potty training, the beach, ihop and work

i think i can consider my kids potty trained at last. sometimes we don't make it, or get a little too excited or cold, but for the most part, the fight over it all is over. change only seems to bother them when they have to put forth significant effort, which is pretty nice. they're really flexible, considering how compulsive we all are.

we're going to the beach later this week. it'll be their first time to see the ocean, so i'm excited and have got them talking about it. it should produce very cute pictures. every morning they ask me if we're going home to the beach. they have some trouble distinguishing going out from going home. out seems to only mean outside, as in out in nature, where as home is any structure or location with a name. any location except the pancake house, which william can spot while driving down the highway. he even recognises the IHOP sign in commercials. he doesn't even really like pancakes, so i guess its just that he's a morning person in a family of night time people and that's about the only place we go that's any fun early in the morning. when your options are home with a bunch of groggy people, church or the doctor before 9am, then IHOP is a very happy place.

i'm going to start working next week. i just finished my training and have to wait for clerical stuff to go through, then i should find out once again that i'm sufficient, but never excellent at customer service because i'm not chipper. maybe this time i can dig a little deeper into a well of false happy tones to earn a nice rating that won't translate to better compensation.....