Potty training. Oh the dread! No, seriously! DREAD! We first got a potty chair for Corky when she was about 18 months old. Since she was a very musical baby, we got one that plays music when you “go”, thinking that it would help our case. She loved it. Until she realized that she was supposed to put her pee-pee and poo-poo in there. Because why would she want to go and put her stinky poo-poo in her brand new, musical toy? Because she was still so young, we decided not to push the issue. While we waited for her to become ready to use the potty, my husband and I read every potty training article, book, method that you can imagine. Finally we chose one that claimed you could potty train your child in one weekend. Yeah right! I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. So a month before she turned two, we tried it. It’s the one where you get rid of all the diapers and put your child in big kid underwear. Then you make your child go to the potty every twenty minutes, whether they need to go or not. Eventually they go in the potty and you reward them with stickers and they love it and they go in the potty forevermore!!! NOT! We tried this method for four days. We dragged her, kicking and screaming, to the potty for four days and she didn’t go pee or poop in the potty once! She has a bladder of steel. She would hold it until time was up on the potty, then she would go in the floor, on the bed, on the couch… There was no amount of bribing or coercing that was going to convince her to put her pee-pee in the potty. So we waited another three months. Next we tried a potty seat that sits over the big toilet. She loved this. She could sit on the big potty just like mommy! She still wouldn’t actually pee in the toilet, but she would pretend. She would even pretend to wipe with toilet paper. Still, no success! At two and a half, we tried to force it. We made her sit on the potty “until she went”. That didn’t work either- bladder of steel. She sat there for three hours straight! And we got nothing!! I felt horrible about doing this, so we haven’t done it since. To this day, she has not gone pee or poop one time in the potty! Since then, I’ve tried to just bring the subject up on a daily basis. Every time I do, I am met with grunts of annoyance (she grunts when she doesn’t like something). She says, “No. I no want go pee-pee in the poddy!” She even “helps” me change her diaper. She loves to wear her diaper… I can see her, twenty years down the road, getting married in her diaper! Okay, maybe not, but I will be so glad when potty training is OVER!

So, recently our family has started to “go green”. It all started when I watched Oprah’s Earth Day show. I was mortified by the news that there is a monstrous “trash swirl” in the Pacific Ocean that is over ninety feet deep and twice the size of Texas!!! It’s just hanging out there, getting bigger by the minute! Also, the show enlightened me about the dangers of plastic bags.

We already were doing some things right, like using CFL bulbs and a water filter on our faucet. But I didn’t realize that we could be doing so much more! So our first step was to make sure we recycle EVERYTHING that can be recycled. For us that is plastic and paper/ cardboard. Next we decided to limit our plastic bag usage by buying reusable shopping bags. I always thought that they were too expensive or a waste of money, but the blue ones at Wal-Mart are only fifty cents. Also, some stores like Reasor’s offer an incentive when you use their brand of reusable bags. This was my favorite thing that we changed because I had no idea how dangerous plastic bags are to wildlife! And the reusable ones are bigger and sturdier (Is that a word? Spell check says yes!) than plastic. Right now we are working on switching out all our detergents and cleaners to eco-friendly versions. Surprisingly, homemade, eco-friendly cleaners are very inexpensive and work just as good!

We are still learning of things we can do, but for now it feels good to know that we have made some baby steps in the right direction!

Welcome everybody!! This is my very first blog post! I'm very excited (I love to write) but I am very new to all this. I can tell there is much for me to learn. My husband is very techno savvy so I'm sure he will be a lot of help! Anyway, since I am a busy mommy it will take me a little while to get going strong on here. So I hope you all will stick with me while I start this blogging adventure! Here are subjects that I love and will be blogging about:

• Green living
• Recycling
• Spirituality/ Christianity
• Recipes
• Natural foods
• Frugality
• Parenting
• My adventures with Corky (my daughter)

• Music