Nap Time?

Nap Time is a rather loosely used term around here. Liam rarely, if ever, takes naps anymore. His nap time consists of playing quietly in his room for about an hour after lunch. This quiet time is more for my sanity's sake than for his rest.

Ada, however can sleep like a machine during the day (the nights are a whole 'nother story). When she starts to fuss I can just lay her down in the play pen and walk away. No nursing or rocking her to sleep needed. I lay her down, she wiggles around under the covers, gives a smile and promptly falls asleep.

So imagine my surprise when I laid Ada down for a nap today and didn't hear her quiet snores, but instead heard her giggling and squealing.

Can you guess what I found when I went to investigate?

Apparently, Big Brother doesn't think Ada needs naps either. They were having so much fun together, I had to take a video of it...

Ada, thankfully, still took a good nap once I finally got her brother out of there.

Hmmmm, what could this be?

See that? Looks like a pretty bad rash on the small of Liam's back, doesn't it? Well, it's not a rash.

Nope. That's from the cat.

Liam is forever bugging our cat, Otto. When Liam was younger the cat would just sit and take whatever assault came his way, but now that Liam is getting older, the cat clearly is starting to fight back.

Look out Liam, I think you've met your match.

Domesticity

I've been feeling very domestic lately. It's probably the snowy weather.

Yesterday, I tried my hand at making some homemade crackers for Liam. They were a lot easier to make than I thought they would be and very tasty too. After his first bite, Liam announced that he "yuvs these."



Sesame Whole Wheat Crackers

1 3/4c whole wheat flour
1/4 c olive oil
1/4 c sesame seeds
1/2 c water
2 t honey
1 t salt

(you can omit the sesame seeds for just a basic whole wheat cracker)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, olive oil and sesame seeds in a bowl. Add honey and salt and mix thoroughly. Add water and mix until you have pie dough consistency (don't over mix or the dough will be too tough to roll out). Roll out dough to 1/8" thickness on some parchment paper. Score with a knife into squares. Bake 10 to 15 minutes until crackers are golden brown.

I found my edges were starting to burn and that the middle was still uncooked, so I broiled the tops of the crackers, then flipped them and broiled the other side to get the crackers nice and toasted.

Soooo good. Original recipe here.

Oops...has a month really gone by? Let's see if I can remember what new and exciting things have been happening around here lately.

Liam and Ada are now taking baths together. Liam has a great time showing off to his sister how he can 'swim' in the tub. Ada, as always, is quite enamored with her older brother and is more than thrilled to take a bath with him.


Ada shows her love for the water by constantly kicking her legs and pumping her arms when she's in the tub. She now sits in a tub ring, which supports her perfectly.

Our Ada Babes turned 5 months old last week and is turning into quite the wiggle meister. She enjoys rolling around on the floor and is learning how to use her jolly jumper. Her love affair with the swing isn't anywhere close to being over. She could sit in that thing all day if I'd let her.

Just a short update. I promise to be more diligent with posting. Should be lots to write about now that it's almost Christmas.

Sick Days

Liam and I have been pretty sick since Saturday. Ada, thankfully is feeling OK besides an occasional runny nose. We've all been stuck at home in our pajamas for quite some time now, but that doesn't mean we haven't been goofing off a bit in between sniffles.

Ada is getting very good at holding her head up now.

Brother and Sister each think the other one is pretty cool.

I dressed Ada up in a bonnet. I love bonnets...probably because I read Little House on the Prairie over and over and over again when I was younger.


By this point Ada was tired of posing for the camera.



This picture really cracks me up!

We're slowly working on getting better. Liam is off to the farm today so that I can get a chance to take a nap and try to shake off this cold. I have to go grocery shopping today and I'm looking forward to it. It's Wednesday now and today will be the first time I'll have left the house since Friday!

Keeping the Peace

Today was one of THOSE days. Liam, though he woke up at 6am, refused to take a nap in the afternoon and when he's low on sleep he becomes a wild and cranky little tyrant. Thankfully, he hasn't done this in a while, but it didn't make today any easier. Ada was up last night until midnight and then woke up twice in the middle of the night to nurse. Since it's Thursday and Nialle has practice tonight, I knew there would be no relief in sight.

