I should be in sales

I've convinced daycare to use the cloth diapers!  Just a little excited here, maybe more so because I turned someone who is so incredibly set in her ways that I never thought it possible to get her outside the box.  

Johnny just got a few Bumkins AIO's in the mail yesterday - the Dr. Seuss prints.  I consider them wardrobe additions since he is happiest naked and I have a feeling all he'll be wearing are his diapers and maybe some knee pads once the weather gets warm...

My boob hurts.

I had a long post written the other day about how I got into a fight with my brother and sister-in-law over the "Mom on Facebook" issue, but the feeling is gone and I deleted the long and exhausting rant.  And that's a good thing.  The gist?  My aunt got on FB and they both became her friend and I threw a fit.  My argument of how can you give every family member that's on FB access to pictures of your cute kids but not let grandma in on the adorableness (which, although she wouldn't admit it, obviously made her feel sad by the way she brought it up - see earlier post) and my need to come to her defense fell on deaf and feisty ears.  Apparently, the sister-in-law felt that the FB etiquette of the "newbie" requesting friendship took precedence over just being a nice person.  Oh, and she didn't have time to "stalk" people on FB - even though she knew Mom was out there and she seems to have time to let us all know what they are having for dinner each night (I just checked and it's pepper cream penne tonight).  The dear brother is so popular that he doesn't request anyone's friendship - he just waits for the masses to flock to him.  Then, the 24 year old (13 years younger than me) SAHM who has only held a job in high school began to lecture ME about life lessons, such as how she never defends anyone because they might not want you to do so.  I said that it was nice to know who in my family has my back.  She thinks very highly of herself for raising a family of 4 kids and likes to let me know about all the things I should be doing because Oprah and Dr. Phil and the internet say so.  I'm not saying that being a SAHM is not hard work, especially when there are 4 little animals running around (and sometimes coloring in their testicles with blue marker), but working and raising kids is not a walk in the park either and I really don't need her to tell me how to raise my family or teach me life lessons.  But that will be another argument some other day when she catches me in a not so willing to ignore her mood.

We had parent-teacher conferences last night and, I must say, I left a very happy mommy.  I've been working closely with Henry's teacher on how to best make him successful and we seem to have found the right way to do it.  During those times of day when he seems to have the most problems (typically transitions), he earns blocks for expected behavior (not being disruptive during the morning meeting, being quiet in the halls).  His goal is to earn 5 blocks and, if he does, he gets to pick first during choice time.  Ever since, he's been sitting much more still and has had only one day where he earned 3 - the rest have been 4 or 5 block days.  His teacher is very pleased with how a little positive, rather than negative, reinforcement has modified his behavior.  Even better, academically, he's already beyond what is expected of him by the end of the year, in reading, writing and math.  He's pulling random books off the shelves and reading them to his teacher and has been given the 1st grade list of sight words, which he already knows half of.  She loves having him in her class and doesn't foresee any more problems with his behavior now that she's got it figured out.  YAY FOR HENRY!!!!  I'm going to bite the bullet and let him get a Jonas Brothers cd with his Christmas money.

I've managed to develop mastitis in my left boob.  After spending a few days trying to massage the blockage out, the throbbing extended into my armpit.  John slept an astounding 6 hours last night - good for Mom and Dad's sleep, but it left me with a very angry breast.  I started him on the sore side and, between my milk let down and John's need to push on it while he eats, I was in agony.  I wound up heading to the doctor this morning - antibiotics are now on the menu every 6 hours.  The challenge will be my other instructions: warm compresses for 15 minutes followed by 15 minutes of massage BEFORE I nurse Johnny.  I wonder if I'll be able to get him to give me a half hour warning?  "Mom, I'll be waking up at 4:30 this morning so if you could get up at 4:00 and start your thing, that would be great."

We have a weekend full of hockey ahead of us.  Practice tonight.  Practice tomorrow morning.  Rematch of last weekend's game against the evil Red A Mites Sunday morning.  The red team is the oldest group of A mites, ours being the youngest.  These kids should have been moved up to one of the B mite teams judging by the way they were skating circles around our little guys (and our guys aren't bad skaters, mind you).  Not only that, but they are rougher than they are supposed to be at this level, to the point that our coach was going to have a talk with the other coaches about it.  They were pushing our kids around and there were even a couple skirmishes, which, although sort of funny and cute, have no place in mite hockey.  One of our smallest players wound up pummeling one of their players after he got knocked down.  Usually, the games go back and forth - we score, the other team scores and everybody feels good and has fun.  We only got two goals last week and I know our kids were frustrated.  Come on - it was preschool and kindergartners against the first graders - not fair at all!  Coach Phil said there was no way he was going to let them get away with such physical play next time, so we'll see how it goes.     

Night out on the town for us all!

