11 Months, 3 Weeks, 4 Days

Here's Henry practicing to be my intern when he stayed home with me last week.

Tonight is the second-part in my cloth diaper primer. Tonight i'll be covering the questions that deal with what you do with the soiled diapers and how involved the clean-up is.

It's pretty straightforward. We have a garbage can in Henry's room with a locking lid. With cloth diapers we change him about every 2 hours during the day. If the diaper is wet you throw everything (cover, diaper and fleece) in the garbage can/diaper pail and close the lid. If the diaper is dirty then you take 1 more step. We generally use paper liners that you lay on top of the fleece. This paper liner is flushable. If the diaper is dirty you simply set the diaper aside until you're done changing, and then drop the liner in the toilet-- the rest of the diaper goes in the pail.

If everything is working in the old G/I tract then you can get away with not using the liners at all. You simply take the diaper to the toilet, give it a good shake, and then throw the rest of the diaper back in the pail.

On wash day i take out the garbage bag, empty it into the washer and run a rinse cycle sans detergent in warm water. After the rinse has finished i do a full wash cycle on hot with minimal detergent and oxyclean. You can't use fabric softener as it makes the diapers not absorbent and you have to keep the detergent to a minimum so that no residue is left on the diapers to irritate little baby skin.

When the wash cycle is done, you simply throw everything in the dryer.

I wouldn't attempt all of this without my own w/d, but once that is in place it's very convenient and much cheaper to use cloth (plus they're cuter and don't have Sesame Street characters on them.)

One final note, all bets are off during stomach bugs. We switched to disposables during this time to keep clean-up as easy as possible.

11 Months, 3 Weeks, 3 Days

Henry and i participated in a birthday gift exchange through my online community board. Henry was showered with an early birthday box full of 2 fun outfits, a new board book and a cute stuffed tiger that JT has nicknamed "Terrell." Henry went nuts with Terrell this weekend as evidenced by the photo.

When Henry was around 9-10 months old i started investigating cloth diapers. After simplifying things we have the cloth diapers down to a ritual and i thought i would give you the lowdown so the process is demystified. When you first think about cloth the hardest most overwhelming part is typing "cloth diaper" into google and then figuring out there's an entire online universe devoted to cloth diapering and that there are just way too many choices. If anyone is interested in having things simplified and receiving a simple overview of the options let me know.

We decided to go with covers and prefolded diapers. We simply fold the diaper cloth into thirds, lay it on-top of a diaper cover and then put a thin piece of fleece cloth on top of that. The fleece stays dry so the bebes don't get diaper rash. You put it under their bum and use the velcro tabs on either side of the diaper just like a disposable-- voila you're done. Sometimes i get really ambitious and "pre-load" several covers with diapers so they're pre-assembled. But usually i just sit Henry on the changing pad and put a toy in front of him that he can get interested in while i'm taking the 60 seconds or so to prepare the diaper. By the time i'm ready he's sufficiently taken by the toy that i can lay him backwards and get down to business For those of you thinking-- yeah but what do you do about dirty diapers and all the washing, i'll have a full expose tomorrow. That way those that would prefer to keep this information a mystery can just skip the text tomorrow...

11 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

Although i'll be regretting it come tomorrow morning when we have another showing, Henry acquired a new toy this weekend. His PT recommended a walker toy for him now that he's eager to pull-up and crusing is a skill we're working on. Henry really digs his new toy, but more for all the fun stuff on the front of it than for the walking aspect. Here's a rare shot where he hasn't leaned so far over that he's cut his air supply off. Clearly this is a "supervision needed" type of toy for awhile.

This weekend Henry started initiating "peek-a-boo" and will hold up a piece of fabric over his face if you say those words. It's extremely cute and further evidence that he's making brain strides.

We've had a few showings this weekend and hope that something may be moving forward early this week...

11 Months, 2 Weeks, 6 Days

I think the days of keeping Henry home with me and actually getting any work done are quickly drawing to a close. I called the Dr. this morning and she said to feed Henry frequent small meals and see how he did. I followed her advice and he kept everything down (so far at least, we're hoping to make it through the night). Other than the fear of more gross laundry and emergency baths, Henry's day was great. So, i think he'll go back to Brenda's tomorrow.