So what do you do when you're lethargic, lactating and spending the day with a sleep-deprived kid? You succumb to his every whim just to keep the peace.

It was cold outside today, but Liam really wanted to go to the park so I dressed him up, put Ada in the sling and zipped her up into one of Nialle's big sweaters that I was wearing and then we all trudged off to the park.

Liam had a good time...

He wore his boxers out today...that's only the second time we've been out of the house without him wearing a diaper. He stayed dry!


I was cold and spent most of the time trying to keep Ada's head covered...

...but at least Liam was able to blow off some steam and I got to walk a happy kid back to the house.

More Baby Giggles

I just couldn't resist to post another video of Ada giggling. She just loves to laugh. Liam, as you'll hear in the background, just wants an apple.

Whatchulookin'at?

This is what happens when I leave Liam to play with his Mr. Potato head...

Baby Giggles

As babies go, Ada is quite different from Liam when he was a baby. Liam was one of those kids who kind of motored around contentedly - never quite fussy, but also never showing too much enthusiasm. Liam was an occasional chuckler (is that a word?); Ada on the other hand, squeals, giggles and guffaws at 3 months of age. Case in point:

Sorry the video is a bit dark. I love how she just gets so pooped at the end that she just has to pop her thumb into her mouth!

One of my friends works as a nurse at the Stollery in Edmonton and says that baby laughs are the best because they are so pure and hearty. I have to agree!

Pregnant?

If I didn't know better (and I hope I do), I'd swear I was pregnant. Even though Ada is 3 months old, I still feel like I'm in nesting mode. I'm obsessing over what we eat, clean with, how we spend our money and how clean my home is...it's really strange.

During my pregnancy with Ada, I obsessed over going 'greener and cleaner' in our house. I read articles and books on how harmful many of our common household items were and made a commitment to making my house and the products we use safer for us and my children to come into contact with. I realized that just because an item is on a store shelf doesn't guarantee that it is safe for you to use. Yeah, I was turning into a hippy.

But my hippy phase didn't end with Ada's arrival; instead, it just keeps going full steam ahead. Of course, discovering that my mozzarella cheese contains talc doesn't bring back my faith in food (I'm not making things up...it was right there in the ingredients) and learning that my mascara contains carcinogens doesn't help matters either.

Since Ada's arrival, I've also gone budget crazy. Everyday at 11am, my household shuts down and I turn on the TV to watch 'Til Debt Do Us Part'. I'm so completely and pathetically hooked on this show. I want Gail Vaz-Oxlade to come to my house and get us going on a better budget. I want to do her weekly challenges!

Even though Nialle and I usually live within our means, I'd like to live below our means so that we can put aside more money for savings, holidays or a new house. I've started reading Your Money or Your Life and it has me thinking about we can relate to money differently. It has me wondering how I can resist the urge to be such a consumer. It's an interesting time in history, what with the financial crisis in the States - everyone seems to be talking about budgeting now. What that means for me is that there's lots of inspiration and ideas online about how to cut costs at home. I'm hoping that in the next few months or so, we can start setting aside more money for retirement or even *fingers crossed* a trip to Europe!

I've also gone cleaning crazy. I started following flylady's zone cleaning and am working on decluttering and cleaning my home. I have a binder with the list of cleaning chores that I complete each week and where I now keep all of my household information such as ongoing grocery lists and other miscellaneous items I need. I'm so organized and so, so nerdy.

I'm a wee bit embarrassed at how nutty I've gone for all these things. Some of them even seem a to sit on the outside fringes of sanity. But, honestly, I hope I'm not going through a phase, because I'm actually having a good time trying all of these new things!

Girls' Day

Liam went to Grandma Town's this Thursday and boy, was everyone excited! Liam was at my bedside at 6:30 am yelling and jumping up and down, "I SEE UNCLE JOSH AND UNCLE WEDI TODAY!" I was just about ready to jump up and down with joy too because this whole having two kids thing has really been kicking my butt lately.

Ada and I made the most of the Liam-free time by having a genuine girls' day. We opted for the deluxe spa treatment:

A soak in the spa bath. The 'jets' were even turned on at one point.

We had a mani-pedi (I clipped my toe nails and Ada's fingernails. Glamorous)

I ate Krap Dinner from the pan (to save on dishes, you know). I even contemplated drinking milk from the milk jug too.


