If you're not biking, you're part of the problem

I have had so. many. people. point out to me that biking is dangerous. I realize that, from friends and family, this comes from a place of love. People want me to be safe, and thank you for that! I appreciate your concern.
Others, however, exclaim over how unsafe biking is to dismiss it as viable transportation, or even to try to scare me out of doing it and to excuse themselves from biking. There are even drivers out there who will deliberately drive in a dangerous manner around cyclists to highlight how dangerous it is.
Whether you're the jerk whose purposefully making biking less safe, or just the person who won't do it out of safety concerns, I have this to say: you are part of the problem. That should go without saying for the group of people who drives dangerously on purpose around bikers, but the people who are too scared? What?
There has been a lot of scientific analyzing done on why people don't bike (especially women) and it turns out that over half the population is interested in biking but is too concerned about safety to actually do it. (Source and source.) But if you won't bike simply because there are big, bad cars all around you, you're probably also not in the minuscule minority of people who doesn't bike and doesn't own a car, which means that you own a car and are one of the scary drivers you don't want to bike around. You're just making the rest of us do it, and making biking scarier. The perceived danger of biking goes up, and even more people decide not to bike because it's too scary and dangerous. It's an awful feedback loop. By not biking, by giving in to the fear and worry, you become just one more driver on the road, one more person for the rest of us to be afraid of. Hence, you are part of the problem.
It's not that I don't understand the fear, either. Believe me, I'm not immune to worries that someone will take me out one of these days and, at best, I'll end up with massive medical bills. I worry about my husband getting hit every time he bikes away. I've woken up from nightmares in which someone missed me but hit the bike trailer with the Munchkin and...well, you can imagine where my brain goes next. I live with the knowledge that if someone killed my child while we were biking, I would never forgive myself.
But I also ask myself, if someone hit me while we were driving and it had that same tragic outcome, would I beat myself up about it as much? I actually think that the answer might be no, I wouldn't. Would other people judge me as harshly? The answer to that one is definitely no. If we got hit while biking, a majority of people would think that I had it coming for biking with my kid, whereas in a car the same thing would be considered a tragic accident. Why is this? Well, in a car it's much easier to tell myself that I've done all I can to protect her, while the bike seems so exposed. Except, once again, the car would be the dangerous factor in this, whether it was a car-on-car collision or car-on-bike. Cars are, in general, far more dangerous for both the people in them and the people out of them than bikes are. They're also easier to be monumentally stupid in. (Witness the rise of people texting while driving.) The best I can do in either situation is to make us as safe as possible, play defense, and hope that no one around me is insane, intoxicated, or distracted.
And you know what? I actually prefer biking for safety in many ways. For one thing, my bike, even with the attached trailer, has more maneuverability and better stopping power. It always goes slower, so I have more time to react to sudden moves by others. My vision is less obstructed on a bike, so it's easier to see all around me. I don't even hear my phone, and there's no music playing to block the noise of traffic or lull me into complacency. I also make frequent stops in which I can check in with my kiddo. I can't do that in a car because she still faces backwards, but on the bike it's easy enough to attend to her needs most of the time, or gauge her mood.

She likes to steal the butter when we ride home from Costco,
apparently.

Did you notice a common theme to my worries? I am not ever worried about us being stupid on our bikes. Yes, there have been times when we've made stupid decisions, and it's only ever led to bruises and scrapes. Trips to the emergency room (or morgue) tend to be for those who've been hit by cars*, so I am only worried about the drivers around us. Which brings me back to my earlier point: if all the people who are too worried about drivers to bike would take even one trip by bike a week, it would make the roads massively safer for everyone. After all, the more people who bike, the more drivers will look out for us all. The fewer people who drive, the fewer accidents there will be simply because there will be fewer other drivers to hit. There is no down side to this.
I can understand it if you're in the group of people who hates biking and never wants to do it. There are plenty of things which I can't understand the appeal of, so the fact that biking would strike some people that way isn't bizarre to me. (Well, okay, a little bizarre....) But for those who think only of the safety risks posed by biking, don't! Don't let fear dictate the course of your life. You will never be able to make yourself 100% safe, and it's an expensive illusion to think that you are.
Twice in the last year there have been storms around here which have produced news stories that struck me right to the heart. In both storms, trees fell on cars and killed the male drivers, but didn't scratch their toddlers in the backseat. Now, if they were on bikes the outcome might not have been different - trees might have fallen on them and killed them still. The point is, however, that there are many factors we cannot control, and we are not actually safer in cars than we are out of them. People die in their cars every single day. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not be one of them.

