We just got our piano tuned today.  The first time in almost 5 years that it actually sounds like a piano again, yea!  The poor thing has been through a lot of moves, and is very old.  We're hoping it can last another decade for us. 

The piano tuner, Pete, was here for a good solid TWO hours fixing all the notes meticulously.  He only charged us $100, which I thought was a great deal.  He said it was so bad that we needed to have it tuned again in a few months because he couldn't do it all in one session. 

The biggest improvement is in the feel of the actual keys.  Some of them were so sticky and slow to respond making it impossible to play a fast song.  Today we found out why.  There was about a half deck of playing cards stuck all back in between the strings and the presser pads gumming up the works (thanks to Celeste and Will forever ago).  When we moved the piano from Idaho, it probably shook the cards into even more obtrusive spots.  A few of them were wedge back so far he couldn't see them at first.  But when he played a "sticky" key, low and behold there was a card somewhere back there.  When I reiterated to the kids not to stick stuff into the crack of the piano, Will exclaimed, "I only did that when I was three Mommy, before I knew better."

Anyway, it was so fun to play this afternoon and have the songs sound like they were supposed to.  It was definitely worth it.

This is such a funny story in a sad sort of way.  This story begins the day before Will was to get his new transformer for being dry for 17 days in a row (see previous post "The Right Motivation").  It was on this day that I noticed his little cuddly blanket didn't smell real nice.  I didn't think much of it.  It was laundry day and I knew I hadn't washed his blanket in a few weeks, so I washed it.  These whole 17 days Will has proudly told us he was dry every morning.  Sean and I had already gotten out of the habit of physically checking for ourselves, after all he had been in "BIG BOY" underwear at night for almost a week now with no problems.  It wasn't until the next night (AFTER he had gotten his transformer) that Sean noticed that Will's whole bedding smelled like urine.  After questioning Will for a few minutes, we finally got down to the truth:  he wet his bed those two nights in a row and lied about it because he REALLY wanted that transformer. 

We had a good talk about lying.  We made sure he understood that we weren't upset that he wet the bed, but that he lied about it.  We took his transformer away and said he could have it back in three days if he didn't lie to anyone about anything.  He has done much better about not lying, but has woken up wet almost every day since then.  Talk about taking 1 step forward and 2 steps back!  We don't know what to do anymore.  If any of you have any ideas, we're all ears!

Tonight Will prayed for two things (completely unprompted and out of the blue, it was so cute).  He prayed for Heavenly Father to help him stay dry in the night and he prayed for help to not lie.  We have a sweet boy who is trying so hard.  I just wish we could make it easier for him.

We got our other furniture on Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday.  Here's a few pics of our cool new bedroom set, as promised (see previous post).  The pictures don't really do it justice.  The wood definitely sets off my Mom's fancy quilt work.  Even though it's not solid wood, I just love it.  Not too dark and oppressive, not to ornate, not too rustic.  Simple, clean lines, functional, beautiful.  Just like me!  :-)

I tend to be slightly bipolar in mood swings.  This is where I can swing slightly more extreme than most people might between being a little depressed at times and then a little hyper/manic at other times.  It's usually hardly noticeable except to me and my immediate family members (I think).  I tend to be a little on the manic side during the holidays, who isn't?  Then I usually start declining in spirits and get downright depressed by February.  Sean always dreads Februarys.  But the last few years it hasn't been nearly as dramatic.  I guess school work demanded more consistency out of me.

Anyway, these last few weeks after the holidays, I've stuck more to the manic side of things.  This has never happened before when I could actually do much about it.  You see one side effect of being a little manicky is that I like to go shopping.  Which is weird for me, cuz usually I HATE shopping.  Ususally we have no money so I just go window shopping or I'll go spend $20 at Walmart.  These last two weeks, I was in the mood to shop BIG.  I mean BIG. 

I rationalized that we have hardly had any NEW furniture in the almost 12 years that Sean and I have been married.  We got our table and chairs new as a wedding gift, and a new crib as a baby gift.  Everything else has pretty much been hand-me-downs or used furniture.  Which is fine.  It works.  It's what we could afford.  The only NEW furniture we ever bought ourselves was a couch and loveseat set for about $500 TOTAL (not very spendy, very low quality stuff).  They lasted about two years before they were junk.  We've always seemed to have the kind of mushy couches that suck you in when you sit down and don't ever want to spit you out.

