Love the idea of "Carpo," but I will say in response to this:

"Zeppo" is useless, though, right?

That, after Zeppo left the rest of his brothers onscreen, he became a very successful agent offscreen, so he was very useful!

And I'm bummed that I forgot to mention National Library Week in my class tonight.

Kathy, in the episode though, where it's used, Xander is being called "useless, like Zeppo" or something (I paraphrase).

Also if he's going through a developmental spurt with language, that's taking up a lot of his concentration, subconscious or not.

He's not. He's been an insane talking machine forever now. Today he was talking about bilateral symmetry (I swear, he pronounced symmetry better than some of my 12th graders).

But he is concentrating on EVERYTHING but the potty. This sucks.

But he is concentrating on EVERYTHING but the potty. This sucks.

The more he senses that you want him to do it, the more he'll probably ignore it, if he's anything like my kids.

My advice is back off completely, leave the potty where he can see it and use it, and just wait. He will get it eventually, I promise.

Matilda says, "Happy birthday to my friend Lily!"

She also says, "Lily is five. When she's done with it, then I can be five."

Noah's stream of consciousness puzzle solving sounds kind of adorable, really. At least from way over here. (And Matilda says the exact same "I think it's hiding" thing all the time.)

Amy, did I mention that he has been peeing in the potty and in underpants since November. NO. VEM. BER. Our daycare provider does as much of his laundry as we do. He has to be potty trained before he can go to preschool in August.

I think tomorrow we resort to M&Ms each times he goes.

Ah. See, a deadline makes it hard. We had that issue with Ben, and I was trying to be hands-off, but then his daycare teacher (who also got him off his pacifier in one day) got him to "get it" within a week. She was MAGIC.

I'm sorry! Um. Fingers crossed. Potty training is one of the hardest things to do, especially when there are outside pressures like a preschool or whatever.

She also says, "Lily is five. When she's done with it, then I can be five."

Matilda is the charmingest thing ever to charm.

Whereas Emmett was closer to five when he was fully daytime trained, and had accidents at night for a good long time. (He's all good now.)

And thrilled you are talking about this in a totally public place? I'm just trying to remember being at his age (and in this day of very searchable internet) and I'd be mortified having some things talked about. Like a naked baby picture in a high school yearbook or something.

Matilda says, "Happy birthday to my friend Lily!"

Aww! Matilda was mentioned in Lily's birthday circle at school today.

Matilda is the charmingest thing ever to charm.

Except when she's the whiniest thing ever to whine. Which, sadly, is running neck and neck with the charm. I was just thinking this evening, in the middle of coaxing and wheedling and prodding her to walk home at a rate slightly faster than twenty minutes per block (she wanted to look in various buildings' mailslots, and stop in the neighborhood church to say a prayer thanking God for unicorns, and kiss the broken stems of all the flowers whose heads had been lopped off, and examine every crack in the sidewalk, and complain that her tummy hurt, and, and, and...), how awful I must look to any random stranger walking past:

Here's this wee sprite being all present and in the moment and burbling about kissing the flowers, and this mom with NO MAGIC IN HER HEART. But it's a six block walk, and we've been out here for an hour and it's getting colder by the second! The magic died thirty-five minutes ago!