Every time I read another study about how parenting decreases the quality of one’s life (in the immediate sense), I nod in agreement. Parenting two young children (28 months apart) while also undertaking the most intense time in my career–most likely ever–was a recipe for pushing me to the edge of my capacity. (Of course there were way worse things that also could have happened—Universe, I am not tempting you to pile on more.)

There were (and still are) some days when I feel like I’m just pushing through until bedtime. 

But I am seeing glimpses of the light. Now that Tate is past two, the tide is shifting. The

The last toilet training update I gave was when Tate was 23 months-old. At that time, we were reminding him to use the toilet every hour or so. 

He’s currently 26 months-old and now he can independently decide when he needs to go pee or poop. He’ll yell “pee!” and start running to the toilet. We only use diapers at nap and bed time.

In the middle of helping Tate with his toilet learning, I read this article about the dangers of early toilet learning, written by a pediatric urologist. I’ll be honest and say that it freaked me out a little bit. Fortunately, everything seems to be going well

Oh, IKEA. You are such a money suck.

We went a couple of weekends ago to get a new outdoor umbrella (which was out of stock) and instead walked away with: