Sunday morning I set out at 6:13 AM (a bit later than I’d planned) for a ride I’d been wanting to do for some time. I had expected a good climbing challenge and to “put in some miles,” but what I got was so much deeper and emotional. The experience simultaneously told the narrative of my cycling journey, reminded me why I ride, and transported me to long-forgotten moments in my past.

It’s been over two years since I’ve blogged anything. That’s a looong time.

You may notice that the blog looks a little different (if you can remember over two years ago) which is because I’ve adopted a Jekyll/Octopress based blog platform instead of dragging Wordpress along. The result should be a fair bit faster also.

You’ll likely also notice that the familiar domain name of “nslms.com” has been traded in favor of a much more canonically familiar “blog.ryangeyer.com”, it should make me, and my blog a little easier to find.

Stay tuned for more (if I can shake off the lazy).

So we’ve been renting a house for a bit over a year and a half. As a techie and an obsessive tinkerer, this means an excuse to start buying tools and other things in the name of “maintaining the house”.

How it all began

One such tool which we recently bought was an electric weed whacker. About two months ago, the weed whacker needed it’s wire spool replaced. In the interest of speed, I popped the plastic cover off of the spool, and removed the screw in the center of the spool (thinking it was necessary to get the spool off), all while standing in the grass.

Big Mistake

I set the plastic cover down in the grass, and put the screw right in the center of it as I replaced the spool. Meanwhile Q is running around and playing with everything in his sight and grasp. I should have been paying more attention to him, but I didn’t.

Really… Really BIG mistake

When I got the new spool in, I looked down to the grass beside me expecting to grab my screw and plastic cap and reassemble the weed whacker. But it was gone..

I yelled to Q and he came running, plastic cap in hand.

The next 30 minutes or so consisted of me interrogating the poor boy on the whereabouts of my screw, and then a futile search for it in the grass.

How I became a vandal

Which brings us to today. I was in Home Depot picking up some misc. stuff, and thought I’d try a last ditch effort to find a replacement for that screw. Since it isn’t a wear part, and you aren’t supposed to remove it when replacing the wire spool, they don’t sell a replacement.

Fortunately though, they DID have the exact model that I bought on display.

Do you see where this is going yet?

So here I am in a Home Depot with no available replacement for my screw, but a new weed whacker of the exact same model right in front of me. If only I could somehow see the screw I had lost and go over to hardware to find a replacement.

So it begins

So, I casually wander over the the tool department and grab a screwdriver. I then saunter back over to the garden center with my screwdriver in hand.

Watching over my shoulder, and setting Q as a lookout, I quickly remove the screw from the floor model. Next stop, hardware.

With my ill gotten screw in hand I head over to the hardware department. I identify the size and thread pitch of the screw, and grab a couple screws that match it.

Then it’s back to the garden center to return the screw I “borrowed”, and back to the tool corral to return my screwdriver.

Mission accomplished

I am now happy to report that I now have a fully operational weed whacker again, thanks to a quick covert operation in our local Home Depot!

Now that Amazon’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) is more widely known, and you can use your IAM credentials to login to the AWS Console, you might be wondering how to really leverage the IAM offering.

I know I have been talking soooo much about my eldest son, the amazing three year old that has accomplished sooo much in the potty training arena. I have to say a few things about my baby boy.

I am in awe over this child and know that I will be trying to keep up with him for the rest of my life. He is a climber. Like, the kid doesn’t walk yet (buries head in sand over the steps he ran and walked randomly) and yet he climbs everything he can get his hands on. We like to go to a park that has the little play ground and the big play ground. My baby boy has shown his climbing prowess by climbing the big play ground trying to keep up with his brother that is nearly 2.5 years older than him.

He is amazing. Oh and he talks. I am not the delusional parent convinced he speaks well, he is learning and is a great mimic. He loves to try to enunciate nearly every word that he hears. makes note to clean up the music listened to around him He is amazing. Oh and he is an eater. My first son was only interested in nursing for the first full year of his life. My second? He loves to chill at the BF cafe when he can but he also wants a bite of that burger his mom is eating while nursing him. Epic.

So he is ‘nearly’ walking (I’m still not willing to say otherwise), he crawls ridiculously fast, he climbs everything he can and I’m hoping he loves a diversity of good food, so far so good. :D

I just adore my boys, adore.

He’s being all awesome and doing all he can on his own. I had no idea he would do so well.

I mean I knew he could do it but I had no idea he would just embrace the process so willingly and be so self sufficient.

He is awesome.

I am proud.