*Kids and/or mountain bikers tend to be the others who end up at the emergency room, but that's mostly just for single broken bones, not for broken bodies like car-on-bike accidents are.

Sexism at the playground

"Skinned knees are just part of life with boys."

"Girls make such good older siblings.  I mean, I guess not all of them have that mothering instinct?  But...you know what I mean?  Boys are just so wild."

To my daughter: "Wow, what a brave little girl you are!"  Turns to her own daughter. "Don't you get any ideas, ha ha."

"This is what little girls do!  You wear hair bows.  Stop taking it out of your hair please."

I really didn't expect to hear things like this, not in the twenty-teens.  I guess, now, I'm not even sure why I didn't expect it, beyond a vague idea that the cohort of parents I'm in is determined to do better for their kids, try to let them be who they are more than previous generations of parents have. But apparently in middle-class neighborhoods self-expression is limited to what instrument a kid wants to play.
This is hurting our boys, yes.  Expecting them all to be rough-and-tumble leads parents of shy boys to constantly feel the need to apologize.  "He's so shy!  I don't know why.  *nervous laugh*  Sorry!  I'm sure he'll warm up...."  It's such a silly attitude to have, that you need to apologize if your son isn't rowdy "the way boys are", or if he wants to wear pink or a dress.  Who cares?  Seriously, don't you have anything better to do with your day than worry that someone else's son is gay?  Because let's be honest for once and admit that that's what people are really freaking out over when little boys wear dresses and do "girl things".  They might be gay.  Or, they might just not GAF and want to play around with who they are, but if adults thought of it that way they wouldn't be freaking the fuck out about it.  Seriously, "Parents are often more likely to be worried if their son wants to wear dresses than if their daughter wants to wear" pants.  WTF, people?  Why would you worry about either of those things?
Even more than boys, though, this kind of bullshit is hurting our girls.  I'm going to say it again: it's hurting our girls in so many more devastating ways.  Why do I say that?  Because not only are we telling little girls who and what they should be, we're limiting their world in even more restrictive ways than we do for boys.  I am so livid at the number of parents I see who are deliberately holding their daughters back.  "Oh, don't climb any higher than that, honey!  No, no, that's too high--all right, I'm taking you off of that now."  You might think it's a safety issue, but I've never seen a parent speak that way to a boy.  Not once.  Not even those same parents, to their sons.

Head first.  She likes to be bold,
even in a pink dress.

The very fact that many parents use different tones of voice for different genders--syrupy sweet for girls and firmer for boys--grates on me.
It's not just my imagination or this area.  A recent study found that parents were far more likely to caution girls than boys.  (The study itself is here, but requires payment or membership to read.)  So my big question is, why would we do this to our daughters?  Why would we continuously tell them they can have the world, that they can do or be anything they want, and then just as frequently hold them back when they go for it?  WHY?  It's so maddening, and I don't have an answer.  I'm just pissed that this crap is starting so young.  Girls, right from the start, are being molded into what their parents think little girls should be like, rather than what their little girls think they should be like.  It needs to stop.
I remember understanding and internalizing this injustice when I was young.  My brothers were given pocket knives and, through their Boy Scout troops, got to go on epic adventures.  Building snow caves to sleep in, multi-day canoe trips...I was jealous.  Okay, I still am jealous.  What did my Girl Scout troop do?  Make paper dolls.  I quit when I realized that I wasn't going to be given a pocket knife and learn how to build fires.
But of course the mothers of the Girl Scout troop were horrified that that's what I expected.  I mean, that's just not what little girls want to do, right?  Am I right?  It's a bullshit attitude and, parents, you are kidding yourselves if you think your daughters don't see it and understand it.
I was very girly in many ways.  I loved dresses and dolls and ballet, but that didn't mean I wanted to be left out of the camping and the Learning How To Do Stuff.  I'm just thankful my parents were so supportive, so that I did learn to do cool "boy" things.  (Unfortunately, no matter how I begged, they could not get me into my brother's Boy Scout troop.)  But even with my progressive parents, they never thought to give me a pocket knife, even though my brothers had them.  (The Munchkin will be getting a pocket knife of her very own when we feel she's ready.)
I don't want my girl to encounter the same sexist crap that I did, especially not at home.  I don't want anyone's daughter to experience that.  When I saw how differently people treated me from my brothers, in a way that gave them special privileges for being male, that was the moment that I realized how much grownups lie to kids.  I was told I could be whatever I wanted...but I couldn't really, could I?  If I couldn't even get a grownup to teach me the same skills my brother was learning at the same age, would they really let me grow up to do the same things boys could?

