News Tidbits [UPDATED]

And here's the news:

* Ben has his first really wiggly tooth. Tooth Fairy estimates put Tooth Release at early next week, if not over the weekend.

* Ben also gets to start school on Monday, complete with morning campus tour and grand late entrance into his new class. And the new school is GORGEOUS. I'm as excited as Ben is!

* The Mouth of Hell has opened and swallowed my home and sanity. Joshua is working on Advanced Potty Training today. By which I mean, he just wasn't getting it before, so I ramped it up by putting him in big boy underwear and staying home all day to keep him near toilets. "How's it going?" you may ask. Let the timeline speak for itself:

8:00 a.m. Potty session, followed by his choice of underpants ("Finding Nemo"). No deposit.

8:30 a.m. Potty session; no deposit.

9:00 a.m. Same

9:30 a.m. Same

9:55 a.m. I go to the bathroom and am greeted afterward by Josh standing in my doorway pointing at the pee on my bedroom floor and whimpering. I go sit him on his potty. No deposit. Fresh underwear. At this point I figure he won't have a refill for at least an hour, and decide to move to hour intervals instead of half-hour.

10:30 I get nervous and sit him on the potty anyway. No deposit.

11:30 No deposit.

12:30 p.m. I put him on the potty for like 15-20 minutes and ply him with apple juice. No deposit.

1:00 Lunch! I decide to try an incentive - ice cream sundaes all around if he puts pee in the potty.

1:30 Potty session. I hear more whimpering, and go in to find him sitting on the potty pointing at the pee on the bathroom rug before him. Clean up, fresh underwear. No deposit (IN anything, that is).

1:40 Am forced to explain to Josh that the sundaes are contingent on the pee going INSIDE the potty. Josh heads upstairs, dismayed at his lack of ice cream.

1:50 I head upstairs to tell Ben the exciting news about school, step on a stepstool and recoil at the splash I make. Mmmm, warm. Josh peers around the corner whimpering, and I tell him to go sit on the potty while I clean up the stool and my foot. By the time I get into the bathroom to help Josh, he's sitting on the potty, and looking both confused and disgusted by the poop on his hands. Yes, he had pooped as well, so that was sitting in the cast-off underwear on the floor, and what remained was smeared on the potty seat, his legs and hands. I start thinking about various levels of hell, and begin work on cleanup.

He's still in the bathtub as I type. We've got one last pair of clean big boy underpants. Wish me luck!

And that's the news.

UPDATE: 2:45 p.m. "Mommy! Look! They're in the potty!!!" And he didn't mean aliens! And the ice cream was delicious!