Nolie's Awesome

Know how I know?  Because she runs around the house, usually clothed in, oh, say, a pair of Elmo underwear (if we're lucky), screaming, "I AWESOME!  I AWESOME!  I AWESOME!"

Potty training proceeds apace.  She has one or two accidents every day, then every fourth day or so, she has, like, ten accidents all in a row.  And she is definitely not down with pooping on the potty yet, so she's plopping some huge ones into her underwear.  Good news is she doesn't like keeping them on once that happens, which tells us she likes the feeling of being dry.  Bad news is that means you might inadvertently step into a big turd that got dropped on the floor somewhere around the house, unbeknownst to you.  Nothing like a poodicure to make one feel pampered.

But, strangely, I'm not stressing it.  All of that neurotic anxiety from the Addie potty training days seems to be gone.  If I have to pick a turd up off the floor, so be it!  If Nolie wants to pee the tiniest little mililiter of pee, and then say, "All done!" and then five minutes later we have to go through the whole rigamarole of panties, wiping, flushing, washing hands, turning the light off, shutting the door, and then five minutes later releasing another little nanomolecule of pee, great!  I'm cool.  I'm riding the potty training wave, man.  Mostly I'm just impressed with how consistent she is, overall. 

We have had one unfortunate incident, though.  Because our children are potentially the pickiest eaters on the planet, if ever we're brave enough to take them out to eat, we tend to go to Chili's.  Now, I am not a Chili's fan--except for the chips and salsa, which I would eat until Maury Povich had to come and cut me out of the house--but they serve Kraft Mac n Cheese and pasta w/red sauce, which our children will actually eat without complaining.  They don't have many vegetarian options for me, which is a bummer, but at least we can sit and eat a meal out, as a family, in relative peace. 

Except for last Friday, which was like the perfect storm of unfortunate restaurant experiences.  First, I took Nolie to the potty right off the bat, hoping to avoid an accident in the booth. 

Have you seen that horror movie Dark Water?  Here's an image: 



This is sort of what Nolie looked like after the toilet at Chili's basically threw up black water all over the both of us.  I, being the nelly little pansy I am, screamed when this happened, which you're not supposed to do as, you know, the grown-up, and Nolie, covered in sewage backwash, took my cue and panicked.  I was sure she would never sit on a toilet again.

But we got her dried off and calmed down, and the manager offered to comp the kids' meals, so we stayed.  Unfortunately, we soon discovered that Chili's no longer carries marinara (why, for the love of God?!?) and so Addie had to eat (the torture!  The cruel punishment) PIZZA!  Lawd a mighty, Miss Addie, how will you ever survive?  And then when the kids' food did come, it was cold.  Refrigerator cold.  Like some addle-brained cook back there just pulled it out of the freezer and was like, oh, they're toddlers, they won't notice we didn't cook their food. 

The manager then personally brought us new kid food, warm this time, and was kind enough to comp us four kid meals on the check.  Like this would make us feel better?  We didn't order four kids meals, mother fucker!  We ordered two!  You just messed up on the first round!  So hell, yes, you're "comping" that!  Take your cold pizza and your vomiting toilet and shove them up your ass!  We're going to Appleby's!

At least, that's what I felt like saying.  Mostly, I just paid the check and left.  Cuz that's just the sort of badass I am.