Changes

Peyton is finally feeling better and has his old life back. ☺ At around 6:00 pm yesterday, he decided that eating food was good and after doing it, started running and playing and causing his usual mischief. Thank goodness too! Running a fever for four days and feeling blah is just as hard on the mom as it is the kid.

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I have to have surgery next Wednesday to correct problems created by four pregnancies. It's no big deal, just outpatient and my doctor says I should be feeling just fine by the time the weekend is over. I'm glad for that because I don't do well with down time. I especially don't do well with overnight hospital stays. In for the procedure and out the same day suits me just fine.

In order to have the surgery we needed to be absolutely sure we were done having children. Otherwise, the correction I'm having done could possibly be for nothing and I would have to do it and even more later. Now, even though I knew we were done, having someone tell me that I need to be done was kind of annoying to me. I have too much of a stick it to the man attitude about well, pretty much everything. I'm really mature like that and will usually do the opposite of what someone tells me to do. It's my silly way of resisting what I perceive as an attempt to control me. Even when there is no "let's control Christa and tell her and make her do only what we want her to do". Even when what I'm being told is so obviously for my own good. I really need to get over it and I did for this issue. So, I will be having a procedure done to ensure that there will only be 4 mini Ryan's running around this house. It's a big deal that feels happy/exciting/bittersweet all at the same time. It means that we really are moving into a new phase of our lives. We're done making new babies and will now see where the ones we have will take us.

Sick

My poor little Peyton has been sick on and off since Monday. He'll have a fever for several hours and then be fine. Then the fever comes back. And then he's fine again. He's been running another fever for most of the day today and in general, has felt pretty blah. It's starting to wear on him.

He heard Tyler go outside to play this afternoon and cried and begged to be able to go outside with him. I told him it just wasn't a good idea because of the fever. I had to work very hard to convince him that he really did want to stay inside so he could give his body a chance to get better. After about 5 minutes of talking, he finally said, "I can't take this anymore! I just want my old life back!" It was so sad and pathetic and it broke my heart, but how do you not laugh at a statement like that at the same time?! I so hope he starts feeling better soon.

Potty Talk

Peyton has gone and done what I wanted him to do. That's right, he's essentially potty trained himself. You see, about a month ago, Ryan said it was high time to get rid of the diapers and work on the using the bathroom thing. I grudgingly agreed and finally had to admit something to myself too. The reason he wasn't potty trained yet wasn't because it didn't go well in our previous training rounds. It was because I wasn't putting (and I wasn't letting anyone else) much effort into it because I didn't want him to grow up. I wanted to keep him a baby. Keeping him in diapers was a good way of fooling myself into thinking that he was still one. The fact that he's practically wearing size 4 in boys clothes, has size 12 (in toddler sizes) feet, weighs 35 pounds, is 3 1/2 years old, is now in Primary at church and can pretty much use a computer on his own wasn't enough to make me let go of his babyness and potty train him. When I finally admitted to myself that I was the problem, I was able to let go (for the most part because it's so bittersweet) and let the training begin. Peyton took over after that and has pretty much been on track ever since. Notice, I did say "pretty much". He's had about 4 accidents. One yesterday, as a matter of fact.

I put him down for a nap without putting a diaper on him first. (He still has a little difficulty rousing himself from sleep to go, but I wanted to see what he would do. Could he wake up dry? I decided to live on the edge and find out.) Well, he decided it wasn't time to sleep, it was time to get out of bed and play and that's fine by me. Nap time, for me, is now more about getting a little break and quiet time. It's not really about sleeping anymore. I let him play away.

He peed in his pants while playing, but didn't let me know. Instead, he took his clothes off and went behind his rocking chair and pooped on the carpet to finish the job. A lovely odor started wafting out of his room and so I had to go in to investigate. He was butt naked and happily playing away. I asked, "alright, where's your poopy underwear?" He said, all disgusted, "I didn't poop in my underwear! I pooped on the floor behind my chair". I checked and only saw streaks on the carpet. I told him there wasn't any poop there and again asked where the poopy underwear was. He said, "I said I didn't poop in my underwear! I pooped on the floor. I cleaned it up for you with my bulldozer. I didn't want to leave it on the carpet". Sure enough, when I picked up his small, toy Caterpillar bulldozer, I found a scoop full of poop. Lovely.

So, accidents like that aside, he's pretty much trained. And....I'm pretty much okay with it. I think. Maybe I have a little way to go, but I'll get there eventually.