Because we both had so much time to make ourselves look so darn good, we even had our portraits taken.


Took a video of Ada too



Other than a load of laundry and tidying up the house, I didn't do any housework. And in a symbolic gesture to all the cleaning I could have been doing, I knit the middle finger on my latest pair of gloves. Thanks, Grandma Town!

Seeds for Christmas

I love a challenge - especially when it comes to penny pinching. While Nialle and I aren't always the greatest at saving money, I particularly make an effort to try and cut costs when it comes to Christmas gift giving. Christmas is one holiday that can not only blow our budget, but can get us into debt.

This Christmas, one of the gifts I'll be giving to acquaintances and close friends alike is packets of seeds. I harvested the seeds from the flowers in my backyard. If this is something you'd like to try, there's still time to go out and pick seeds before the snow flies.

Gathering seeds from your garden is easy and it allows you to give your loved ones seeds from flowers you know do well in your area. As a bonus, it doesn't take a lot of work or money to do either!

First, make sure that your seeds are ready to be picked. Here is a picture of some of my Giant Delphinium's seed pods. When the pods turn brown, feel crispy and have split open, you know they are ready.


If you're worried that your pods will burst and scatter the seeds on your flower bed before you get a chance to harvest them, you can pick the 'green' pods as they form and let them dry in your house.

Here I have done just that and spread some pods from Delphiniums, Onion Chives and Maiden Pinks in a cardboard box.

Handle the box and pods with care to make sure you don't lose too many seeds...and to make sure you don't mix up the pods either - that could spell disaster. Use separate boxes for each type of flower if you want so that the seeds don't get mixed up. I like using cardboard boxes because they absorb moisture and speed up the drying process.




When you're ready to extract the seeds from the pods, put the pods in a spare paper envelope. Here I have placed some dried heads from my onion chives into an envelope.




Pressing firmly on the outside of the envelope, roll the pods around to remove the seeds. If that doesn't work, you can also shake the seeds out of the pod into the open envelope. Pick out the empty pods once you think all the seeds have been removed.

Look, there's seeds for some onion chives. Yum

To make sure my seeds are dry, I usually keep them in the envelope for a few weeks and store it in a safe, dry place (away from nosy husbands, children and pets). Making sure everything is dry (and stays dry) is essential as moisture will rot the seeds.

Make sure to label the envelope!

Now comes the fun part! Package your seeds in a creative way - add a personal touch. The simplest of gifts become the most meaningful when the recipient sees how much work and thought you put into their present.

Here I did a watercolor of a Giant Delphinium and added some information on the plant. You can always add more information such as how to plant the seeds, interesting uses or a fascinating bit of history. If you don't like to paint, make up small cards with scrapbooking materials, or download cute labels from the internet.

I stapled a small envelope with the delphinium seeds in it to the back of the card. Include a grain or two of rice in this small envelope to help absorb any extra moisture from the seeds.

Place your seeds in an old basket with some gardening tools, gardening magazines or slip it in a Christmas card and you have a one-of-a-kind gift!

Pink and Purple

Poor Ada has thrush. So I went straight to the medicine cabinet and pulled out the Gentian Violet to start treatment. But, boy, is this stuff nasty...it stains absolutely everything it comes into contact with.

While we're all sure to wear old clothes, Ada has the worst of it what with having to wear the ugliest sleeper I could find. It's fringed in 3 1/2" of lace that interferes with her latch. Maybe 20 years ago, this thing was the hottest thing in fashion, but not anymore. It's destined for the trash once the thrush has gone away.

To complement the lace absurdity, Ada's lips are stained purple and instead of a soft blanket, she's wrapped up in an old towel. I'm hoping this experience doesn't cripple her future fashion sense.



In spite of looking like The Joker (Nialle's words, not mine), Ada's all smiles. Such a trooper.

Resistance is Futile...

After a particularly trying week, I passed Liam and Ada off to Nialle tonight and told my poor husband I was taking a bath. I barked out my instructions like a drill sergeant so there'd be no chance for interruptions during my long anticipated soak. "Liam needs supper. Give him eggs and toast. Ada's been fed, so if she cries she probably wants to be held. Put her on your shoulder and pat her back, she likes that. Then, put Liam in his pajamas, read him a story and put him to bed. Please."

