Entertaining Grandma.

Recently, (November 28th-December 8th) I was very lucky to have my mom able to come into town to help me with the new baby and the other kids. This visit was very different from others like it in the past, because Soni had already made her appearance, so no time was taken up by the hospital stay, and I was pretty much back to "normal", so I felt bad about dragging her away from work, but I really appreciated everything she did while she was here.
One thing she helped me with was kid control. I got to shower every morning she was here, WITHOUT an audience of 1 or more children. I was also able to get our Christmas letter written, and a really cute birth announcement made in PhotoShop.
During one of the times when I was distracted, and my mom was upstairs with the kids, there was a thump, then a muffled Dylan crying. Apparently, my mom came out of the bathroom to find Dylan trapped under the couch, with nothing but an arm hanging out. She lifted the couch so he could crawl out, to which he thanked her by saying "Grandma, I lost my super powers!" Makes me wonder where the kryptonite was hidden. Maybe he'll think twice next time about trying to get something from under the couch on his own...
Another thing mom tried to help me with was understanding my eldest son, and his stubbornness about potty training. She bought him a really cool robot toy as incentive to potty train (he can have it once he goes potty all day for 7 days), and she tried to explain how different tactics could work for his personality. (She minored in child psychology in college, plus she raised 5 kids of her own, one of which was A LOT like Dylan.) We tried a few different things over the course of the week and a half, none of which had an effect for more than a day. Finally, on the second to last day before my mom was going home, I lost it when Dylan pooped in his pull up, yet again (minutes after being asked if he needed to go potty, and he had responded "no"). I was cleaning him up, and told him I was tired of it, and that if he was going to insist on acting like a baby, we would treat him like a baby. I revealed the new plan to him about how he was now going to eat dinner in the high chair, drink from a bottle, so on and so forth. He reacted just how I expected, with screaming and tears, so I thought I had finally found the solution. Dinner came, and Dylan sat in the high chair. he ate out of a plastic bowl, using a "baby spoon" and drank from a bottle. While drinking from the bottle, it made that ever familiar "squeaking" sound as he sucked on it. He looked up in frustration (looking really depressed) and said: "That cup sounds like a mouse". It was very matter of fact, but it cracked mom and I up. I really tried to not let him see me laugh, since he was being punished, but I failed miserably. I think mom had the hardest time keeping a straight face because it reminded her so much of something my brother, Barton, would have said. Don't kids know they're not supposed to be cute when they're being punished? Someone should tell them...