I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but it’s been more than two weeks now that Gal Smiley has been pooping in the potty. Another New Year’s goal knocked off the list! For the curious, it was a combination of Kindersurprise and running out of “pooping” pull-ups (the cheapy no-name kind; we use name-brand for overnight) that did the trick.
I’m quite relieved about this turn of events, because we’re heading down to visit our parents in Southern Ontario in a couple of weeks. I love my mother and she really does her best to allow me to parent the way I want to parent, but she cannot resist giving advice on two favourite subjects: one, that our kids should have been toilet trained yesterday, and two, that breast feeding is gross and we should have weaned after two or three weeks of that nonsense. So at least with the Gal being officially out of diapers, we can perhaps keep it down to one major lecture.
This is only the second time we have made this trip with all three of the little ones, and I’m already freaking out about it and making lists out the yin-yang. We’ve been talking a lot lately about how we really do need to travel more with the kids, because it’s always the family trips that kids remember when they grow up and think about things they did with their family. But still, I just don’t get how some people we know (no names, but you know who you are) are able to take their kids to Australia or New York or Saskatoon or hell, even camping, without having a total breakdown. I really, really need to work on loosening up and going with the flow a little more. I hope that a few more trips to Southern Ontario will boost my confidence.
My sister-in-law and her family are headed to Disneyworld next week and before the Wee One was born, we had discussed going with them this winter. The Wee One is too small to make the trip though, so we are going to wait a couple more years. But that hasn’t stopped us from already beginning the planning. Sick, I know, but we are already looking at possible places to stay and talking about what we would do each day and what kind of luggage we’d need to bring and how it would all work.
With any luck, we’ll have the planning done by winter 2010. See y’all at the Mouse House!
TurtleHead 
Good for you. I know the potty thing was really stressing you out.
We were nervous about our first few trips too. When I took a month off between jobs last summer, though, we decided to take a bunch of weekend trips, partly because we had more time, but partly just to “get the hang of it”. I think it worked out well; these things seem daunting before you set out. But I like to treat these things as an opportunities to learn and to practice our ability to adapt to constantly-changing circumstances (no-one ever gets far as a parent without developing that ability, but it can probably always use improvement). With your already well-documented teamwork skills, no doubt you’ll be fine.
Of course we only have one child. <gross-underestimate>No doubt this is slightly more difficult with three</gross-underestimate>.