Potty Eggs

Saving my life this week ... Potty Eggs.



Three different kids, three different potty experiences. Dora needed to do things in her own time. When I tried to push her too early, she told me, "I'll do it when I'm three!" and sure enough, shortly after her third birthday, she was done. Diapers to undies in two weeks, with no more than a sticker chart for motivation.

Theo believed in the long, slow, drawn out approach. He started using the potty at 18 months, but then took his own sweet, sweet time deciding whether he really wanted to commit to it. Finally, at 3.5, we had to give him a little kick in the butt and stepped up the motivation. He went pantsless for three days and had a small bag of toys as incentives, three successes earned him a toy. He QUICKLY figured out that he could do two drops, hop off, earn his sticker and say "Ooooh! I have to go again!" in rapid succession to earn his toy. Whatever, it cost me $20 in toys and finally got the kid into underpants.

I had been taking the no-hurry, hands-off, he'll-tell-me-when-he's-ready approach with Clark, but recently decided to step things up with him as well. We started on Monday with a new trick, inspired by the season: Potty Eggs. I gathered a little basket of goodie-filled plastic eggs and left them on the bathroom counter. We started out the morning in underwear and when we made our first trip to the bathroom, he spied them right away. "Oh! What are those?!" I gave him the rules (dry underpants, potty success, and he gets an egg) which he repeated back to me all day long. The eggs are filled with things that we already had around the house - stickers, tattoos, wrapped chocolates, small toys.

So far, so good. The eggs have been a big hit. We're four days in and doing well. I'm not quite ready to do my underpants dance (okay, that sounds way racier than it should) but we've made a lot of progress. Busy weekend ahead ... wish us luck.

Panic!!!

Okay, I'm assuming that every kid does weird things once in awhile. Dora and Theo have each other as partners in crime, and boy do they come up with strange stuff sometimes. I've learned a few things over the years, like if a yardstick is left out where it can be reached, small people hone in on it like it has a radio frequency and start swinging it around within minutes. MINUTES! Ditto for wrapping paper tubes. Also, Post-It Notes left in plain view will be used to label every object on the ground floor of the house.

This was a new one for them ... I have no idea how it originated, but I found these notes taped all over the house. And when a child encounters one, (s)he is compelled to throw arms up in the air and run around the house, screaming ...



... what else?



"PANIC!!!"



Other kids do weird things too, right?

Baking Monday - Chocolate Cupcakes

This is a recipe from an issue of Glamour from 1998, back in the days when I was a loyal subscriber. Actually, I can't believe a recipe this decadent was ever allowed in Glamour. I've made this recipe exactly three times. The process takes a few steps, they are definitely special occasion cupcakes!



Chocolate cupcake with cream cheese filling.



Mmmmmm. These are super-rich and super-awesome. They are supposed to have swirls of white chocolate on top, a la Hostess cupcakes. But I think my white chocolate might have been too old, because it did not melt well and was a little bloppy.



Ooops. Should have used icing instead, rats. At least they still taste good.

Kids' Mailbox

So, I've had this project in the back of my mind for a couple weeks. I've been trying to encourage the kids to write more letters, so I started a little envelope with slips of paper that have names of friends and family on them. They can choose a name each week and write a letter (or send a picture or whatever) to that person.

Then I thought that it would be a nice idea to gather all their letter-writing supplies in one place. After fiddling with ideas, I realized that the container should be (duh) a mailbox. I collected some empty cereal boxes, taped them together and trimmed at an angle to make a mailbox shape, with built-in dividers. I covered the boxes with paper and covered the edges with color duct tape (my new favorite thing!).



The outside looks much prettier than the inside, but it works.



Then I gathered supplies ... writing papers, address labels, pencils, envelopes. As I was putting these things together, it occurred to me that if they had their own address book, they could really do this all by themselves.





A normal person would have waited until the next day and gone to the dollar store and bought one. A normal person in a hurry may have just grabbed one of a zillion blank notebooks lying around the house and used that. But since we are dealing with crazy lady over here, it was decided at 9:00 at night that I must make my own.





Though I'm actually thrilled with how it turned out. And now you all get to benefit from my craziness, because I'm including a link to the pdf.

• The book pages are already imposed.
• Print out the pages double sided on a color printer, using text paper.
• Print the cover seperately (b&w) on color card stock.
• Fold cover, fold pages and tuck inside.
• Attach with long-armed stapler down the center seam, cover with black binding tape.
• Trim edges with an Xacto knife. Cut off outside corners to finish.

Kids' Printable Address book here.
Kids' Address book cover here.

Baking Monday - Chocolate Earl Grey Shortbread

Well, I was so excited to try this recipe, because it combines my three favorite loves: tea, chocolate and shortbread. I was also excited to try it because it was an opportunity to use my new food processor, yay!

These were super easy to mix, it takes longer to get out all the ingredients than it does to combine them. The recipe calls for a stick of butter, and this made 24 (tiny) cookies, so there's essentially a pat of butter in each cookie. (You're welcome.)

Verdict: Good, but I can't say that the tea flavor made these cookies extra-special. I think I would prefer plain chocolate shortbread instead.

And on a totally unrelated topic: Garlic Roasties. Try them today.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Cookies

Lest anyone think that life is all rainbows and unicorns in the Hotcakes house, I have a story of sadness to share today. Our lovely friend Helen ordered cookies last week for her school. I spent time on Tuesday night working on the cookies so they'd be all ready to pick up on Wednesday evening.

And Wednesday morning, I woke up and saw this:



And this:



And then I started crying. And because I'm an awesome mom, I channeled that anger and sadness into yelling at the kids who were already running late for school. Bra-vo!

Came home, regrouped, pulled the emergency cookie dough out of the freezer, and started again. And, as usually happens, the second batch turned out even better.



According to Helen, the cookies were a hit and disappeared quickly. And my children forgave me for the mini freak out when they got to enjoy the rejects.

Nonsensical

An actual conversation that took place this morning between the three-year-old and myself.

3YO: I want my boots.
Me: Your boots are by the front door.
3YO: Door? What door?
Me: The door of the house.
3YO: House? What house?
Me: Oh, help.