The Greatest Gift

I never want to forget this time of my life, which is why I keep counting my blessings. So here are a few from today:

• I found out my oldest sister is going to have her third baby. Her youngest is 5 so I am exited for her and her family.
• Peter's work is on site so he goes wherever the job is. For the last two weeks, he has been working on a college in Truckee, CA which is on the border of Nevada and also in the mountains. The night before he started I cried because I was so worried about his safety driving in the snow. Because it is a 2 1/2 hour commute he has been leaving the house at 4:30am. This has been very scary for me and he has not had much time with the kids because he is gone before the wake and only home a half hour before bed time. So he decided to ask his supervisor if there were any other possibilities for him, and today he found out he will be working in Sacramento again on the job that he was doing before the holidays. Now he will be home by 4pm again every day and can "sleep in" until 6 in the morning, and my fears of being widowed can be at rest. Yay!
• Peter has been really stressed out about putting together his pest control team for next summer, and has had a hard time filling the spots. He wanted everyone to be experienced and good so that things will go smoothly. So last night he finally got a guy he really liked working with as well as his buddy to commit. This fills the team, so he is very relieved. Now things should be pretty set for May.
• This is the best one: Dallin's potty training has been very difficult and he was doing pretty well for a while, except he has never really gotten the number 2 thing down. Then with the holiday traveling and changes in his schedule it all went down hill. By the time we went to Oregon for Christmas he was completely back in diapers. I thought that once we got back into our routines he would bounce back to where he was pretty quick. If any of you have ever had a child that was mostly potty trained and then reverted you may know that it is way harder the second time starting again. He has peed his pants 4-5 times a day and never even sat on the potty to try for number 2. He has been very reluctant about going at all and doesn't even care if he wets himself. Bed time has also hit an all time difficulty. So now after two weeks of this I have been very frazzled and frustrated a lot. Today was a little better but then came my glimmer of hope, in the form of poo! I have had to physically force him to sit on the potty for 1 minute at a time for several days just to try to motivate him to go number two. I was loosing hope of ever seeing this boy out of diapers and then out of nowhere he just announced that he needed to go poo poo. He sat right down and after 10 minutes, he did it! I had to fight back tears. For this frustrated, tired mother this was the best gift he had ever given me. When I told Dallin that, Peter of course thought that was hilarious and made fun of me, but it is true and Dallin enjoyed his special potty treat that has been taped on the wall for several days.
• A woman in our ward asked me if we had found a respite worker last Sunday. I told her no and she offered to come and babysit this weekend so that Peter and I could go out. I was very touched by the offer. So she is coming over tonight and we are going on a date!