Last night marked a milestone at the ol' Highway 47 homestead!  I ventured out in the cold on my own and went to a friend's 40th birthday party while Dave took BOTH boys to the high school hockey game.  He's a brave, brave man!

I've been panicking about getting a supply of milk stored up for when I go back to work so I started on this "little" project yesterday.  We procured a new, functioning dishwasher last weekend and, after a small leaky setback, Dave got it installed and running yesterday morning.  This was pretty much essential due to the amount of bottles I would be going through and was a huge relief.  I'm going to try to pump an hour after each feeding, which has me a bit nervous since John isn't all that regular.  Sometimes he'll go for a few hours, sometimes I can't get him off for more than one.  He's definitely more high maintenance than Henry was and less predictable.  My first try yesterday produced 7oz.  The second, only 3.  I'm not too worried yet since between feeding and pumping, I'm going to turn into a milking machine with boobs that will transform into rocks every couple of hours if I don't do something about it.

So, I ventured off to the extreme northern suburbs while Dave took the guys to the game.  He was nervous, but confident.  One of Henry's teammates and his coach father went, as well, freeing Dave up to only have to entertain the little one who wound up sleeping most of the time.  We really like that family.  I was worried that I would have nothing in common with the other "hockey moms" but somehow, this kid's mom and I found each other and we have a blast in the stands.  When I first met them, I excitedly told Dave that I found some people that looked like they might drive a VW and listen to Wilco like us.  So Dave and Coach I got to hang out and Henry and A acted like a couple of rink rats in the stands.

After they got home, Johnny took his first ever bottle like a champ!  Dave said at first, he refused to take it, like he often refuses a pacifier (he's turning into a thumb boy already).  Dave squirted a little milk out to give him a taste and he quickly put two and two together and chowed down.  He's just like his brother in this respect.  Henry never cared where the food came from.  We used to call him Hank the Tank since he packed on the pounds so easily.  How he turned into a tall, skinny little thing that can hardly keep a pair of pants on his butt still baffles me.  John is starting out exactly the same.  I can't wait to see how much he weighs at his 2 month appointment (only a little over a week away)!

The cell was in my hands the whole time, but I had fun.  I hadn't seen Kel's brother in quite a while and was glad to be able to make it to his big 4-0.  Kel, Kasey and I wound up playing Wii much of the time.  Right after I arrived I had one Stella and snuck out to the garage with a couple of guys for a little something something (wink, wink).  Figured I'd get my kicks in early on so the system could wash out by the time I had to return to my role as human vending machine.  Wound up staying for nearly 4 hours after I got word that everything was going so well at home.  Yay for my boys!     

What's new on Johnny's bum...

We took the big step to cloth diapers for Johnny yesterday.  Crazy Cousin Molly gave us a bumGenius pocket diaper and a couple inserts at our shower last summer and Dave and I have been looking at it with curiosity for the last 7 weeks.  Will it fit him?  Will it hold everything in?  Will we be able to keep up with the laundry?  I lugged out the overly full garbage bag loaded with used disposables to the trash the other night and announced that we were doing it, even if it meant a leaky diaper now and then.  Besides, Pampers and Huggies can't keep up with his poop much of the time, anyway.  The dang things aren't cheap, but I calculated we'd easily have them paid off by the end of the year with what we'd be saving by not buying disposables.  

Cloth diapers are not easy to find in the metro unless you are willing to order them online and can follow the "easy" step-by-step instructions for putting them together and then on your wiggling baby - I needed someone to show me.  So I drove 3/4 of the way across the metro down to Hopkins to what I discovered was a most dangerous store: Baby Grand.  Got what I was looking for, some advice and more: a pair of peace sign Robeez that had fallen in the 20% off box (which they honored) and Rockabye Baby! Led Zeppelin (I just realized that they have a Pixies record and would LOVE to get my hands on that).  Luckily, John started getting fussy so I didn't get sucked into the clothes, which were wicked cute (even more so if you have a little girl)!  Maybe for his 6 month birthday, I'll wander back there and get him a little something-something.

I got home and tossed them into the wash to remove any residue remaining from production that would impede optimal pee/poop absorption.  I swung by Target and picked up some biodegradable diapers to get us through the pre-washing (as usual, we waited until our supply was exhausted and procuring a diaper became an emergency situation) and I braced myself for what was next: calling daycare to present my case for cloth.  

