Several days ago, Honor asked me, “When I get big, can I say the “b” word?” So I told him, “Yes, Honor, when you’re big like me, you can say the “b” word.”

I’ve been trying to get him to go poop in the potty. He does fairly well with going pee in the potty, but no poop. After the carpet incident, I decided that I’d better step up the motivation. I went and bought him some super soakers at Target. The super soakers sat in the bathroom for DAYS and DAYS until last night. We were watching a movie and even though he hadn’t had an accident all day, he still hadn’t pooped.

I brought out his little potty and I had him sit on it to watch the movie. About 20 minutes later, he looked at me and excitedly whispered, “I’m going poo poo.” After the excitement died down from opening the squirt guns and I praised and praised him for being a big boy, Honor turned to me and asked, “Can I say the “b” word now?”

Friday Jim took the day off and we had a nice leisurely day of shopping at Target and drinking coffee. We came home and put the kids down for a nap and I walked over to get a pattern from the yarn store while Jim took a little nap of his own. Little did we know that when we thought Honor was sleeping, he was instead finger painting with the contents of his diaper. All over the carpet. Again. I guess he got bored with it, because he decided to go ahead and take his nap, commando.

And that’s how I found him. Sleeping peacefully with poop smeared EVERYWHERE. I just turned right around and walked away… for his own safety. So I decided that I didn’t want to scrub any more poop off the carpet. I think that this is the fourth? time he did this? And I decided that I was done. So I convinced Jim that we needed to rip out the carpet. RIGHT THAT MINUTE. And that’s what we did. I had peeled up a tiny bit of the carpet around the heating duct and saw what I thought was a pretty decently finished hardwood floor. But, yeah, not so much. What I actually found was this:

(Sorry, no photos of the room with carpet, I’m trying real hard to keep from posting pictures of feces on the internet.)

By this point, Jim was quite unhappy. So I dug through the paint closet and found some leftover paint from the kids walls. He helped me get all the carpet tack up and I got the floor all cleaned up and the first coat of paint on it. We ran to Home Depot to wait in line for 45 minutes for more paint and then got more coffee and came back home to finish the floor.

It was seriously the easiest project I’ve ever done. (Thankfully.) And it’s left me with a renewed desire for home improvement. I’ve got plans for all the walls in my house now. I’m just afraid any other project will tarnish the memory of this perfect project. If only Honor would poop on the floor more often. Yeah. Not really.

Tuesday I decided that I could no longer take Honors hair looking about as long as Edens. We have to keep that distinction between the two, because I was starting to get asked a lot, “Are they twins? Both boys?” Yeah. So I bribed him with a popsicle and got him to let me buzz his hair. Sort of.

Really it went more like this: 20 minutes trying to talk him into getting his hair buzzed, followed by setting him on my lap and just going for it. Surprisingly he wasn’t too freaked out about it and let me get about half-way done. That was until he wiggled and the clipper attachment jabbed him in the head a little. It was nothing major at all, but then he decided that I had lied to him and getting his hair buzzed did, in fact, hurt.

By that point we were at the point of no return. There was no way I could let him go out in public with his hair half buzzed, so we had to push on. Eden went and got the popsicle out of the freezer for Honor to see while I tortured him. It’s always good to see what you’re suffering for.

The popsicle held him off for awhile, but it didn’t last long and I just had to hold him down and finish. He was screaming and wiggling and hair was getting everywhere. Eden was even covered with hair. But it was done. And we ate our popsicles in the bathtub.

Lately Honor has taken to tagging the word “Butt” onto the end of every sentence. Like, “I love you mommy, Butt!” “I don’t want to sit on the potty, Butt!” At first I figured, at least he’s not saying “ass” or something worse, but it’s gotten a little excessive and over the weekend Jim banned the use of the “B” word.

See the problem is, these children, they learned the word from their parents. And it seems their parents use the “B” word a lot. So now through the house you’ll hear, “Buh…ottom” or “Buh..ooty” or “Buh…hiney.” Telling your husband to “stop being a bottom” isn’t really all that effective.

We also reside with the “B” word patrol.

“Mom, Honor said the “B” word!”
“Honor, did you say the “B” word?”
“Yes, mommy tootie, Butt!”
“Mom, Honor said the “B” word again.”
“I know. Honor, don’t say the “B” word.”
“Ok, mommy, Butt!”

So yesterday was the big boy underwear wearing day. Suffice to say that we went through all 6 pairs, I washed them and then we went through some of them again. The culmination of the underwear wearing came at dinner time. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner and talking to my sister on the phone, I thought the kids were playing in their room. Suddenly, Eden came in and told me, “MOM, there’s poop everywhere!”

It WAS everywhere. The floor, the walls, his hair, all over him, some toys, some clothes and somehow there were BBQ tongs involved. Don’t ask. And yes, Honor is still alive.

All I have to say is that even though he JUST sat on the potty, he had a little accident and tried to clean it up himself. But I am resolute, if he can try to change his own diaper, he can be potty trained. Today the underwear wearing continues and this kid will be potty trained.

(How many days will it take for me to eat my words?)

Sunday night we stopped off at our favorite spot to pick up a few things. Is it sad that both my kids recognize Target just from the parking lot? As we walked in, Honor reminded me that I had promised him some big boy underwear. He reminded me all the way through the store until we picked them out.

Today will be the first day that we really try to go without a diaper. I think that we’re armed with enough pairs of underwear to at least make it through the day. So I guess that really it means, more laundry for me. Laundry that I must go do now, because everyone is rapidly running out of clean underwear.

Honor: It’s not making sounds.
Me: Do you want milk?
Honor: Yeah.

No one could ever accuse him of being graceful.

I’ve been meaning to take photos of the shirts I got for the kids in California. I wasn’t so sure about this shirt for Eden at first, but Joelene pointed out that since almost every photo I take of Eden is a grumpy one, that really this shirt is very appropriate.

And of course she really likes it, if only because it’s extremely pink.

I was just happy to find any black shirt for Honor. I have the hardest time finding clothes for little boys that don’t have teddy bears on them. I’m not really into the sports thing, so I’ve tried to limit the amount of baseball shirts he has. It’s not really easy to do. Luckily, I can usually at least find some cammo stuff, but there’s only so much cammo a boy can wear. Since dressing a boy isn’t nearly as fun as dressing a girl anyway, I just want to at least like what he’s wearing. I’m picky, it’s sort of silly, I know, but you have to admit, he’s pretty dern cute.

I can’t believe that I forgot to take photos of the scarf swap scarves! Luckily I still had one to get out to Canada. These things are impossibly hard to take photos of, so here’s the best I can do.

In other news, Honor boy sat on the potty (and went) 12 times in a couple of days, filling up his chart, so he got his batman toy. Has he gone potty since? Nope. Maybe I should train him like the puppy and just have him go on newspaper.