With that, I turned my back to my family and saw the light of my deliverance coming through the crack under the bathroom door. The light was beckoning me. It promised me sanctuary and a wonderful, sweet haven where responsibilities didn't exist.

Turning the handle and entering the room, I quickly saw my retreat was anything but. The floor was riddled with towels and socks, the baby tub, the curling iron from this morning and soggy toilet paper (don't ask). Dirty tracks from the cat meandered from the tub, along the floor and out the door of the bathroom. The garbage next to the toilet sat overflowing with toilet paper from yesterday when Liam decided he needed to blow his nose and that he was going to do it 'hisself'.

No matter. I was going to pretend none of that existed. The tub was within view and its gleaming porcelain sides called out to me. Hmmm, those sides aren't so gleaming. In fact, this tub is just disgusting. I couldn't pretend away that grime in the tub and I wasn't going to soak in THAT. I hate cleaning the tub, but this bath was going to happen; I WAS going to have a relaxing night. Out of the bathroom I marched, quickly grabbing some cleaning supplies before anyone saw me and thought that I was free game for a barrage of questions, a favour, or a feeding.

There. The tub was clean. The water was running at just the right temperature and I had selected my bath salts and book.

This was going to be my first postpartum bath since Ada's birth and I was really looking forward to it. I dipped a toe in the water. I was thisclose to my destination when the bathroom door swung open wildly and Liam burst in on the scene. "BUMMY!" he gleefully exclaimed as he pointed at my bare rear end.

My weary and pathetic reply was, "Yes, Liam, Mommy has a bum. Now can you please give her some privacy so she can take a bath?"

"OK, Mommy, I shut the door."

"Thanks."

With that Liam shut the door and I sank slowly into the tub, enjoying every bit of the hot water. I reveled in the unadulterated peace. The revelry was short lived as Liam popped his head in and declared, "Mommy, I shut the door!"

Grumble. "Yes, Liam, you did. Now can you please shut it again?"

This time the door stayed shut and I opened my book. My eyes were on the page, but my mind started estimating how much water I had just poured and how much this bath was going to cost me on our next water bill. Had I been to selfish taking this bath? All of a sudden I was wracked with guilt - this extravagance had cost me $0.30. No self respecting girl of dutch heritage would spend that much on herself! After much deliberation, I thought the cost could be excused away as this opportunity to relax would increase the chances of my son reaching his third birthday.

My eyes were still on the pages of the book, but now my ears were tuned to the drama going on outside the bathroom door. Liam was eating supper finally and kept dropping his fork. I could envision the pattern the falling eggs had made on the floor. Will Nialle clean it up or leave it? I'll bet the cat is helping himself to some of those eggs right now. He better not puke them up on the carpet again.

Then Liam was demanding milk. Then he dropped his fork again. Then he was saying he was done his supper. Then he was declaring he actually wanted to keep eating.

Filled was the sippy cup. Picked up was the fork. Off came the bib and off came the tray to the high chair. Back on went the bib and back on went the tray to the highchair.

Ada started to fuss and Nialle picked her up when Liam decided for the final time that he was actually done his supper and wanted to be washed up. Not wanting to put Ada down, Nialle started the bargaining, "Can't you eat just a little more?...Just this much...how about this?" until finally I heard, "EAT IT!" followed promptly by a loud, "NO!"

I'm not ashamed in the least to say that at that point, I was glad Liam was someone else's problem.

I heard various cries and clatters as Nialle and Liam cleaned up the living room for bedtime. In the commotion, I swear I heard someone step on the cat. I wickedly thought: Please don't need me. Please don't need me. Don't make me get out of here! And then a thought even more wicked entered my mind - After Liam goes to bed, I can sneak out and get some knitting done before anyone notices me!

I heard the story read, the song sung and Liam was put to bed.

I emerged from my refuge glancing cautiously around the house. Was HE in bed? Was SHE with her dad? Could I sit on the couch and sneak in some knitting?

Yes...yes...so far it was clear. No...nope...I don't see anyone. I sank into the couch and greedily picked up my knitting needles. Knit, purl, knit, purl.

Was it true? Had I succeeded in not only a bath, but a night of knitting as well? What bliss! What sheer and utter bliss! A woman happy is a woman knitting! A woman happy is a woman with a toddler in bed, a husband holding her babe and a night of solitude ahead of her...

