[un]natural progression..

i feel like calling life a "natural progression" is something you hear people say a lot. i either don't think that's really true, or what i picture as a natural progression isn't what it actually is. maybe before (like during high school and college when i looked ahead to what i thought it might all look like for me) i thought of a natural progression as predictability. for example, i will finish school, get a job, meet a mate, marry him, have kids (after a reasonable amount of time), settle down and raise them, work some more, retire at some point, enjoy life, and then die. although i'm not very far along in this list, i'm at the same time very far along in this list. 

my natural progression got unnatural real quick. 

i just wish we didn't do that to ourselves. if i didn't spend time thinking so much about how my (and our) life should look, then i in turn wouldn't end up spending so much time worrying about how that varies from how it does look. if i hadn't talked in college about how i wasn't going to be one of those girls who had the walk across the stage at graduation turn into a walk down the isle, i wouldn't spend the time i sometimes do thinking about how i did just that. if i didn't talk about how we didn't want to be one of those christian "honeymoon baby" couples, i wouldn't be so thrown off course by the fact that we are. too bad we don't realize earlier in life what i feel like i'm trying to get through my head now.. that my natural progression is natural for me, not in comparison to anyone else. boy, does that take the pressure off.

proverbs 19:21

You can make many plans,

but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.

potty post..

this is a totally geeked-out mom post. i thought about making this topic/question a facebook status, but figured i wouldn't expose all of my unsuspecting facebook friends to my potty learning/training questions. blogland seems like a much more chosen means of reading, so if you clicked and came here, hopefully you're ready to hear about it. :)

so, ruby's pottying ability came to be kind of by accident. ever since she seemed at all interested in her little toilet in the bathroom, i've let her sit on it, try to go to the bathroom on it, talked to her about what i was doing when i would use "my potty", and things like that. over time she'd randomly have a successful pee on the potty, but there was no method to the madness. when my mom was here over mother's day weekend, we let ruby be bottomless pretty much all of the time at home and became pretty intentional about having her try and go every now and then and, for lack of better words, freaked out whenever she'd actually pee or poop on there. so, over the course of those few days she seemed to get it. it was kind of miraculous to me.. i loved how excited to she (and we) got for this accomplishment, and although she's learned a ton of things in her little two year lifetime, i felt like it was one of the most major things that i actually helped teach her. 

i say all of this to ask, now that she's got in-home pottying about 98% down, how do i take this outside of the home? i'm perfectly happy with her using the toilet at home only for awhile, saving us diapers and learning more and more about how to get things done along the way, but i don't want to confuse her by putting her in diapers anytime we're not at our apartment. any suggestions are welcome.. hoping that some post potty training moms frequent this recently neglected blog. sorry i've been MIA! more posts to come soon.

my smart girl.