The great diaper experiment

Well, I made it. I had my last class of the school year this week. The summer is stretching ahead of me (well, once I finish up the end-of-the-year stuff, it is).

The last two weeks were tough. Mr. X was out of town for the second-to-last week, and for the first time I had no family in town to help. That Wednesday, I went in to the office and was rushed from one thing to another all day, and finally had to rush home to relieve the babysitter without having a chance to pump all day. I wound up with an excruciatingly painful plugged duct that took until Sunday to fully resolve.

But, on the good side, we took that week as the opportunity to see if Nicholas could fall asleep by himself . . . and he did it! It's been two weeks, and he's fallen asleep on his own every night. We had been gradually preparing him for the transition, because we weren't going to let him cry it out. Especially with all that he's gone through being adopted at 1 year old, we wanted to make sure he feels secure and knows that we'll come to him if he needs us. We do go back in if he cries for more than a minute or two. Tonight, I was putting both kids to sleep (Mr. X is working for a client in Asia this week, so he's home but online all night long. Weird, but better than having to travel!), and Nick fussed for 30 seconds, then played in his crib for a while, and then, half an hour later and just as Sarah fell asleep, he started wailing again. I went in, and he had thrown everything out of his crib and unzipped his pjs. I got his pillow, blanket, and tiger, zipped him up and tucked him in, and he went right to sleep.

So . . . to get to the whole diaper thing . . . at long last, I tried cloth diapering the kids today. I have two dozen (I think . . . maybe it's three) full-size prefolds and four 15-to-30 pound diaper covers, so I figured we'd give it a shot for one day to see what it's like. I think it will be good! Of course, Sarah had an amazing blowout on the way to church. The church we've been attending has better mass times than our parish, but absolutely nowhere to change a baby. So, I changed her on the front seat of the car. Thank God, there was just a tiny bit of poop on the little pants under her skirt. I made a rookie mistake and got poop on the new diaper and cover, so we shot two of the diaper covers right away. But I got the clean one on, and we did fine for the rest of the day. We went through 13 diapers and all four covers, but we're using disposables at night and for Nick's nap. I've put everything through the washer once on cold, and I'm about to throw it all in on hot before I go to bed. But Mr. X is on his lunch break, so I'm going to go talk to him before I sleep :-)

Congratulations are in order!

Seriously, I'm away from blogs for a couple of days and miss announcements of two pregnancies and an adoption. God is so good!

This is a quick one. I'm already running late. I had to take the kids in for Sarah's follow-up follow-up appointment. Praise be to God, it looks like her tongue has healed! I thought the mass was back, but the doctor said it's just the scar from her incision. (No, I'm not as dumb as that makes me sound :-> It's just really hard to get a good look under a nine-month-old's tongue!) I had both kids with me, and the doctor was running an hour and a half late! I'm so thankful that I have sweet kids who were angels that whole time. I'm also thankful to the staff who provided animal crackers and juice boxes to the kids in the waiting room, since that helped with the angelic behavior. And I'm thankful that I didn't get trapped in the elevator today like I did after Sarah's first follow-up appointment.

I'm about to leave the office so I can make a couple of the dishes we're cooking for friends who just had a new baby. We're supposed to bring the food to their house (5 minutes away from our house) about 15 minutes after Mr. X usually arrives home from work. And he's the one grilling the steaks. We'll see how this works out!

Thinking of you . . .

Just a quick post for Mother's Day. On my way to mass this morning, I was thinking about my friends through blogging and in real life. I was so happy thinking of those of you who are celebrating Mother's Day as mothers for the first time, and my heart ached for those of you who are still waiting or missing the babies you've lost. I want you all to know you're in my thoughts and prayers today!