Castle

I thought you might like to see the latest completed picture from Lucia's potty challenge. For each day that Lucia goes without wetting her trousers, she gets a picture of her choice in one of the windows. The windows in the two turrets are reserved for night-time challenges.



Here is a partial list of the people she's requested for her windows. Can you spot them?

A robber (inspired by Audrey Wood’s “Twenty-fourteen robbers”)
Two girls holding ginkgo leaves (extra points for spotting the girls with ginkgo patterns on their dresses)
St. Nicholas
Santa Lucia
A girl holding a runcible spoon
A boy holding a candle in an apple candlestick (from the Winter Spiral of Light)
A girl holding a candle in an apple candlestick (ditto)
A girl holding a microphone
Cinderella with a bird on her head

Get Me to the Loo On Time*

Some of you may remember my attempts to potty-train Lucia during Mother Reader's 48 Hour Book Challenge and my search for a patron saint of potty-training. My daughter now uses the potty consistently. The next challenge is getting her to go consistently to the bathroom before it becomes an emergency.

Bede and I were inspired by the Advent calendar as an incentive for Lucia to use the potty even when she's enrapt in a drawing or play scenario. Bede drew up a house with 10 blank windows. Each time Lucia makes it through the whole day without wetting her trousers, Bede draws a little person of Lucia's choice. Once the 10 windows are filled, Lucia gets to choose a place for us to go out to lunch. It's worked! For the second round, Bede drew a houseboat:



The next challenge entails Lucia staying dry through the night. Bede plans to draw a Victorian house with 10 windows for the main part of the house and 10 windows for the turrets (to mark the nighttime efforts).

*You got the My Fair Lady reference, right?

Patron Saints of Potty-Training

The results of the patron saint of potty-training poll resulted in a tie between Dymphna of Gheel and Zeno of Verona. Therefore, I think that they should both be patrons of potty-training: as someone suggested in the comments, Zeno can be for the children and Dymphna can be for the parents. If anyone out there is willing to draw a picture in the likeness of an icon, please let me know. I can't pay you money, but I can write heroic couplets in your honor.

Two More Days to Vote

Dear Spinnerets,

You have two more days to vote for the patron saint of potty-training. Currently, Zeno is in the lead. LoneStarMa, I was unable to vote for Dymphna for you because the site refused to let me vote twice. If someone reading this doesn't care about voting (though I can't imagine why!), please cast a vote for Dymphna and leave a note in the comments that you were LSM's proxy voter.

The Potty Train

My dear Spinnerets,

(May I call you "The Spinnerets?" Yes, a spinneret is what a spider uses to produce silk, and yes, it comes out of the spider's posterior, but I use it in the sense to mean that you are fellow readers and lovers of stories. If I ever form a goth band, I'm calling it The Spinnerets. As I was saying...)

Whether or not you believe in the intercessions of the saints, I think a breakthrough happened yesterday, and your good thoughts and wishes had something to do with it. Last night, Lucia hopped out of bed and said, "Want to use the potty." I walked her to the bathroom, and she used the potty. Then, she went back to bed.

That's a miracle.

Someone in Monday's comments suggested a triumvirate of potty-training saints. There are still five days more to vote for the Patron Saint of Potty-Training, but between you and me, I suspect that Dymphna, Vincent Ferrer and Zeno are all involved in the project. The project is two-fold: (1) Help Lucia make the transition from diapers to using the potty (2) Help Bede and Alkelda hold onto their sanity. Personally, this potty-training ordeal is the most challenging part of parenthood so far. In fact, I've written a little song about it. It's a fast, blues-country inspired piece (think of Rosanne Cash's My Baby Thinks He's a Train). My song is called "The Potty Train," and it goes something like this:



The Potty Train

There’s a train my baby doesn’t want to ride
When it sounds her name, she tries to hide
Although she’s got first class and the passage is free
My baby claims, “This trip’s not for me.”

Chorus:
“All aboard, get on the potty train,
All aboard, leave your diapers at the door,
All aboard!” the conductor says,
“Bring a book or game,
but leave your diapers at the door.”

Will my baby listen? “Oh, no!” she chants,
(Though everyone else is wearing underpants).
“It’s a train I won’t ride, and I do not take bribes,
This potty train can leave me behind.”

Chorus

Needed: third verse that has some sort of resolution


P.S. Bless you, MotherReader and TadMack. I appreciate getting a special prize for participating in the 48 Hour Challenge even though my feet skidded out from under me in the first inning.

