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Well, here it is, Friday night and I finally have a few moments to spill my brain onto paper, errr, pixels.  Our usual four-person-team at work was down by two all week (one unfortunately off to greener professional fields, another off on vacation) so it has been crazier than usual.  Two good work points though, even in these challenging economic times, we have been given the green light to go ahead and fill person #4′s newly vacated spot, and I also received a small promotion.  I guess technically “small” “medium” or “large” are pretty arbitrary quantifiers, but in this case, the distinction is that the promotion is mostly nominal in the job title, and not so much about the $$$.  I continue to be grateful to have a job, to have great benefits, great coworkers, etc and choose to keep my attitudinal ass firmly planted on the bright side of things.

The house.  Oh lord, the house.  Technically we were supposed to close on June 19th but have encountered a series of delays (also, technically I was supposed to be on vacation next week MOVING).  It has been the most incredibly stressful, drawn out, soul-sucking, frustrating, overwhelming, bleak three weeks imaginable (also to which I attribute George the ulcer.)  We had hoped to get more information by close of business today, and so not sit around all weekend again twiddling our thumbs, suffering, but alas, no dice.   Our entire life pretty much is ON HOLD.  And it is making me capital-K-KRZY.

Did I mention the weather has been running a steady 105-110°?  And that our AC unit in the rental home SUCKS?  Did you know that the backs of your earlobes can sweat?

Anyway, enough pity party.

Last weekend, we went up north to do an emergency resuscitation on Gmom’s computer.  The drive is about two hours, and I realized before leaving, the longest car trip we had undertaken since the End of the Great Potty Training Wars.  IE, the first road trip wearing big girl undies. 

At first, I thought I was being so smart, by insisting she potty before leaving, and also not providing her sippy cup to hold on to in the back seat as usual.   I figured hey–2 hours, what’s the big deal?  Well, an hour into the trip, George the ulcer (or was it just the voices in my head?) began insistently demanding an iced latte.  So we detoured to a convenient freeway-side drive thru.  While ordering, K asked for chocolate milk and by reflex, I nonchalantly ordered it, and then stuck a straw in there and gave it to her.  Whereupon she immediately downed all 8 ounces.  Yeah, I know, rookie error.  See, FF and I were so preoccupied chewing over the house situation, and trying not to LOSE OUR MINDS over the constant stream of chatter/complaints from the back seat, that we didn’t even think of the trip-bladder issues.

Well, I’m sure you know where this is headed.  She made it about another half hour and then the complaints started taking on a new tone and urgency.  I was so hoping that she could just hold it til we got into town, but over the next 10 minutes, she really started freaking out.  And also, FF had to take that car seat apart once before because of an early potty-training accident, and it practically took a PhD, divine intervention, and an engineering manual to put the damn thing back together. 

So I decided I would have to pull off at the next exit and introduce her to the fine art of roadside peeing.  Because yes, in another typical rookie maneuver, I decided not to bring the portable potty chair–again thinking “hey, it’s only 2 hours!”  IDIOT.  It took about 5 minutes to get to the next exit, and by that time, she had escalated to a constant whine/fuss, and then she started spontaneously clapping.  FF and I were like, WTF?!  It kinda freaked us out at first, hahaha.  For some reason, it seemed to help her cope, so she continued to fuss, and clap, whilst FF started querying me on how exactly I was planning to orchestrate roadside peeing with a 3 year old girl.  I think I said something like, “geez, pull down her pants and show her how to squat, how complicated can it be???”

So we got pulled off to the side of the road and while unbuckling her, I explained to K that she was going to have to just pee outside this time, since we couldn’t make it to a potty in time.  She was very puzzled but going along with it, until I pulled down her pants and showed her how to squat down, and I said, “ok now lets pull your shorts out of the way and then you can just tinkle right here on the grass”.  And she looks at me and says “the grass LIKES THAT?”

And the poor kid got points for technique, but not so much for aim–she got her pants and shoes wet.  So it then became a clean up and re-dress maneuver. 

But….

the carseat triumphed and remained dry.