalen could cancel classes or that my Mom was back from Kentucky so that someone could take my kids and I could crawl into bed again. Instead, after the big morning rush of getting the three older ones to school in a haze of head fog and stomach cramps, I got some clothes and a diaper so that I could get Spencer dressed. I took his diaper off and realized he was still dry after an entire night. As awful as I felt, I had to ask the question: "Do you want to try to go potty?" I expected his usual response: "Tomorrow I'll go potty" but instead got "okay!" And he went. And then he went again later. And again later. He had one accident that day, unfortunately it was the kind that makes you just want to torch the clothes and buy new carpet, but still I was ecstatic that he was going at all. I was still wishing I could just lie down for a few minutes but he seemed to need the potty everytime I closed my eyes. The next day we made him a sticker chart and once it's full he is planning to go and buy the Thomas the Train toy from Target that is way more money than I care to spend on a toy but which in a fit of desperation I bribed him with if he would only go potty. Kids have great memories sometimes. Sticker charts haven't worked with my other kids but Spencer is loving it and I'll catch him looking at it throughout the day and counting his stickers. He points to the last spot and reminds me all the time what happens when that one is filled up. That's okay, he's definitely earning this toy. He hates pull-ups and wants to just wear underwear to bed so I think he's trying really hard to stay dry at night but so far hasn't managed it. Yesterday was our first experience with public restrooms. I had just planned on putting him in a pull-up for church, but he wasn't having that at all. He did okay but Kalen ended up taking him because he was freaking out about having to go in the girls bathroom. I finally had convinced him to come in with me just before church started (and Kalen was already on the stand) but he wouldn't go. He was afraid that a girl would come in and see a boy in the restroom and then once I got him on the potty he started yelling that the seat was too big and his "peanut" was not pointing the right direction. So we finally just waited until after the meeting and Kalen was able to take him to the boy potty. It's been an adventure, but it looks like we may actually succeed this time. Four down, one to go. Maybe Kaya will be a prodigy and I can brag that she was potty trained at nine months!

Oh, and here's a picture of our diaper graduate. Apparently wearing underwear made him feel so grown up that he decided he wanted to wear his necktie which we've been trying to get him to wear since he was two. He was so thrilled with it. When he saw himself he said, "I look just like a little Daddy, except I'm not little!"

And when we got home from church he refused to take off his Sunday clothes and said: "I have to wear them still so that I can keep handsome." Cute boy!