I decided to pick up the most recent Harry Potter book, The Half-Blood Prince. I've gotten past page 41 in that, but not in Brothers Karamozov. In picking up the HP books again I realized that I probably have too-high hopes for the last story. I really want the plot to be so entirely and obviously Christian that it destroys the shallow critics. The library has them sitting in the back, waiting to be cataloged. I don't know how I would resist if I were a technical services librarian. I'd have to peek.
I was going to launch into my love for HP & John Granger's exposition of them, but I just caught LMark naked. From the den came Ella's cry: "Mom! Little Mark's naked!" I caught him standing in front of the kitchen sink on a stool with a spatula in hand looking very official--but naked.
LMark is in the midst of potty training. When he was about 9 months I tried him on the potty and he went like a pro. He went as often as I put him on there--until he learned to walk. Since then he's been in more control of the situation than I have been. But there were a few glorious months where we were changing only one diaper a day. I do believe it's possible to potty train an infant. My cousin has done it with his daughter, but they have only one child to devote every waking minute to. I have a few more than one, so we do our best. As far as training an older boy, I've discovered it's easier to teach a boy to tinkle on command when he's standing up, than when he's sitting on a potty seat. We start with him standing in the tub, splash warm water on his tinkler and he goes within seconds. If I put him the potty seat, he sits for ten or more minutes--in privacy--and manages to destroy the bathroom in the process: pulling off all the toilet paper; playing in the toilet water; and doing things I would be afraid to publish.
Fr Mark just called me from church, to make sure they weren't all going to be blown away in a tornado. I checked the news, and it looks like they aren't. Tonight is the vigil for St Elizabeth Day. Tomorrow is our parish feast day. I believe it is our ninth celebration of the parish feast. We celebrate our tenth anniversary on 11/21. It's hard to believe it's been this long.