Playing on ice, learning just how slippery it is.

I don't want my daughter to think that even her parents, her biggest supporters and cheerleaders in life, will try to hold her back because of her gender.  No one deserves that.  I am very lucky to be friends with people who feel the same way I do, so my girl will grow up with lots of friends who were also encouraged to explore and grow wild, no matter their gender.
So here it is, all laid out.  My Mother of a Girl Manifesto, if you will: My job as a parent is to give her wings, not to clip them.  I will point out when she's brave, while reassuring her that it's all right to have fears.  I'll be there to hold her hand when she needs it, and stand back when she doesn't.  I'll kiss those scraped knees and encourage her in activities which will earn her more of them.  I will help push her to her limits, because how can she find them if she doesn't look?

In praise of the good-enough home chef

I love cooking.  Let me rephrase.  I love cooking when it's peaceful.  Not so much when I've got the toddler screaming "UP!  UP!  UP!!!" and melting down at my feet, the dog is underfoot every time I turn around, and I'm trying to find that onion that, I swear, was in the bin this afternoon, where could it have gone?!
Like most home cooks, I have my easy, go-to recipes which I can basically do with my eyes shut and with only one hand, which is good because that's how many I often have to cook with these days.  Just tonight the Munchkin broke a glass, burned her arm and then ran into a table while I was making dinner.  (She was warned that the pot was hot, and the table thing was just dumb, frankly.  She gets stumbly when she's tired.)  BUT, I got a delicious dinner on the table, enough for five adults and a (hangry) toddler, plus leftovers.  It wasn't pretty to look at (is chili ever pretty?) but it was tasty.  And healthy.  And cheap.  In other words, the perfect meal.
I'm betting your household is like mine most nights.  Maybe not with the burning and the broken glass and the dog who trips you every other step, but the chaos.  Most of us home cooks don't spend hours slaving over the stove each night.  Who has the time for that?  Yes, HusbandX and I do have a few occasions on which we like to treat ourselves/each other and spend a couple of hours creating something miraculous and new.  (He made homemade pasta for me one time, even without a pasta roller.  That's true love, folks.)  But for the most part, our meals are hurried and harried and ever-changing.  We like to make big batches of stuff so that we have leftovers for a day or two, just to give ourselves a break.
I hear so many people whining that cooking is hard, or takes too much time, or they're just not good at it, but here's the thing: knowing how to feed yourself/your family, without resorting to boxes, is a life skill that I think everyone should have.  It's good for you, and it's great for your wallet no matter how you figure it.  (Fast food might be cheap in the moment, not so much when you're dealing with the associated health problems down the line.)  
Here in this house we have a fantastic resource called The Internet, with all kinds of amazing tips on how to be a better home cook, and with literally billions of recipes to try.  It's amazing.  If you think cooking is too hard, you should look at it sometime.  Learning to cook might take some work in the beginning, but knowing how to cook saves massive amounts of time.  (How much time do non-cooks spend waiting in restaurants?  Browsing menus?  Getting to/from the restaurant?)  Even when conditions aren't perfect, such as tonight, getting food together does not have to be a complex thing.  I was able to take time away from the (still on) stove to put ice on the burn and kiss the bonked forehead, and I didn't burn down the kitchen OR ruin dinner.  I must have skillz.  Or, you know, I deliberately chose a low-key meal in deference to the fact that I have a wild toddler running free in my house.
As for the people who claim that they're not good at it, so what if you're not going to get a Michelin star?  I bet you can make something edible if you really try.  Cooking is not rocket science.  I mean, it could be that convoluted, but it doesn't have to be at all.  My dad is probably one of the worst cooks I know (barring that one friend who got drunk and decided to make "stew" while his wife was out of town) but even he has a few go-to recipes which he can do quite well.
Lest you think that I'm an amazing cook, it's actually HusbandX who's the better chef in our house.  I'm a better baker than I am a cook.  I am also not one of those people who tastes something and knows just how it could be slightly better, or how to take a few random ingredients and make a 5-star meal out of them.  (That would be my cousin.)  I don't really make up my own recipes.  At best, I can tweak recipes a tiny bit, adding maybe some of this or a little of that, or making them slightly less complicated.   Have I ever let that stop me though?  No.  I don't need to be super creative in the kitchen to know what works well.  I don't need to spend tons of time preparing one small meal.  I don't need to plate things for maximum effect, with artful little dabs of sauce in the rim.  I am an adequate cook, and that's good enough.
So for all of the home cooks whose meals aren't worthy of social media picture posts, who deal with children fighting or screaming or causing trouble while they desperately try to get palatable food together, who use cheese sauce to cover any number of cooking sins, or who know that making a smoothie and toast for dinner totally counts as cooking, I salute you.  You (and I) will never write a cookbook.  You won't have a blog dedicated to your love of putting together "simple" meals that take an hour and involve $45 of special ingredients.  You won't open restaurants, but you still manage to feed yourself and your family.  Most nights, that's an accomplishment worthy of an award.  Way to go, you.

