So my son told me he'd buy me an SUV if I used the potty. A couple of days later he told me he'd have a party for me, with cake and candles and balloons, if I used the potty. I hardly need to point out that I'm not the one in need of potty incentives...or maybe I am.

People keep telling me my son will be pottytrained when he's ready, that he'll wake up one day and decide using the potty is worthwhile to him and he'll just do it, since we've spent so much time on the subject and he knows what to do. When is that day going to come??

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In other news, I went through a large number of R.'s old emails last night, looking for the ones pertinent to our current legal situation. Man, that was a gut-wrenching and draining exercise. I cried my eyeballs out, feeling once again like I'd somehow failed. I know intellectually I did everything I could have done to save that relationship, that the reason nothing worked was that he himself had not chosen to be a family with us, that sometimes one knocks oneself out and does all the "right" things...and it means nothing because the other person doesn't want what the first person wants. Oh, that's a hard lesson.

I'm very worried about making the same mistake twice — falling in love with someone who says all the right things, then doesn't follow through. I don't want to become one of those untrusting emotional invalids I've seen on the dating scene, but I also don't want to just hand over my trust to someone who hasn't earned it. Dilemma.

- Beth