Months later

 I haven't posted since June.  I'm sure a lot has happened, but I don't remember any of it.

In October we went to Disneyland for 3 days. It was a long drive.  We got to LA in time for rush hour, which added a long time to the drive, maybe 1-2 hours.  I was surprised how crowded it was, during the middle of the week, and when you need to make reservations.  We stayed in a motel down the street, it was about a mile walk, which wasn't bad.  The weather was warm, then nice.  We went at the same time as Aaron's cousin and his family, so we met up with them a few times.  We couldn't get Bert on to any of the big rides.  Bron went on everything she was tall enough for. Bertram build a droid and a light saber.  My goal for the trip was to not turn down park things for being too expensive.  Buy the churro, eat the ice cream.

Bron is getting closer to being potty trained.  Two days in a row, she's pooped on the potty without any prompting from us.  She's getting pretty good about staying dry, as long as we remind her to pee. But she's staying dry at night.  Yesterday she had a lot of accidents, for some reason.  But prior to that, and today have been much better.  It will be interesting when she returns to school next week.  Hopefully she sticks with it.  I want her to be able to go to kindergarten in the fall, so she needs to be potty trained.  Plus she's 4, it's past time.  

Last week, I took the kids to the aquarium by myself, and without the stroller (a first for both).  The first half of the trip was fine.  Bron stayed dry the whole time.  But at some point, something unknown happened and Bronwyn started melting down.  Then she pulled Bert's hair (hard).  So he was crying and yelling.  So I sat with them in an alcove, physically restraining Bron, because she wanted to run away. They yelled and cried.  I laugh, then I cried a little.  It was all so ridiculous and overwhelming.  We gathered ourselves and saw a little more.  But Bron kept trying to run.  So I had to carry her, which was hard with her fighting me.  I put her on my shoulders, and she pulled my hair too.  I decided we'd had enough fun.  Then Bronwyn melted down because she didn't want to leave.  So I had to carry her up the hill screaming and crying.  I got everyone in the car and buckled.  Then I cried for a while.

We went back to the aquarium on Tuesday.  Aaron came this time.  It went a little better.  But it was so busy.  Everything was 3-4 people deep.  As an introvert, I am not good with crowds, so I was feelng antsy.  Bert did pretty well, but melted down again.  Less severely.   And Bert got to touch a stingray, which was his goal for both trips.  

We desperately need new flooring in our bedroom.  It's the only room with carpet and it's really low quality carpet.  It's been torn away from the wall, by the dog trying to dig out of the room.  It's stained, not plush, and is torn in several areas.  We went to Home Depot to look at wood and wood type flooring.  But got side tracked by how nice the carpet was. It was so plush and soft.  We decided to get carpet again.  But there was no one to help us.  So we went across the street to S&G carpets, and they were very helpful.  We're getting our new carpet installed on Monday.  Aaron painted the room and replaced the baseboards this week.  We changed from a purple to a grey blue.  It looks really nice, he did a great job.  But the floor around our sliding door needed repairs, because our in-laws like to avoid fixing things until it's absolutely necessary.  In the process of doing this, the shitty carpet got even more destroyed,  I can't wait for the new carpet, then our room will be done.  We got new nightstands earlier this year (ours didn't match before).  And our new lights came today.  It's weird to be able to buy things and not have to get the cheapest thing. Like, we can spend $200 on lamps, and it's ok.  I think we're strongly middle class now.