Leo: someone else who has not gotten a
much-deserved award...yet.

The lazy person's guide to plants

I've heard so many people say that they can't keep houseplants alive, at all, ever.  That's a real shame because houseplants have some amazing benefits, from helping to ward off depression to cleaning the air.  They're also easier than taking care of pets, and most landlords don't care if you have houseplants.
I am both lazy and easily distracted.  And yet, I have quite a number of houseplants, many of which I've managed to keep alive for years.  (I think my longest is going on eight years now, although I worried for a bit last summer that our move had killed it.  It didn't.  Disaster averted.)  I'm not special and I don't have a particular green thumb.  I mean, I love plants, but come on.  Plants need care and I am forgetful.  However, my secret to success is actually in my laziness.
We have pets.  They drink water.  But sometimes, the bowl gets nasty and needs to be cleaned out.  And the cat, of course, hates water if it's been in his bowl for longer than about ten seconds.  So I found myself dumping out quite a bit of water and it was annoying until I decided to keep some of my plants near their water dishes.  Now when I toss out the old water, it's into the plants instead of down the drain.  The plants don't care if it's nasty and maybe has a little bit of dog hair in it.  In fact, I kind of think that they end up pulling in some extra nutrients that way because my plants only get fertilized about once a year when I think, "Oh, I should probably feed them," and then it takes another month or two before I actually get around to doing it.

The plants nearest the cat's dishes.  They're both safe for him to eat.
In fact, one is catnip, but he doesn't seem to have realized that yet.

Of course, our pets don't leave enough water that even a bit daily will keep alive the houseplants I have.  But that's where water glasses come in.  You see, the Munchkin will drink some of her water and then stick her grubby fingers into it, then leave it behind when she runs off.  No one else wants to drink it, and I don't want her drinking it anymore, especially when it's cloudy with whatever was on her fingers.  Ew.  Into the plants it goes.
We all like to have water by the bed at night in case we get thirsty.  But it only gets fully drunk maybe 1/3 of the time so most days, whatever is left goes into the plants before the glasses get washed.
This is, hands down, the easiest thing to way I've found to care for plants.  It takes about zero time out of my day (particularly if the plants are near the water source, like near the pet water bowls or on the way to the dishwasher) and it saves a bit of money on water, since I'm not tossing perfectly good water down the drain and instead using it for a secondary purpose.  The only part to remember is which plants have gotten water recently, but that's easy enough that even my scatterbrain can do it.  And if you're not sure, as I'm frequently not, testing the soil with your finger will tell you which ones could really use the water.
Very rarely do I have to specifically go around watering my plants.  I used to try to keep it on a schedule, watering them all once each week, and that was horrid.  I kept forgetting and sometimes they'd go two or three weeks before getting watered, looking wilty and losing leaves.  This way, not only are they getting watered often enough but it also forces me to check on my plants about once each day, making sure there are no diseases, pests, or other problems to contend with.  There never have been, but it's also nice to say hello to the plants and breathe on them a little extra.  Sounds crazy, but I swear they love it and studies have borne this out.  (I know, Mythbusters is not exactly peer-reviewed science, but that one's just for fun.  If you want real research, look it up yourself.  It's fascinating.)
Watering my plants this way has become so routine that I barely think about it anymore, and I never worry if my plants haven't been watered enough.  So if you, too, can barely keep a plant alive, get one and try my way.  If it doesn't work you're out a few bucks.  If it does, you get all those wonderful benefits from the plants.  Just please, don't be like my friend who once said, "It's a cactus.  It doesn't need to be watered every month.

