Day 1: Our Gifted Child

Posted by: Cris

**It looks like Emilie and I may end up posting on the same day at times so make sure you scroll down far enough so you don't miss a post (mostly aimed at my parents).**

Our Juneau is one gifted child. No child on this planet is as good at having such extremely ill-timing for needing to sit on the potty. Have you been sitting at a restaurant for a half hour, looking at the menu, placing your order and waiting for your food and now your piping hot food has just arrived at the table at this very moment? Then Juneau has to sit on the potty RIGHT NOW!

Back to that in a moment...

Today was the first day of the new "normal". I had the first day of my normal back to work schedule and headed to school early leaving the girls with Nelson and Katy. When I got home at 2:30, the girls were down for their nap and got a great report. Everything went very smoothly it seems.

It was amazing how much I missed the girls just being away from them for only 8 hours today after having spent nearly every second with them for the last year.

So, tonight the girls and I headed over to the Pearl Harbor Navy Exchange to get some dinner and do some shopping. Nova was thrilled to get to eat her favorite thing in the whole world:

Taco Bell Pintos & Cheese!!

After dinner we headed over to the commisary to get groceries. I had only been there about 10 minutes and had the cart partially loaded when of course Juneau announced her urgent need for a bathroom. Under normal circumstances this would not be a problem except without Emilie there to either stay with Nova or take Juneau to the bathroom I'm left with the following dilemma:

Since the bathrooms are out past the check-out, do I:
A) leave the cart hoping it will still be there when I get back
B)wait to check out then park the cart of paid groceries outside the bathroom and hope they are still there when I'm done or
C) tell Juneau that this is a great opportunity for her to practice "holding it", finish shopping, check out and take the groceries out and load them into the van then trek back into the store and visit the bathroom.

The correct answer is of course: C

The only problem became that just prior to leaving the house tonight, Nelson announced that he was going to make pancakes in the morning and gave me a list of things to get that included stuff like baking powder, baking soda and buttermilk. Ask me to find the milk or Go-gurts or a box of Lucky Charms in the store and I'm fine but for this type of stuff, you might as well be asking my wife to go into Lowe's and come out with a 3/4 inch carriage bolt with a 20 thread pitch and a toggle nut.

So, it took a little longer to complete the shopping than might have been ideal. Meanwhile, Juneau was reminding me at least twice per aisle that she preferred to stop shopping and head toward the bathroom.

However, finally we made it out of the store, out to the van, back into the store and to the bathroom...and Juneau held out that long. But the lesson of day #1 on our own was learned:

"Don't be in a hurry because it is going to take 3 times longer to do things with only 1 adult around"