P.P.S. HipWriterMama has these lyrics to add:

But...maybe I'll think about it when I'm good and ready.
Dymphna of Gheel is looking out for me mommy and daddy!
Smile and laugh as I throw away those diapers.
I don't need them no more. No more! I don't need them no more.

I'm tired of my tushy getting all wet and gooey.
So here's my great surprise!
It's time, it's time to hop aboard the potty train!
This time I am ready!
--HWM

P.P.P.S. 08/15/07 I do finally have the last sets of lyrics to the song. I'll publish them at a future date.

Poll: Patron Saint of Potty-Training

As of now, there is no official patron saint of potty-training. However, if a particular saint intercedes on behalf of harried parents everywhere, s/he could potentially have the honor of that particular patronage. With that in mind, I have narrowed the options down to three candidates: Zeno of Verona (patron of children learning to walk and speak), Vincent Ferrer (patron of plumbers), and Dymphna of Gheel (in addition to being the patron saint of people suffering from mental illness, she is also the patron saint of family harmony). Think it over, then cast your vote... but hurry! I need all the help I can get. The poll will be here in this post and also on the side-bar (right under the Carnival of Children's Literature section) until next Monday.

The Beginning and the End of my 48 Hour Book Challenge

7:20 am—Began Fragile Things (355 pages plus 20 pages of introduction=375 pages).

11 am—Finally decided to take a break because of the constant interruptions. Wednesday marked the beginning of Lucia’s hard-core potty-training with NO DIAPERS DURING THE DAY. Bede is doing the best he can to support the 48 Hour Reading Challenge, but life does go on, what with cleaning up accidents. So far, my favorite stories are “A Study in Emerald,” which Gaiman wrote as a Sherlock Holmes story in an H.P. Lovecraft universe, and “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire” which I didn’t think I’d like until I realized that the main character was trying to write a realistic, contemporary story—in a gothic universe.

12:30 pm: Returned from my walk, dug up the dead red raspberry and blueberry roots, planted the new blueberry bush I’d bought from the nursery, and resumed reading.

1:00—1:30 pm: Found I was rereading the same paragraph amidst many interruptions for demands to go inside, go outside, get snacks, etc. I finally brought the girlie inside. She was mad, but then she settled down beside me to look at Flat Stanley while I read Fragile Things.

1:30—3 pm: I’m a little over ½ way through Fragile Things.

3:05 pm: Whoops, Lucia just peed on the floor.

3:12: pm. Resumed reading Fragile Things.

3:45 pm: Whoops, Lucia just pooped on the floor. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that there was product coming until too late. My mother called during the clean-up process, and against my better judgement, I attempted to talk to her via speaker-phone while cleaning up. I was so desperate for the voice of an adult colleague (she's a former children's librarian and current kindergarten teacher as well as my mommy).

4:00 pm: Dear Lord, some days I feel I am not cut out for parenthood.

4:11 pm: I definitely know I’m not cut out for the 48 Hour Book Challenge this year. Now, I’m going to the Farmer’s Market to buy my weekly supply of rhubarb. This time, I’m going to make “blue-barb,” which is a compote of blueberries and rhubarb. Tonight, I’m going to my guitar clinic. I’ll still read what I can, but as of now, I am out of the 48 Hour Book Challenge. Please have one next year, MotherReader!

Addition
9:00 pm: Dear bloggers, you need to come over to my house for strawberry-rhubarb compote, strawberry crisp, and blue-barb compote. I went produce-crazy and bought a 1/2 flat of strawberries, a bag of bing cherries, and 5 lbs of rhubarb. Then, I cooked and baked. My freezer and fridge can't fit everything.

Play on a Snow Day

Snow days and sick days have kept Lucia out of school for a week. She is too young and I am too old to enjoy time off from school. Despite trips out into the snow, we were both restless. Yesterday, I brought out the Playmobil playground set pieces I'd been collecting over the past while, and sewed a playmat to bring it all together. Sewing the playmat was a pleasant diversion from potty-training. To date, potty-training is the most tedious part of parenting for me. Dan Zanes said, “I can't get too emotional about songs about learning to eat with a fork or tie my shoe." I'm guessing that Zanes is in no hurry to compose a learn-to-use-the-potty song. Neither am I, but if I do become inspired, I'll let you know. The lyrics will be to the tune of "Going to the Zoo."