without modern conveniences

why, hullo! it HAS been a while, hasn't it? No, no, nothing untoward going on here, just a slip from the regular blog routine. THANK YOU for noticing!

You know that saying / song "you don't know what you got until it's gone?" We're really appreciating TWO modern conveniences these days... First, I wound up driving the truck around for a week or so. Which is normally a great thing, but the A/C decided to completely quit after weeks of limping around. Which wouldn't be too bad, if the drivers side window could roll down without getting stuck...

So, Florida summer (heat + thunderstorms) + no air conditioning + window stuck up (ha!). Suprisingly, I wasn't annoyed by this for the first few days. Perhaps I was sweating out the anger, but it was all pretty philosophical. I have always enjoyed the heat, and it reminded me of my childhood and teen years, when I would wear jeans in the summer. It didn't hurt that most of this time I needed the truck's bed to load up bamboo and other assortments for our VBS, which also meant I was usually in shorts and a tshirt instead of 'office' clothes. But seriously, I had thoughts of not fixing the AC for a while.

Then, somewhere around the 5th day, I was stuck driving around in the aforementioned thunderstorms. And I realized- again- why Florida was not widely settled until after AC had been invented.

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The very next week, on the first day of Vacation Bible School, I had TWO adorable kids in the house and decided to make them popcorn. So into the microwave it went, and then my cell phone rang, and it was someone with a much needed donation for the very next morning, and... well, we all know what happened next, right? Certainly my college pals do- nothing brings back Tucker memories like the smell of burnt popcorn.

But to say this was a burnt offering in no way accurately describes the actual event. We were seriously lucky and sincerely blessed that the entire kitchen did not go up in flames. The 2 kids were either unfazed by the smoke, or too scared to move off the couch. I'm not sure which...

Here you can see the corn has popped, burnt, and then burned down into a one inch brick!

So, I did concede we needed to work on fire safety with the boy. Perhaps he was *hoping* the firefighters would come?! In any case, our efforts at clearing the air weren't so great, and Kaden wound up with bronchitis within 48 hours. Thank goodness my mom lives nearby, because we basically camped out there for the rest of the week to give him some clear air (and me, too- Jim has lungs of steel!).

Tackling, Potty Training and Apologies

When you watch the very short video above, I want you to look at the expression on his face please. It is both hysterical and slightly worry-inducing re: future team sports.

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We are at the end of the first full week of honest-I'm-not-kidding-we-are-REALLY-potty-training-this time. Last weekend, we had Friday through Monday at home with no accidents, and Tuesday at Nana's with 2 accidents, and Wednesday at daycare ("school") with one "incident". The teacher sais she wasn't really sure it was an accident, because Kaden just announced at lunch "I'm peeing", and when she said "hold it, hold it, let's go to the bathroom"... he replied, "No. I'm peeing right now."

This was followed by Thursday, in which we had 3 accidents at school, which doesn't really sound like any training was happening at all. The preK director has asked if we were doing rewards, and I told her we were using stickers and a chart but another friend swore by M&Ms. She agreed that the candy option was magic, so we headed straight to Target. Kaden was so excited about the M&Ms, and so was I honestly, and he used the bathroom right away without any problems. But then he misunderstood the "one M&M" concept and tried to eat a whole package. This was one of the few times I let him eat something before we paid for it, and I got bit because of COURSE he had a meltdown when he didn't get to eat the whole bag, and there I am in the checkout line, with a screaming toddler in one arm (I'M DONE CRYING! I WANT M&MS) and a debit card in the other because really who's going to look for change in that scenerio?

This was followed by 3 accidents at home on Thursday night- did I mention this was the day Jim was sick, too- and I was sincerely ready to reactivate the Amazon monthly case of pullup subscription. But Friday he went the ENTIRE day- school and home- with no accidents and all sorts of good behaviors, even though we forgot to give him M&Ms sometimes. So.

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The best- and most humbling- Kaden conversation also took place on Thursday. When we were headed to the store, he asked if Daddy was at work, and I said no, he was home sick.

Kaden: what's wrong? Mommy: His belly hurts. Kaden: why? Mommy: I don't know why, he just got sick.

Pause. Kaden: I know why his belly hurts. Mommy: why? Kaden: Because you yelled at him yesterday. Mommy (pause, I don't remember this, but...) oh. You really think so? Kaden: Yes. Mommy: Well, I guess I better apologize when we get home. Kaden: And give him a hug, too.

So, we get home and eat dinner and go about stuff. About an hour or so later, I remember this and say in a loud voice: Jim, I want to apologize for yelling at you yesterday. Jim: what? Kristi, whispering: shh, just go with it. Jim: Um, okay. Kaden is playing with his fire trucks and pointedly ignoring us. I give Jim a hug and walk over to the computer. As I'm sitting down, we hear Kaden say: That was very good, Mommy.