Agnostic about fitness

I have a confession: I don't really like "exercise".  Let me explain.  I do a lot of fitness activities, and get more than the recommended daily exercise, but I don't like doing the same thing day after day after day and trying to "get fit" or healthy or thin or whatever.  It's just so...boring.  So, I decided a long time ago to stop exercising.
The only thing I do each and every day which technically counts as exercise is walking.  I don't do it because it's healthy, I do it because it's something really fun which the Munchkin and I can do together.  Some days it's long walks, like down to the creek (probably about 4 miles round trip--not that the Munchkin walks the whole thing, it's a mixture of me carrying her in the Ergo and her walking/running) and other days it's short walks, like just to the park at the end of our street.  (We did that one twice yesterday, with a long time at the playground both times of course.)

My munchkin puddle stomping on one of our walks.
Why would we let the rain keep us indoors?

I love biking.  Love it!  But if I had to do it for the sake of exercise, I would stop almost immediately.  There are days and times when I have loved going for long rides all by myself.  I used to have a 15 mile loop in Fairbanks that I did on the regular during the summer.  But that wasn't "for exercise", it was for fun.  I love biking as a group, with friends, or to get places I want to go anyway.  When I'm biking that way, any fitness I get out of it is purely a side benefit, waaay down on my list of reasons to bike.
In the last month or so, I've started weight lifting a bit.  I've had a kettlebell for a while and used it off and on, wanting to do more but not wanting to pay for the gym or spend the money to get my own weights.  When my brother left for parts unknown he gave us his free weights to use while he's away, just two adjustable dumbbells.  And I'm really enjoying it.  It might be the only thing I do purely for fitness, although again I have a larger goal that's not about the fitness per se.  I want to be strong enough to keep up with what my child needs.  She still wants to be picked up about 45 million times each day, and I need to be strong enough that that doesn't break down my body.
Also, I want to be strong enough to keep up with her in the coming years.
Also, the results be damn girl, like whoa.  Even after a month-ish, I can see and feel a difference in myself, and so can HusbandX.  The fact that I get to eat more now?  Gravy.
I do yoga occasionally, because stretching is good, it's light enough that I can make myself do it even when I'm sick or tired, and I can do it while doing something else, like watching a movie or show with HusbandX.  Also, it's relaxing and I could really use that right now.  But most days, yoga is not what I want or need.  It's nice to know it's in my arsenal, but I'm never going to become a yogi and do a daily practice.
I also run.  Again, I'm not at all regular or religious about it.  There are times when I've gone out five days a week to run and loved it, and times when I've done it once or twice in a month and hated it both times so I stopped for a while.  The times when I've most needed running, it tends to be mostly about my mental health, about needing to get away and do something meditative, something positive for myself.
Today was a running day.  I broke down this morning over the fact that my tea had been moved and I couldn't find it.  Things are being put away in the kitchen in increasingly random places, and I'm the one who tends to quietly go about putting them back where they belong so everyone can find them.  But it's hard to see one more symptom of my mom's illness, to deal with it on a daily basis.
I need about a month of good sleep, but I'm not going to get it anytime soon.  The book "Go the Fuck to Sleep" was written for and about kids like mine.  Last night, though she was so exhausted that she was melting down by five, she was still awake at 9:30, stubbornly determined that she wasn't going to give in to sleep EVER!  Then she woke up before eight this morning, and then my caffeine source was missing.  I haven't slept well in days, and if I take a nap in the afternoon it just means that I lay awake at night, unable to sleep.
So today was a running day.  Not because I'm super healthy or because it helps my brain, but simply because that's what I needed today just like I needed the brownies I made last night.  (I was skeptical--black bean brownies?--but we're almost out of flour.  These turned out to be both easy to make and delicious.  Good enough that I'll make them again even when we're fully stocked with flour.)  I often wonder how people who shun exercise can possibly be mentally healthy, and then I remember that not everyone is made as active as I am.  (I have sometimes wondered if I have ADHD, and much of the recent press about girls being under-diagnosed has brought up symptoms which fit with my childhood, but which I thought were just problems with ME.)
The last few times I've run, I've been plagued by knee problems.  This is something which only flares up with running--not a single one of my other activities hurts.  (Apparently I should try foam rolling, because advocates of it speak up the same way CrossFit-ers and vegans do, and attribute the same number of miraculous health benefits to it as the other groups do.)  But I think that this is one of the benefits of being an agnostic when it comes to fitness: I can move on to any of my other activities and I'll be all right.  Today was a running day, but tomorrow probably won't be.
So for others out there who are easily bored by one fitness routine: try them all.  Find the ones you like best and mix them up.  I've tried doing some of those 30 day challenges and get bored or distracted around day 5.  If you're like that, don't force it!  You'll hate it and then think it's because you hate exercise in general.  You don't, you just haven't found the right thing yet.  And before you think I'm trying to advocate that everyone suddenly become as active as I am, stop right there.  I don't, but I do think that most people could benefit from being a bit more active, in whatever capacity.  My old boss does belly dancing, and I think that's awesome.  Her girls do roller derby, and that's just as awesome.  I know boxers and bikers and runners and walkers and I think it's fantastic.  The important thing, in so many ways, is simply to be active.  Get out there and move, even if it's not your usual fitness routine.  If you're too tired for one thing, try another.  You'll thank yourself later on.
Also, eat brownies without shame.  Because NOM!