We on the other hand, are not doing so well. The buyers for our condo backed out this morning. The contract was in the review period so they're able to back-out with little fanfare. Now we're essentially back at square one. Our Realtor is checking with the other couple that came for a second showing last weekend to see if they are still interested. I think we're hopeful everything will work out but clearly it's not going to go as smoothly as we thought.

In other news Henry has been absolutely set on pulling-up for the last few days. He still needs to feel that you're there before he really goes for it but today while i was on a conference call things suddenly got a little quiet. I turned around and Henry had scooched right in front of the coffee table and was in the position his PT is teaching him to use when he pulls up-- on one knee with the other foot flat on the ground. I went over and helped him a little and off he was. He happily stands for 15-20 minutes at a time and as soon as he falls he just gets mad that now he has to get back up again. Here's a hard-fought picture of the action!

11 Months, 2 Weeks, 5 Days

Now i don't know what to think. Henry slept fine last night, ate a big bottle this morning and had a completely normal day at Brenda's. He came home and did wonderfully in his PT session (he just won't stop trying to pull-up now and loves standing!). After that we went for a walk and met Dad at the store. We came home and got Henry ready for dinner. He seemed really interested in the food but then didn't really want to eat much. He was in super-good spirits but ate a little bit of all the choices we had. After he didn't eat many of his fruit puffs i decided he must really be through. I took the tray off his chair and then whammo, he threw-up everywhere! It was terrible and i'm still nauseas.

We cleaned him up and got him in the bath and he didn't seem any worse for wear. He was definitely tired (which we knew before dinner, PT exhausts him) but was super happy and babbling away.

It could be the stomach bug returning, but it's strange that other than the massive vomiting he seems completely fine. It actually reminds us of his projectile vomiting before his stomach surgery. I've done some online research though and all i can find is that recurrence is "extremely rare." So who knows. I'm worried though and planning on keeping him home with me tomorrow and trying to get him in to the Doctor's in case it is something more serious with his stomach.

Trust me, you're glad there are no pictures today...

11 Months, 2 Weeks, 4 Days

Henry had a normal day and a strange evening. He was fine at Brenda's, took 2 good naps, and came home talking excitedly. In the past few days he's gotten more aggressive about lunging forward onto his stomach and determined to pull-up on things even though he still needs a bit of help. So, we had lots of playtime this evening and then on to dinner.

For the first time since he was sick with the flu Henry didn't have much of an appetite. He wouldn't eat our leftovers that he had devoured recently and he only ate about half of his turkey dinner. He went crazy feeding himself bananna but wouldn't take more than a few bites of applesauce even. Then he proceeded to throw-up everything (largely bananna) that he had eaten for dinner. We're not sure if he was just gagging and it got out of control or if maybe he has the flu again. His buddy Helen came down with it on Saturday after the aquarium outing so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities, but he seemed completely normal after losing his dinner. Just immediately started chattering and pointing at new things he noticed and wanted, which he indicates by pointing and making a grabbing motion.

He had a great bath and then i made him a bottle before bed. He took several ounces and went straight to sleep. So, that was potentially a bad thing to do it if it is the flu, or it will help him not wake up from hunger in the night. I guess we'll see.

11 Months, 2 Weeks, 1 Day

What a fun weekend! We sold our house (or at least the contract is pending); Henry had his first visit to the aquarium; and we got to meet up with a friend of mine and her son that's just two days younger than Henry.

Hopefully the inspection will happen early in the week and things will move along okay. Right now we're set to close on both the sale of the condo and the purchase of the new house on the 28th. We have movers coming tomorrow to give us an estimate. We've used them before, so hopefully we'll be able to get into their schedule.

Henry had a ball at the aquarium and really enjoyed hanging out with his pal Graham today. Usually he's quiet when he meets new people, but after just a little while with Graham and his mom, Henry was chatting right along.

Tonight we had dinner together and Henry went to town on the mushroom and spinach enchiladas JT made. Hopefully this means that Henry has just about come back to table food!