Potty Payola

Dear Hagen,

When your sister turned 2, we decided we would start the potty-training process. For a year, we bribed her with M&Ms, made up songs about how AWESOME it is to use the potty, and did lots and lots and lots of laundry. Then, the day before she turned 3, she shrugged and decided she'd had enough of wet pants and started using the potty. No accidents, no looking back. 

With you, we decided not to work so hard and just let you get around to it when you were ready. But your third birthday came and went and you showed no signs of interest. 

Your preschool was closed for Spring Break a few weeks ago. Laney went to camp at the Y. You and your best friend Finley were too little to attend camp, so Finley's mom and I decided to hire one of your teachers from school to watch you and Finley at Finley's house for the week. Finley's mom told me that your teacher - Miss Jenn - was known as "The Potty Whisperer," and had trained more kids than anyone Finley's mom had ever known. 

I am not proud of this next part:

After writing Miss Jenn a check for her services for the week, I said, "If Hagen is potty-trained by the end of the week, I'll give you an extra hundred dollars cash money." I was kinda joking, but Miss Jenn said she was ON IT. And she was. 

Basically, if anyone asks you what you did for Spring Break, you can tell them you went to potty camp. Miss Jenn had you and Finley on matching potty chairs every half hour all week long. If you used the potty, she gave you an animal cracker and made the sound of the animal on the cracker.

About halfway through the week, you really got the hang of it. By the end of the week, you were potty trained.

Best money I ever spent. 

Love,

Mom

Celebrity Student

Dear Laney,

At kindergarten orientation almost a year ago, your teacher told us that once every few weeks, she would choose a "Celebrity Student" who would be highlighted at the school assembly, and would get to decorate a wall in the classroom with his/her art and photos from home.

"We've got this thing sewn up, " I thought. "No way Laney isn't going to be first."

A side note here: There's lots of talk in the media and popular culture about "Tiger Moms" - typically Asian-American mothers who are hyper-competitive and never stop pushing their children to excel.
Not that this is a competition I should hope to win, but I would submit that Southern mamas can be way crazier when they feel like their children are being overlooked...although our brand of crazy is usually concentrated in the areas of pageants, cheerleading, and football.  In college, I had a good friend named Brent who was from Mississippi. He understood the crazy Southern mama effect. I was a drama major, and every time I auditioned for a role in a show, he would joke, "If you don't get it, I'm going to call up that office and holler, 'WHADDYA MEAN, TELLIN' MY LITTLE GIRL SHE CAN'T BE IN THE SCHOOL PLAY?!?'" Exactly.

So when the first Celebrity Student was chosen, and it wasn't you, I was shocked. "WHADDYA MEAN TELLIN' MY LITLE GIRL SHE AIN'T THE CELEBRITY STUDENT?!?"And when it wasn't you the second or third time, I became suspicious. Then I started volunteering in your classroom and I realized that "Celebrity Student" wasn't an acknowledgement of who had the best behavior or work ethic. Instead, because your teacher is a far, far sweeter person than I will ever be, she seemed to be giving the title to kids who could most use a little boost of confidence. It's this kind of thinking that will probably make the world a better place, even if it results in less baton twirling. Since "crisis of confidence" is not a condition suffered by anyone I've given birth to, it made sense that you weren't getting it.

With one month to go in the school year, she got around to picking you. So I went to the assembly.

(Yes, the man-bun trend is in full effect here in Missoula.)

You got a certificate for being Celebrity Student, and your student teacher gave a little speech at the assembly about how funny and nice you are, and how you tell the best stories.

That part didn't surprise me, because last week, you went to camp at the Y over spring break, and came home and wrote a 10-page book about it. 5 pages were drawings and descriptions of things you actually did, and the other 5 were things you included in the book though they didn't actually happen. For example, "I am playing dodgeball" is a fabrication.

Then, the principal gave you a second certificate for perfect attendance for the month.

Thank God your confidence has been boosted.

Love,
Mom

February With a Dash Of March

Hey y'all - 

Happy Valentine's Day. (We'll just ignore that I'm writing this in April.)

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times: Kindergarten is exhausting. Did I tell you about the time we had to "disguise" a turkey at Thanksgiving so it could escape the plate, so we made a full cheerleading uniform for a dang paper bird, complete with tissue paper skirt and pompoms? And then Laney took it to school and gave it to the substitute who thought Laney had made it for HER instead of for an assignment and took it home? I swear I wanted to find that substitute's house and beat her with a hose. Instead, we got to make a second turkey - this time, disguised as an astronaut with a tinfoil helmet and moon boots. A pain, to be sure, but I'm happy the turkey is so upwardly mobile.  

So Valentine's Day rolled around, and our kitchen became the place dinosaur puns go to die. I really wanted to do an "I'm raptor 'round your finger" version, but I didn't have any rubber raptors. 

Laney's Valentine's Day party at school was set for Friday, Feb 13th, but she woke up that morning sick as a dog. There was a strange, rampant "Missoula virus" that swept through town in February that caused exhaustion, constant cough and an earache. Everyone in our house got it but me, because Moms aren't allowed to get sick. Laney had to miss her school party, and was beyond upset.  

The next day, everyone had recovered enough to at least be vertical, so we went for a walk in the woods. 

in February, Laney also celebrated the 100th Day of the School Year, which is apparently a thing people do now. We didn't do this kind of thing back in the early 80's...we just ate our baloney on white bread out of our Dukes of Hazzard lunch box and tried to behave until our mamas picked us up in a Datsun hatchback. And we only got to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings and we didn't have all these themed dress-up days at school and extra holidays because our mamas didn't have Pinterest. 

According to my fitbit doohickey, in February, I hit the million-steps mark while on a walk around town. Bought myself a new pair of shoes to celebrate.

The March rolled around, and our toilet stopped flushing. Nothing would flush, nothing would drain. Water backed up everywhere. Your dad tried the normal unclogging steps, including snaking the drain, then said, "The only way I'm going to figure out what the problem is is to take up the floor." In the time it took me to walk up the stairs to my computer and yell, "I'm just going to look up the number for a plumber so we can get a profess-," your dad had started demoing the bathroom. By the end of the afternoon, it was a stripped concrete box. We don't need no stinkin' bathroom.

Your dad doesn't mess around.

For the first few days after our house became a 3 bedroom, zero bath, I rented us a cute little house up the street. But moving our stuff back and forth and keeping everyone's school and work stuff together and figuring out where we were going to eat became a bigger hassle than just tee-teeing in the yard. Three days in, when a cold front took the temperatures down to the teens, Laney said, "I'm just going to go in Hagen's potty." We showered at the Y and made the best of it, and resorted to some things we shall not speak of again.

We learned that our ancient plumbing had been leaking into the wall for who knows how many years, and the walls were rotten. Everything had to go and everything had to be rebuilt. Your dad re-plumbed the bathroom and taught me how to lay tile. Halfway through, I called your Grandpops in Missouri to report I was learning really advanced construction techniques from his son, like, "If it isn't going where you want it to, hit it harder, with a bigger hammer."

photo by Laney

It's possible your dad had TOO much help with this project.

I am pleased to report that as of last week, we have a working shower and toilet and are once again living like civilized people who don't have to tinkle behind the hot tub. 

Love,

Mom