The Sticker Chart

We began potty training our Munchkin at about 6 months.  I'd read a bunch of stuff about EC (elimination communication) and the benefits of potty training early, such as a lower rate of UTIs in kids who are potty trained young.  Having experienced the misery of UTIs myself, since both my mom and I are prone to them, I did not want the Munchkin to have to go through that.  Plus, since we cloth diaper I figured that not having to clean out poopy diapers would be a huge benefit.

A lot of people who do EC will rave about how wonderful it is.  We are not those people.  In fact, if we ever have a second kid, I'm not sure I'd start potty training that soon again.  It would still be on the table, but it would be something we'd need to seriously discuss, the pros and cons and what we'd do differently.  

For the details: it took about a week for her to pee on the potty for the first time.  It was first thing in the morning and she was sort of wake-up crying.  When she started peeing she looked at me like, "Uh-oh," but I started praising her and she smiled like, "Oh, that's what you want me to do here!"  It was pretty incredible to be able to read her thought process on her face.  The next morning when I sat her on the potty she peed almost immediately, checking to see if I would react in the same positive way, which of course I did.  From then on I had to guess when she needed to pee, but we had frequent successes.  There were even days when we'd have only a few wet diapers.  Considering how frequently our child pees, that was a huge deal.

It took about a month before we got the first poop on the potty, but it met with the same success that peeing had.  When she realized that she didn't have to be sitting in her own feces, telling us that she had to poop (usually by pointing at the potty or crawling to it) before she went became her preference.

And then, when she was a little over a year, she stopped doing that.  We don't know why, but she stopped pooping on the potty.  It became a game with her, to withhold it.  And then, I think, the game overtook her and became something else, so that she couldn't make herself go on the potty.  In the past year, we've gotten her to poop on the potty once.  It was, to say the least, freaking annoying.

Even worse, recently she's gone to having daily potty accidents, then several times a day.  When we first put her in big-girl underwear, she'd be dry unless she was super tired.  Now we were having to deal with potty accidents more than once a day and we were at a loss.

So I started researching what to do for potty regression.  It tends to be something kids do when they're stressed out, and we suspect that our living situation (the constant chaos) is the source of stress.  Not much we can do about that beyond what we're already doing.  

