During one of our recent trips to IKEA to outfit our new house in the latest and greatest in window coverings we succumbed to an impulse buy. IKEA makes those impulse buys so easy. I see a brightly colored dish and I just have to have it. Or I see the brightly colored napkins and I have to buy three packs. Or the brightly colored children’s plastic plates and cups.

Holy crap, I’m like a little bird; I’m attracted to all thing brightly colored.

Anyway, back to my impulse buy.

The King and I decided to fork over $3.99 for a little IKEA toilet for Babboo. It wasn’t that Babboo seemed ready to be potty trained. The kid just turned two. And it wasn’t that we were ready to being potty training. Heck, I hadn’t even thought about it. All I knew was that this little IKEA potty was $3.99 and it would look so cute in Babboo’s new bathroom.

(I told you Babboo’s bedroom in the new house has its own bathroom, right? Teenage Isabel is so jealous.)

We bought it. Took it home. Placed in it the bathroom and forgot about it. Ever now and again I’d ask Babboo if he wanted to use his potty and he’d ignore me. After a while he decided he liked using it as a little seat. He’d carry it around from room to room and sit on it while he read a book or watched something on my iPod.

After a little more time Babboo decided he would sit on the potty without his diaper on. The King and I would ask him if he needed to pee and again, he would just ignore our questioning. But dude, he was sitting on the potty. We seemed to be moving in the right direction. Whatever that direction might be.

And then something magical happened….one night, while sitting on the potty while I got his tub ready, he stood up from his potty and there was actually something in it!

Holy crap, the kid used his potty.

Babboo was just as surprised and shocked as I was. We both began to sing and dance around.

“Hooray for potty!”

We ran to tell daddy. I called my mom.

This was new territory and I admit to being very nervous. I just wasn’t ready for potty-training. The next morning I hoped on the interweb and looked up how to potty-train your kid. Mostly what I learned was that kids were typically about three when they were ready. Babboo is about nine months shy of being three. I also read of sticker charts and rewards systems. Um yeah, I had no chart. And no desire to reward potty-time with candy. (Mostly because having candy in the house just means I’ll eat it.) I read of buying big-boy-underwear and daddy’s teaching their little boys how to use the potty.

Right. None of this was happening at our house. All we were doing was letting our kid basically use his $3.99 IKEA potty as a chair.

This all happened a month ago.

I haven’t talked about this really to anyone, until right now, but dude, Babboo totally potty-trained himself. Anytime I sit him on his potty (with a book, mind you) he uses it. He won’t get up until he does his business. And then we both do a little dance and run off to tell The King.

There were no sticker charts, no candy rewards, no Thomas the Train underpants. While some kids walk at nine months and others start talking at six months, my kid potty trained himself.

And let’s be honest, I’ll take my kid potty training himself over walking early any day of the week.

(Full disclosure dictates that I tell you Babboo won’t use the potty at school. It’s one of those miniature toilets that look like a regular toilet, only smaller. I think it freaks him out. His teachers tell me he’s never used it once. I think they just don’t believe me when I tell him that Babboo’s using his potty at home exclusively. I’m fine with him not using the school’s potty. Dude, that thing is covered in germs. I’d just assume he stayed away from it.)

(I still can’t get over MissZoot’s post about NOT USING THE TOILET SEAT COVERS IN PUBLIC BATHROOMS!)

Babboo and I met my older brother Biff for sushi last night. It was a good evening stuffed full of raw fish, seaweed, chopsticks and sticky rice. There was also some good conversation. Although I do admit that most sentences started with me saying “you’ll never believe who I found on facebook” and ended with Biff saying “I don’t remember that person.”

I spent a bit during dinner updating my brother on our recent trip back to Utah to visit the family. Biff hasn’t been back to Utah in probably seven years. In that time a lot has happened.

And by a lot I mean there are like sixteen new Wal-Marts.

And an IKEA.

After dinner we decided to walk off our sushi by walking over to the grocery store. I needed some milk and Biff wasn’t done playing with Babboo. (It must be noted that Babboo has a hard time pronouncing “uncle”. My brother is now referred to as “Awful Biff”. I haven’t tried to correct it. It’s just too funny.) Babboo got a little sucker from the restaurant. He took turns between licking the sucker and dripping the juice all over Awful Biff, who was nice enough to carry Babboo for most of our walk.

We got to the grocery store and I quickly grabbed some milk while Biff got a paper towel and proceeded to clean off all the sticky sucker juice. By the time we got in line to pay for my goods, I was too focused on Babboo and Biff to notice who was in front of us in line.