It pretty much went as I expected - she immediately said no.   She did not have the time to rinse off poop with all the kids she has and she can't get poop on her hands (wtf - she wears rubber gloves when changing diapers and believes this is why she never gets sick).  Besides, she's heard horror stories in her continuing education classes about cloth (I would like to know where she takes her classes and have a word with them).  I asked if she'd seen cloth diapers lately and explained that they were like a disposable that gets washed (i.e. not your mother's old squares).  I assured her that she wouldn't even have to remove any of the poop - we would bring them each morning, all put together, and she would just toss the dirties in a wet tote and we'd take care of the rest.  I know it will get messier once he's on solid food, but I'm willing to work a little harder to clean them if she's willing to work with us.  By the end of the conversation, I got her to agree to take a look at them, which, honestly, was the most I was hoping to get out of the phone call, so I'm calling it a success at this point.  Getting her to go from a steadfast "no" to stepping out of her box just a bit is a herculean task and I'm patting myself on the back right now.  Of course, she wanted to know why we were using cloth, asked using the tone of "why on earth would you want to do such a thing?", which, naturally, caused me to respond using the tone of "duh!"  I explained the 2 tons of diapers a baby can put into our landfills, the biohazard of untreated human waste leaching into our water supply and the economic benefits.  Nothing.  Just a "huh".  I hate being a slave to daycare.  Technically, she works for us, but, due to demand for good care, they have you by the proverbial balls.  If she decides to refuse, we're sticking with the biodegradable diapers and part of me hopes they leak baby shit all over her.  I'd like to see her try to tell us what kind of disposables we have to buy.

I'd finished washing and was putting them together when Dave and Henry got home.  Johnny promptly pooped and Dave took him upstairs to change him.  I sent Henry chasing after him with one of the new diapers ("But it's not a real diaper, Mom").  Everything went fine until we were eating dinner and I got leaked on (pee only).  Ok, not a good start.  He pooped in the next diaper and it held it in.  Dave put a new one on right before bed at 10:30 and, while I was nursing, he peed and it leaked again.  Dad decided it was operator error and tried again.  He stayed dry all night with one changing at 3:00 and up at 6:15.  Dave said the key was to cinch them up tight, with the tabs almost touching.  I nursed him when he got up and changed him when we were done.  He loves being naked so I left him in just his diaper and put him in his bassinet while I took pictures of his cuteness.  He peed and I watched it leak out the top.  A second key is to aim his little bits down.  I think we found that out with Henry, but we're discovering that many of the things we learned with Henry have fallen from memory.  So far so good ever since! 

America the Beautiful

I snuggled my little baby close and watched history be made this morning and, even though I HATE crowds (except for those at small rock shows), I sort of wished I could have been in DC to witness the inauguration in person.  What an amazing day for America this has been and I'm feeling good about our country and government for the first time in my life.  I know Obama and Congress face the same old problems, none of which are easy, but there really is a feeling of hope in the air.  I hope politics as usual doesn't rear it's ugly head.  I love Barack Obama's smile and I hope it remains as genuine as it appears today.  I hope he can lead us toward a better tomorrow.

Struggling in the deep freeze

It's still incredibly cold out.  If I were to do it again (and believe me, I'm not), I'd definitely plan a pregnancy to end in the spring or summer.  At least with Henry, we could go outside for a walk and I didn't have to bundle the poor kid up like Randy from A Christmas Story to run to Target.  The one good thing is that Willie the Dog doesn't mess around outside - he's perfectly fine with not barking at the neighbor dogs or giving me that challenging look that says, "I don't give a shit that you have to go somewhere or go to bed - there's a squirrel in this here tree and I need to keep an eye on it for the next hour or so just in case it accidently falls off the branch.  Come on - it could happen!" 

I've been perusing the website of a local Shambala meditation center this morning.  I've been looking at this place for some time now, wondering if I have the time.  I think I need to just make the time.  I used to go to a different place occasionally and I really liked the practice and the environment, but it was a little too far away and there is another person that attends that, due to my business relationship with them, makes it a bit uncomfortable for both of us to be there at the same time.  This other center has a monthly kids meeting that incorporates a little meditation, stories, art and music.  I think Henry would benefit from learning to sit quietly for a few minutes and I know he would dig the rest of it, as well.  I need to learn to relax and quiet my mind, especially with all that is going on in my life right now - the stress of my job, the school issues with Henry, being an overly tired mother of an infant, etc...

We've been working with the school on The Boy's behavior and have initiated the process for having him evaluated for ADHD with his doc.  I'm not convinced he has it, but there definitely are issues we need to deal with.  I worry so much about him and his future.  It hurts to see my little guy so sad about himself and his ability to follow the rules at school.  He's so bright and does well academically, but he struggles with just being able to settle into the routines, especially when he's bored.  Maybe this isn't the right school for him.  Maybe he needs to be somewhere where the classes are smaller and his mind is kept busy.  My guess is that would involve tuition...

Johnny and I are off to have lunch with the Aunties today.  I'm hoping one of them doesn't go off about how immature her daughter is.  The daughter that graduated from college in 3 1/2 years, is going into the Peace Corps and is just getting back from building a school for AIDS orphans in Uganda.  How horrible for her to have to deal with such a child.  Considering I'm fearing my son will be held back from 1st grade, I may not be able to listen to it without putting in my two cents.  Man, it would feel good, though.