But I came across the idea of sticker charts as an incentive for kids when potty training.  It's something fun and rewarding, a visual thing, and a reminder tool.  It's not quite a bribe, since those can be either wildly successful or can backfire intensely, but it's something she likes.

However, the most common iteration I've seen of this is a sticker for every time a kid either sits on the potty or goes potty.  That was right out, because our kid is smart enough that she would have gamed that system immediately, forcing herself to pee as often as possible for more stickers.

Instead, we made a chart basted on sections of the day: morning, nap, afternoon, and then a special one for going poop on the potty.

Glorious, isn't it?  There should be more stickers, but it was
originally down where the Munchkin could pull them off.

You know what?  It worked immediately.  She even pooped on the potty that first day!  If we think she needs to use the potty but doesn't want to, we remind her of her stickers and she usually goes potty without fuss.  Getting to put the stickers on the chart is such a success that she brings it up herself.  When she goes potty right before her nap she tells me, "Sticker!  My sticker!" and runs off to find the stickers, because she knows it's time.

The only thing I would say as a caution about sticker charts are the fact that it can also be its own source of anxiety.  We think that, when she did have an accident the other day, she got upset about the loss of her sticker.  So we've been careful to tell her that it's not a punishment to have the stickers taken away, and that accidents sometimes happen and that's all right.

Since we started the chart this week, she's only had two three accidents, one of which was my fault.  She went potty before nap time, then told me later that she had to go potty and I thought she was just trying to delay nap time.  Turns out she had to poop.  I let her know that it was all my fault, and thanked her for trying to tell me.  She didn't get a sticker, but she knows that that wasn't her fault and that's important.

Since I know plenty of parents who are facing potty training in the near future, I hope this helps.  For more experienced parents, any other words of wisdom about what helped your kids the most?  Did you try EC, and if so what was your success?

The de-cluttering war

I am a packrat.  I come from a family of packrats.  The eternal thought that I should save something "just in case" plagues me.  But at the same time, having a clean and orderly space saves my sanity.  When the area around me is tidy, I feel more in control and calmer.  (My parents have told me many times that I was their only child, out of four, who would voluntarily clean.)
So for the sake of my sanity, a few years back I decided to start a war on clutter.  I'm not alone, many people have come to the conclusion that they need to do the same thing, hence the rise of minimalism and books and blog posts about decluttering.  Sorry for adding to that.
But how does an admitted packrat declutter?  It's actually easier than I thought.  I did read Marie Kondo's opus "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up", as well as a few other books and lots of online tips, and basically I'm making my own mish-mash of styles.  You know, making it work for me.
Before we left Fairbanks, wanting to move as little as possible, I spent months cleaning out our apartment.  I mean, I'd been trying to declutter for a while, but the decision to move threw me into high gear.  It turns out that moving a good way across a continent is a decent way to remove sentimentality.  Things I'd saved before because they had some memory attached to them became just one more piece of junk.  Did I actually need the object to remember whatever it was I wanted to remember?  No.  Even my wedding dress, I realized, didn't have sentimental attachments.  Don't get me wrong, I love that dress.  I felt gorgeous in it.  But, realistically, I'm never going to wear it again (although I could! I tried it on before packing it up) so on my list of things to do is to get it cleaned and listed online for sale.  I have pictures of myself in it, and that's good enough.
Now that we're here in my parents' house, I've been trying to help them as well.  It's something my dad has said for years that he wants to do, he just hasn't gotten around to it.  So I'm helping to get the motivation going.  Having less stuff around will help my mother, in particular.  I went through her closet with her (she still had stuff she hadn't worn since the 80s!) and we got rid of so. much. stuff.  It was much easier to do with two people, since I could see her trying to justify keeping something and was able to tell her, "No.  If you're making that face, you don't want to keep this."  And she thanked me, days later, saying that she could finally see all of her favorite clothes.  Hurray!
But harder than the actual deciding what to get rid of, I've found, is what to do with all of the stuff.  Since I hate the idea of arbitrarily adding useful stuff to the landfill, what should happen to all of the stuff we're getting rid of?

1. Homeless shelters.  This is my go-to with nice, office-y clothes (to help people who are job searching) and with any outdoor gear, such as coats and hats.  I took my parents through their front hall closet (which went from so packed that we couldn't stuff any more coats in it to surprisingly roomy) and pretty much everything which wasn't ruined enough to go in the garbage went to the homeless shelter.  Same thing with much of the stuff in the Munchkin's closet (which is still unusable for her because it's still got tons of junk we need to go through).

