So much to say

The speed of life is so fast when you are the working mom of a wonderful, active 2.5 year old. Especially when everyone was sick for most of August.

Erik is talking so much now. I think his two favorite verbal things are to make a comparison and to talk about his day. When he makes a comparison, he'll say, "what's this?" (for example - pointing to icing on a cookie - "what's this?"), and I will tell him what it is. Then he will tell me what it is "kinda like" ("icing is kinda like icecream with candies, Momma"). The other day he saw a horse. He told me it was "black and white, kinda kike a cow."

At bedtime between turning out the light and singing him a lullaby, he tells me that he wants to talk about his day. My job is then to ask questions to which he can give answers, for example, what did you have for snack, did you ride the bike at school, did you have fun at church school.

He also tells me, "I have a question." Sometimes he has a question, and sometimes he doesn't.

Erik is learning to use scissors. On the days that I work from home, he comes in the office and pulls pages off a sticky note pad or other note pad and cuts them with the scissors. He make a huge mess, but it keeps him happy and occupied, and it is a great development exercise for him.

We are potty training, now. He does really well at school because there is no better reminder than a room full of other 2 and 3 year olds who have to go potty, too. He loves to wear his pull-ups. However, he told me tonight that he would like me to buy Thomas the Train pull-ups (good luck, Mom, I don't think they make those).

The whole potty training experience got off to a rough start. He showed so much interest ahead of time, and then when the time came he didn't want to sit on the potty. So, I put the potty on a plastic mat in the living room. It worked really well until he decided he should only use the potty in the living room, and furthermore, he should be able to eat dinner while sitting on the potty. In fact one night, after I fed Erik dinner he wanted to sit on his potty. He was sitting on the potty and Todd and I were eating dinner on the couch (our dinner wasn't ready when Erik was ready to eat). Then he decided he wanted to eat our dinner while on his potty. Then we had to have the discussion about why he shouldn't touch his private parts while he was eating food.

So, the potty chair has now gone away, and he is using a potty seat that sits on top of the regular potty.

W0rk is extremely busy right now. Sometimes, I feel like my list of things to do gets longer than the work I accomplished each day. Hey, job security and the days fly by.

The Race for the Cure is coming up. I have not had a lot of time to really train for it because of all the rain, but I am still excited. I wished I had been able to raise a bunch of money for the cause, but I have only received $20 so far. I won't complain though, it is more than I raised last year.

My stomach has been killing me lately. I really need to go back to the gastro dr., but it sometimes seem useless. So, I will probably make and appointment, and keep it, and then feel like a crazy person for having gone. Sometimes I am tempted to see a different dr., but my interest says the one I am seeing is the brightest. So... I don't know.

My teeth have been hurting lately, too. The dentist thinks that I have either been brushing too hard or grinding my teeth. I don't think I have been grinding my teeth, but who knows. I got desperate today and bought sensedyne. I hope it works.

Valarie and I went to the Southern Women's Show last weekend. I had a good time. I have not been since before Erik was born, so it was nice to go. It was also great to have a mom's night out, and Valarie always shows a good time. We perused the Show, and then went to dinner to catch up on our families.

We are going to the beach this weekend with my family. I am hoping for a good, relaxing, no-stress kind of time.

I am not really sure anyone really reads my blog, but if anyone does and is very natural/herbally, please tell me if you believe that drinking too many carbonated beverages could couse problems for the digestive track - specifically colon.

I will try to post pictures soon. I have some good photos of our kitchen floor/hole in the wall remodel/repair, Erik sleeping in a funny position, and other misc. Erik pictures. One of my favorites is the destruction Erik created in our home office while working on art projects while I worked from home on the computer right next to him.