Windy days and napless Mondays always get me down

*Zoe says "I love you, Mommy", unprompted, apropos of nothing, and before my heart can swell to bursting, I catch a whiff of the present she's just deposited in her diaper. You know, the ones she's back in because she's suddenly totally not interested in potty training. AT ALL.

*I attend a parenting workshop and when I come home all fresh and ready to try out some new ideas on some behavioral issues we've been struggling with, Zoe totally trades them in for brand! new! issues that I don't have the foggiest idea how to handle.

*CG left this morning for two days and Zoe decides NOW is the perfect time to try skipping her nap and spontaneously combusting at the drop of a hat. I keep thinking that her behavior should be on some kind of upward trend. It should be getting better and better all the time, right? She should be learning what types of behavior are acceptable and favorable and what types aren't and then applying this knowledge. Instead, if you charted her behavior over the last three months it would look something like those terrifying financial graphs on the front page of the paper that I cannot bring myself to look at much less try to make sense of.

*The 95 degree days have finally subsided but now we are in full Santa Ana, our-house-will-land-in-Oz, winds. California, your "weather" effing sucks. How about some fall color on some ancient oaks and maples and elms? Instead we have our lovely glorified telephone poles, palm trees. As a result of the insane winds this morning, there are leaves and branches and palm fronds all over our yard and the flower and veggie beds are FULL of palm tree seeds which means I will spend yet another year in the Sisyphean task of pulling miniature palm trees out of my beds over and over and OVER again.