A huge pile of coats which we donated to the homeless.  I literally
could not carry all of them at once.

2. To friends and family.  When we got married, we got new, nice dishes.  We gave away our old dishes to a friend who was just moving out of the dorms on campus.  Yay!
Recently I went through a few of my photo albums and have set aside bundles of pictures to give to friends and family who probably want them more than I do.

3. Buy Nothing Project.  This is generally organized through Facebook, so if you don't have that you're out of luck, but it's been a great resource for us.  I'm giving away one graduation cap and gown to someone in the group, and I gave away a bunch of foam board which has been sitting in my closet for years for some unknown reason.
One of the women who took some of the foam board had some fold-up clothes drying racks which I'd asked for, so it was awesome to just trade in one go.  Yay for neighbors helping neighbors!
I have more stuff I keep finding to give away, such as an old Homecoming dress from high school.

4. Schools.  The other graduation gown I found will be donated to the local highschool, so that a low income student who possibly couldn't afford one can use it.  The rest of the foam board I found will go to my best friend, a teacher, who works in a school with a ridiculous amount of poverty.  (Some of her kids have talked about time spent in homeless shelters, and many get both breakfast and lunch at school.)

5. Anywhere else which serves the needy.  A friend of ours works for Fairbanks Counseling and Adoption, so before we left we gave a lot of baby stuff to them.  Someone had given us disposable diapers at my work baby shower, not realizing that we were going with cloth, and we did use some (out at the family's cabin, without access to laundry facilities) but not all.  So we gave the rest to our friend, knowing that they'd go to a girl (all their clients are under-21) who badly needed them.  Same with some of the baby blankets and other baby gear we got.  While we are so thankful that so many people thought of us and gave us these items, there are only so many things one tiny human needs, so we decided to pass along the generosity, particularly after our Munchkin outgrew some of them.

6. Thrift stores.  See how I'm putting this sixth on the list?  I'm sure it's easier for people to just drop everything off at one store and be done with it, but I'd rather that my stuff do the most good possible.  I tend to reserve the thrift store for knick-knacks, dishes, things of that nature.  The photo albums which I cleared out of pictures?  Those went to a thrift store.

7. Libraries.  Always, always support the public library.  In addition to books, they also take CDs, DVDs, Blue-ray, even tapes, tape-players, and CD players in many cases.  It's worth an ask.
I found a bunch of CDs from my childhood that I don't want anymore, but I got rid of the cases.  However, I kept the covers.  So on my list is to write to the local library and see if they'll still take the CDs, sans cases.

8. Profit-making ventures, such as Craigslist, eBay, consignment stores, and used bookstores.  I generally find that the effort I put into these things is more than what I get out so I prefer utilizing most of the other methods on this list before turning to one of these.  In fact, I generally only use these if I'm certain to make a fair amount of money.  My wedding dress will be listed for sale, as will my old bike, because each of those should net me enough money to make them worthwhile.  Furniture, also, is generally worth listing if it's in good condition.

Everything useful has a way to get rid of it so that others will take it.  After all, it's useful.  Hell, we gave away a bunch of condoms at the University's Pub when we didn't need them.  I put them in the women's bathroom and they were all gone by the end of the evening.  Three cheers for helping students have safe sex!
I still keep things around more than I probably should, and there are plenty of items which I'm undecided on what to do with.  Stash of random small fabrics in my closet?  Hmm.  Maybe give them to a quilter?  Or get out my mom's sewing machine and make a quilt myself?  Not sure yet.  (Not that we need a quilt, we've got plenty of blankets.  It would be one more thing to get rid of, but a "higher-value" item.  I could give it to a homeless shelter, rather than to someone as a craft project.)
I get discouraged by how slowly I'm decluttering, but when I look around I do see a lot of progress.  When we moved we needed only the enclosed trailer my in-laws graciously loaned to us.  It was awesome.  And my closet here, filled with stuff since this was my room from age 9 until I moved out (and still considered "my room" even when I was long gone) is finally becoming a bit less crammed, a little bit at a time.