Long story short.  I talked Sean into some furniture shopping.  It didn't take much; he's much more impulsive than I am.  I'm usually the one who reigns him in.  It all started because I had gotten one back ache too many from our hand-me-down couch one night (the picture above is the sinister couch).  Any time I sit in that thing for longer than an hour, my back is killing me.  No back support at all, the fit is all terrible.  So Sean said, "If you hate it that much, go get a NEW ONE."  My response surprised him.  I replied emphatically, "O.K."  (definite sign I'm in a manic)

That next Saturday I scoured Craigslist.  We ended up finding an ad from an actual furniture warehouse and went there.  I wanted something leather if possible so it would be easier to clean, harder to stain, and more hypo-allergenic for my husband.  We ended up finding a foaux leather set that fit me perfectly with great firm (but not too firm) back support at a pretty good price.  Yea.  I was worried they were too reddish, but we ordered them anyway.  We just got them yesterday, and they look great.  They're much darker furniture than I'm used too, but oh so so comfortable!  Yea new furniture!

So last Saturday, we went furniture shopping yet again.  This time for a new bedroom set.  Sean's chest of drawers is literally falling apart.  It leans to the side.  One drawer won't close, and another one doesn't like to open.  We have no headboard/footboard.  It just seemed time.  So we went and found the perfect set.  Not too ornate and flashy, not too dark, not too rustic.  Just right!  We'll be getting that next Monday, so I'll add some pictures then.  I'm so excited.

Moral of the story:  Manics and money DON'T mix!  I'm beginning to wonder if we'll have much of a down payment left when it's time to buy our forever house.  Next time I'm in the shopping mood, we better be broke!  If it wasn't for Sean putting his foot down, we might have a new kitchen table set too!  At least we got good quality stuff that we needed and at good prices (even in a manic, I'm a bargin shopper). 

Our little William is quite the character.  He is such a "BIG BOY" at four years old, or so he thinks.  However, he's had one major challenge in this fourth year of his:  STAYING DRY AT NIGHT.  I may have vented to some of you about this before.  It's been frustrating for all of us.  He's been "day" potty trained for a year and a half now, but hasn't been able to go more than 2-3 nights in a row staying dry.  It's been very typical for him to wake up wet at least 5 nights in a week.  With our girls it was very different.  They learned very quickly to wake up in the middle of the night if they had to go.  Will is either a very sound sleeper, has a very tiny bladder, or just doesn't care (or some combination of those).

Over this last year and a half, we've tried EVERYTHING we could think of.  I refused to wash his bedding every day.  First we kept him in diapers  and promised underwear if he could keep the diaper dry.  Then we upgraded to CARS PULL-UPS with Lightening McQueen on them.  He is so obsessed with that movie, that we thought it might work.  We told him over and over again that Lightening McQueen doesn't like getting peed on.  "Keep the piston cups dry!" we kept reminding him (lots of jokes with those "piston cups".  Little success with that though, just major guilt.  Pull-Ups are so expensive too. 

We started limiting water, waking him up at 11-12 when we went to bed so he could go potty and stay dry at night.  Half the time he had already peed before 11 though!  Nothing's been working.  The two months or so, I've been so frustrated that I degraded him back down to diapers.  He had to keep those dry for three days to get back into Pull-Ups.  The next step was he had to keep his Pull-Ups dry for 7 days to get to wear real underwear to bed.  If he was wet, we'd put him back into diapers and start the process over.  I thought this was a great system to motivate him, but he only made it to Pull-Ups occasionally, then quickly back into diapers.  I started envisioning him at 6 or 8, or even 10 years old not being able to stay dry.

With the New Year, Sean and I have been making a few goals for ourselves and encouraged our kids to do the same.  Unbeknown to me at the time, Sean promised Will a BIG TRANSFORMER (his new favorite thing) if he could stay dry for 17 days (3 days in diapers, 7 days in Pull-Ups, and 7 days in big boy underwear).  Sean hoped that the transformer idea would help.  I was very leary, and hoped it wouldn't discourage Will too much when he had an accident.

Well, It's now DAY 13 and Will has been dry EVERY DAY of this NEW YEAR!  YEA!  We are so excited and proud of our (not so) little boy who's wearing BIG BOY underwear to bed now.  He talks every day about the new transformer he's going to get, and how easy it is for him to stay dry now.  I really was hoping by the time he was going into Kindergarten next August that he wouldn't still be in diapers at night.  Guess, he just needed a little time and the right motivation!  YEA WILL!

(Too bad I just bought a HUGE pack of both diapers and Pull-Ups last month!)