I was a little shocked to hear someone say “hi” to me in the grocery store. We’re still new to our little neighborhood and I never expect to see anyone I know there. But alas, we were standing in line behind a super cool family from our congregation at church. We started chit-chatting, there in the line at the grocery store, while my milk was rung up and I paid. Somehow the conversation turned to how Babboo had managed to cover my brother in sucker excrement. This was the point when the husband said, with relief in his voice “Oh, this is your brother?!” And then his wife said, “I thought maybe you had a new husband!”

“Oh right, this is my brother Biff.”

This isn’t the first time Biff’s been confused as my boyfriend or husband. My problem is that I’ve always just assumed that people know he’s my older brother. We look like brother and sister. I think we act like brother and sister. It just seems obvious.

Problem is I guess it’s only obvious to me.

We continued laughed about this and the conversation went back to the previous discussion. As we said our good-byes and headed on our way the wife brought up again how confused she had been when she saw Babboo and I with another man.

“Don’t worry. He’s really just my brother. Or maybe I’m just telling you he is.”

Yeah, maybe that last part wasn’t such a good idea. I wonder if this will get back to The King.

Things Babboo and I did last night while The King was away for the evening (fulfilling some church responsibilities):

• Danced to the Mamma Mia! soundtrack
• Sang along to the Mamma Mia! soundtrack
• Baked cookies
• Watched “Gossip Girl” and “Project Runway”
• Hung up our new curtains
• Had a dinner party
• Painted my toenails

Things The King will have to do with Babboo tonight to make up for my time with him yesterday:

• Hammer something
• Break something
• Build something

That is, if The King can get his hands on Babboo before I do. Thing is, we still need to finish painting my fingernails.

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Head on over to NewToUs to read about my latest New Thing in which I save a few bucks while doing a new type of iron-on.  Oh yes, it’s all very exciting.

We had some friends in town the last few days, which means we spent the past two nights showing them the greatness that Seattle has to offer.

“Oh look at the Space Needle! Cool, isn’t it?”

“Seattle has a huge Old Navy. Yippee!”

“And a Gap!”

You know the usual touristy thing that people do while visiting Seattle. Seattle’s cool like that.

(I also said things to them like; “don’t use the bathroom at our new house. We don’t have doors on them.”)

Last night we decided to take them to one of our favorite places in Seattle. The thing that’s so great about this little local is the fact that is feels very non-Seattle.

Right, we took them to do a very un-Seattleish thing while visiting Seattle. We’re lame. The thing is, Alki Beach is awesome. It’s like a little piece of Venice, California right in the heart of Seattle. The 26 days of the year where there is sunshine in Seattle, Alki Beach is the perfect place to spend them at.

The evening started out great. First, I took Babboo to get his hair trimmed for today’s Picture Day at school. (My request to the stylist was merely “don’t make him look like a nerd!”)

Babboo was none too thrilled about the hair cut. Anytime I asked him to smile he simply said “cheese” and ignored my request to actually smile.

Thankfully the kid did not end up looking like a nerd. (Speaking of nerds, what exactly does a nerd look like?)

And then the night really took off. We packed up our gear and headed off to the beach!

The Beach!

I love the beach.

I love the sun.

I love our friends.

And I mostly love eating pizza, in the sun, at the beach with our friends.

That is until a big black billow of smoke is noticed in the background.

Nothing puts an end to a nice evening at the beach then watching someone’s house burn to the ground.

Thankfully, reports show, that nobody was injured. Our friend was up close and personal to the situation, even before the authorities arrived to put out the fire (we had parked next to where the house was burning and he wanted to get his car out of the way). He witnessed someone opening up the front door to the house and a cat escaping. That poor cat must have been scared out of his mind.

We stayed at our place in the sand and watched while every.single.person at the beach moved towards the fire! Didn’t their mom’s teach them to head away from danger? Apparently not.

Minutes later the fire trucks arrived. And then more and more followed. Babboo and our friend’s kids got excited about the commotion. They sat on the beach, facing the street, and waved at the passing firemen. (Thankfully the firemen[women] didn’t slow down to wave back.)

The house fire was quickly put out and we enjoyed the rest of our time together at the beach, ignoring our hacking and whizzing from all the smoke in the air.

Eventually Babboo managed to swallow every piece of sand on the entire beach and it was decided that we might as well call it a night.

