Really? Seriously?

Is it seriously too much to ask for a shower? I'm not even talking about an uninterrupted shower. Just a shower.  Or for kids to go to sleep when they are put to bed instead of still being awake 3 hours later? Or for your baby to not act like a little leech for days after getting shots and refusing to let you put her down or walk out of her line of sight? Is it too much to ask for that same baby to stop teasing me by sleeping 6-8 hours straight for two nights in a row then suddenly changing her mind on the third night and going back to waking up every two hours to eat. Is it to much to ask for a certain teenager in my house, not mentioning any names or anything cause I'm sure you know who you are, to wash the dishes correctly the first time? (Yes, I still love you my little pain in the butt child. Yeah I know you read these. lol) And not to leave out your sister, is it too much to expect her to actually clean her part of the bedroom correctly, knowing that I'm going to check and most likely make her do it again? Is it unreasonable to expect my 3 year old to stop sneaking around the house early in the mornings like a little ninja baby getting into everything. And yes I know it's her cause she leaves evidence! Usually in the form of marker or makeup on her hands and face. I do have pictures to prove this and they've already been posted to facebook so she can't argue it wasn't her. Is it really that outlandish that money should grow on trees? Hell even if it did we live in the desert so what good would it do us here, we don't have real trees! Hmm, out of all of those complaints only one of them is really unreasonable. Ok, somebody give my kids the memo to straighten up! :)

Hormones Really Suck!

Sometimes being a woman really sucks! I'm blaming it all on the depo. Which by the way, as long as the Essure worked this time, I won't need anymore depo shots. I'll drink to that! If you don't know what Essure is I'll try to explain. Basically they take a skinny little coil and plug your fallopian tubes with it. After a few months the tube closes around it and then no more babies. The first time I had it done I lived in a tiny little town where they ended up closing down the hospitals birthing center. My doctor did my procedure literally about a week before he left town for another job. Since I no longer had a doctor I never went back in for the test to make sure everything was sealed up. Everything was perfectly fine for almost two years so I figured it was safe to assume the baby factory was closed. Then Josh and I got together for the first time since we were kids. Now let me remind you that I already had three kids at that point and Josh had three kids too. The weekend before my birthday, Josh's Mom asked if I could have any more kids and we told her no. Well according to my due date and Baby Centers conception calculator, I got pregnant on my birthday! The hospital told me that it was going to be an ectopic pregnancy, We were both crushed. Yes it was extremely bad timing but we really wanted to have a baby together. We just didn't plan it that soon. Two days later I went to the doctors for a follow up and he assured me that everything was perfectly fine and he dubbed her our miracle baby.

Now that my little miracle is almost seven months old and is the youngest of seven children, I find myself getting very emotional over the tiniest little things, especially Riley getting bigger. I know that I don't need any more kids, we've got our hands full as it is. But just knowing that she's the last baby I'm ever going to have is kind of sad. Pretty much all I've ever done is raise kids. I don't really know anything else. Now I know I still have quite a few more years where my kids need me but the day will come when they are all older and they won't need as much from me. I should be thrilled by that thought but instead it kind of scares me. What do I do with my life when they don't need me as much? I keep saying that I need to find something  to do with myself now so that down the road I have something for me. Something that makes me feel useful and productive. And something that helps take some of the financial burden off of Josh.

Ok, enough rambling for now. I haven't accomplished much this week and there's a pile of dirty laundry waiting for me.

Potty Training Woes

Ok, I'm looking for some input here. Potty training. Holly is driving me crazy. She's 3 years old, she pees in the potty just fine, usually has a dry pull up after nap time and occasionally even in the mornings after bedtime. Staying dry isn't much of an issue. But pooping in the potty? Oh that's a whole other story! She's done it a few times, but only a few. She'll refuse to eat and say that her belly hurts so we tell her to go potty, that she has to poop. Turn on the nearly hysterical crying! She absolutely hates to poop in the potty. We've tried the potty seat and the cushiony one that goes on the big potty. Neither one works for her. We praise her tremendously when she does manage it hoping that the positive reinforcement will help. It doesn't. She can sit there for hours and it doesn't make a difference. But 5 minutes after she gets that pull up on and goes to bed she's coming out of her room telling me she's pooped. It's got to be one of the most frustrating feelings in the world! Putting her in time out doesn't work, talking to her doesn't work, praising her doesn't work. We've tried both sitting with her and giving her privacy. She held it for 5 days one time, until I finally gave her some of the baby prune apple juice. She went like 5 or 6 times in a 48 hour period. I don't know what to do. She knows she needs to poop and she knows where she needs to do it at. My oldest daughter did this too. Potty trained perfectly by the time she turned 2, except for pooping in the potty. We had to resort to giving her children's laxatives. The whole process was traumatic for her and for me. I don't want to go through that this time. Does anybody have any advice here? Is it possible that she's just not ready for that part of potty training or is my 3 year old just a stubborn control freak?