I officially have a giant grin on my face so big that even my baby is grinning since that is what you are supposed to do when someone uses the potty correctly. Yay!

We did the scariest thing ever! We took both boys grocery shopping while one was diaperless! Scary stuff, huh? We went grocery shopping without both boys last week, yes we were big chickens, so what!

My big boy was doing well all day with the potty training, you know acting like he’s been doing this for years. He even had attitude with me when I asked if he needed to use the potty, he rolled his eyes and told me I was silly since he had just peed a few minutes ago. Epic.

Back to grocery shopping. We weren’t used to this process and both my husband and I spaced on offering a potty break at the first store. We went to the second store with our eldest son recovering from grocery cart regret, he didn’t use the cart with the plastic car on the front per his request to “Be like Mommy and Daddy”, then lost his mind when he saw another kid riding in it.

So our first trip to a commercial toilet, I was nervous and my son was excited. We ran to the bathroom since my son announced he had to pee NOW. I saw the womens bathroom was occupied so I figured having my son with me authorized us to use the mens bathroom. It worked out nicely and so far my son isn’t petrified of those evil automatic flushing toilets. We did in fact high five after washing our hands and grocery shopping was narrated by my son.

He is just so happy with himself but has this air to him that just says, ‘Yeah, I’m just that awesome.’

Yeah, my son was a rock start today.

He proudly would announce that he used the potty all by himself, with a dance. Yes, I had to escort him back to the bathroom to wash his hands and wash my own hands since I high fived him with glee before remembering that he can’t turn the faucet on by himself.

Yes my son was a potty trained big boy and for the umpteenth time I have realized that my children are growing before my very eyes and it is happening way too fast but this is the wild ride I volunteered for.

For now I’m just going to enjoy a song and dance with my son potty training skillZ, yeah with a capital Z.

Yesterday was horrid, just horrid as everyone was struggling with the emotional turmoil of the accidents. Yes, even the baby realized that everyone was having a hard time. It’s amazing how your child has an accident and you try to focus all your energy on making it right and yet you, as a mother, find the time to beat yourself up for dropping the ball and possibly not give your kid enough time and attention.

Today, we are getting better, much better. My son started the day with an accident and a shower and I had a load of laundry to do before doing anything. We followed it up with being my son then being way too confident with his bladder control and having a moment where he forgot to take his pants off while peeing. From that point on he was showing his prowess, kicking butt and taking names and kept things dry everywhere but in the potty.

You are so happy you stumbled over this blog right now. I mean, I can just see the techie followers of my husband wondering what in the hell they came across. You can thank my ever so wonderful husband for sharing this space with his stay at home mom wife to share the joys of pees and poops and lactating boobies and other fantastical bodily functions. Go ahead, take a minute to thank him. :-P

My potty training star and his little brother were in rare form and all they want is to cling to me and make demands. I think I was just worn out and the boys just like to go full throttle, meaning I was a big baby on this day. My toddler was in a mouthy mood and my baby was dealing with the teething woes along with me being tired and in some kind of allergy stupor, it was a bad combination.

The potty training was great until we had words when he just wasn’t willing to sit on the potty for a minute to be sure he was ok. It went down hill fast after that point. He had an accident, he was upset with himself. I cleaned him up in a hurry, not a big deal, well I didn’t think so until I took his favorite pajamas and he cried. I hurried and got him in another favorite outfit and he was still in tears. The baby was screaming his head off as I put him in the pack n play to keep him out of the mess I was cleaning. My baby doesn’t understand why I wouldn’t want him clinging to my side, ready to bolt to get into some kind of mess.

The stress of this event along with me not getting my much needed 5-10 minutes of quiet on my own and me not feeling spectacular was building up. My solution? Take the boys on a walk, of course! I needed to get some endorphins going and my toddler needed another outing sans diaper and my baby needed some sunshine. We went on said walk and came back to the house in a better mood, or so I thought. I asked my toddler to sit on the potty a couple times. Sadly he refused and announced he could do it by himself. Cue accident number two while he made it to the potty he forgot getting his pants off first.

There were tears and panic from both my husband and toddler at this point. I had to stop a nursing session with my baby and take over just so things would calm down. When everyone was cleaned up and calmed down I sat and cried. This is the easy stuff guys, and as they get older it is only going to get harder. I want to be an awesome mom and today I didn’t feel like an awesome mom. I know there are going to be hard days but when you are in the thick of it, holy crap this job is so hard.

The day ended on a good note and I needed that. I’ll try to be an awesome mom again tomorrow.