From here on our, if anyone comes to visit us in Seattle I can assure you the following things will happen:

• My son will not look like a nerd.
• You will get a bladder infection from lack of restroom use.
• My child will throw exuberant amounts of sand on your child.
• He’ll probably throw some at you too.
• You will eat pizza.
• You might even eat tacos.
• I won’t pay attention to you like I should since I’ll be too busy taking self-portraits with the kid:

• We’ll show you a good time.
• That I can guarantee.

An E-mail thread between my younger sister, who lives in Utah, and me yesterday:

Sister: Do you have tomorrow off from work?

Isabel: Why would I have a random Thursday off?

Sister: My husband has it off. I thought maybe you and The King would too.

Isabel: (confused at this point.) Yeah, we don’t have it off. We’ll both be working on Thursday this week. As per usual.

Sister: But it’s the 24^th of July tomorrow.

Isabel: You’re right, tomorrow is the 24^th of July. And today is the 23^rd of July. So what?

Sister: The 24^th of July is Pioneer Day. Remember?

Isabel: Now I remember. But you realize Pioneer Day is strictly a Utah holiday. And more importantly it’s strictly a Mormon holiday? Nobody outside of Utah has any idea that the 24^th of July is a real holiday.

Sister: So you don’t have tomorrow off from work?

Isabel: (shaking my head as I type out my response to her!) Yeah, I don’t have it off from work.

Sister: And The King?

Isabel: Yeah, he’ll be working too.

(Lil Isabel on Pioneer Day, 1978)

Happy Pioneer Day, bitches!  And to quote my friend Becky, “remember to thank your ancestors for coming here today!”

Will do!

I heard you wanted to come over to the new house to check it out.  If you want to come over, make sure you call first.  That way I’ll be sure to meet you down in the driveway.  The front porch hasn’t been built yet, so you can’t actually access our front door.  I’d have to let you in through the garage.  When you walk through the garage, be careful to not step on a rusty nail or trip over one of the many saws.  You won’t want to touch anything in the garage; it’s all covered in dust and it will get all over your clothes.

And never mind the basement.  It’s finished, really.  It just looks like a mess since it’s the “staging area” for the rest of the construction.  Yep, that’s a compressor in the corner.  Those boxes are full of tiles.  And yes, those are paint cans.  Be careful not to knock them over.

Watch out for the nail sticking out of that one middle stair.  It’ll get your pant leg.

I hope you used the potty before you came over to visit.  While we have four working toilets, we don’t have any doors on the bathrooms.  See that pile of wood in the front room corner?  Yep, those are the bathroom doors.  They are ready to be hung up; we’re just waiting for the hardware to come in the mail.  Then we’ll hang them up.

I know we still have a few boxes that need to be unpacked.  I know.  Don’t worry, they bug me too.

You see, we don’t have our official Permit To Occupy from the city of Seattle.  That means we’re living here illegally.  In the event that we do get busted we have to act like we just moved in today, hence the boxes.

It’s all part of the plan.

Try to not do anything in front of the kitchen windows.  We’re still in the need of curtains in certain rooms.  But dude, I’m a little sick of sewing curtains right now.  So I’m taking a break this week.  For now, just stay away from the windows.

Yes, that’s plywood on the floor.  Yes, that’s the finished product.  Yes, we like it.  No, we’re not going to put carpet over it.  Or tile.  We meant for it to look like that.  We like it. Really.

While I know it seems odd that The King is working in the back deck when we don’t have doors on our bathrooms or a closet system for Babboo, we have to have the deck completed before we can get our Permit To Occupy.  We don’t need bathroom doors to get the permit.  We’re prioritizing.

Plus, I’m dying to put on my bikini and lay out on the deck.  You know, when I’m not busy sewing curtains.

I know we’re not much fun anymore.  I know we never hang out with any of our friends.  It’s just that we’re busy with the new house.  I know The King deserves to take a night off.  Believe me, I know.  We want to.  But we can’t.  Not now.  Probably not next week.  Maybe next month.

Once we get some doors on the bathrooms, and a way to get to the front door, and our Permit to Occupy we’ll be much better friends.

I promise.

Until then, just make sure you pee before you come to visit.  And don’t stay too long, I’ve got sewing to do.

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It’s Wednesday.  Which means I’m over at SeattleMomBlogs today.  Head over to read about how I thought I broke my foot on Monday and had to take a taxi home from work.  (Apparently it’s not broken.  I just broke a blood vessel. Whatever that means.)