...well, that is the woman HAD a night of peace until she heard a little voice at piercing decibels exclaim:

"I NEED TO USE THE TOI-LER!"


Dang it.

Buying Your Cloth Diapers

One reason why I never jumped on cloth diapering when Liam was a baby was because I thought it would cost us around $700 up front for us to start cloth diapering. We couldn't afford to drop that much money all at once. And frankly, I didn't have to because there are a lot of frugal ways you can start cloth diapering. I wish that I knew then what I know now.

Yes, cloth diapers will cost more up front, but think in terms of how much disposable cost for one month (roughly $50). For the cost of 4-8 months of disposables, you can buy cloth diapers that will last your child until they are 35lbs and then you can use those same diapers with your next kid too!

For an overview on the different types of diapers you can buy see this post or bum around (get it? BUM around? Har har) on this cloth diapering blog.

ACCESSORIES

Regardless of what type of cloth diaper you go with, you'll need a diaper pail. Mine cost $15.00 a the LDS (no we're not going Mormon here, we're going to the Local Diaper Store).

You'll also want diaper liners. These look like bounce dryer sheets and catch the poop for you so all you have to do is hold the diaper upside down over the toilet and let the poop and liner fall in to be flushed away. Diaper liners make all the difference for us because it means we don't have to dunk the poopy diapers in the toilet. The dunking process is messy and I find it makes the diaper pail smell worse. Trust me, use the diaper liners because it will make cloth diapering more enjoyable and you'll be more likely to stick with it. For 200 diaper liners I paid $12.99 at the LDS. I've since learned you can get these cheaper elsewhere, but there aren't too many cloth diaper stores where I live, so I'll just have to pay a bit more. I expect these to last us for about 6 months or so.

You can buy a fancy plastic bag to hold your dirty diapers in when you go out, or you can just use a left over grocery bag*. So, your costs for a 'dirty duds' bag will range from $0 - $16.

THE DIAPERS

MAKE THEM

This is what my mom and I did. In order to this to truly save a lot of money, a lot has to fall into place. My mom happened to find flannel on sale for half price, so that saved us a bundle. You'll also want to have a surger on hand because this will make sewing the diapers much quicker. And you'll also need to have a schedule where you can set aside large amounts of time for sewing diapers. It was a ton of work (mostly on my mom's part) and in the end we spent maybe $120-$130 total on the pattern, fabric, thread, elastics and velcro for the diapers.

If you have plain flannel diapers, you'll need covers for the diapers. These are sold in various sizes (small, medium, large, XL) and range in price from $8 each to $30 each. You'll want about three covers for each size range. I only bought for sizes small, Large and XL and that will do us just fine.

36 diapers = $120
9 covers (3 for each size range) = $75 - $270 (ouch! don't go for the expensive ones)

BUY 'EM USED

This option has me really excited. I poked around on kijiji edmonton and there were two pages of used diapers for sale. The prices were considerably reasonable and compared with what I paid to make our diapers. The selection of diapers for sale was impressive and you can choose from the fancy types and the plain jane types too.If I had known I could have bought used cloth diapers so easily, I would have and I could have saved my mom a lot of grey hairs!

Prices vary, but they're dang cheap - even for the expensive all-in-one kind diapers! No more than $100 - $200 to get started (the same cost as 2-4 months of disposables)

GET THEM AS GIFTS

Ask friends and family to buy you cloth diapers as baby shower gifts or birthday gifts

No cost to you, just sheer enjoyment.

SLOW AND SURE

You can always put aside $20-$40/month while you are pregnant to help offset the initial cost of buying your cloth diapers.



WHATEVER YOU DO, BUY OR MAKE ONE-SIZE-FITS ALL

(This is my personal opinion) This will save you money because you can have a diaper that fits a child from 8lbs to 35lbs. You only have to pay once for all the diapers you'll need rather than three times for the three size ranges cloth diapers are sold in.

To take it to the next level, having a one-size-fits all that is also an all-in-one (where the diaper cover is sewn to the outside of the diaper) will mean less fuss for you. Because the diaper cover is sewn to the outside of the diaper, this type of diaper can also save you more money. If you can, go for this type of diaper because they're fabulous. We use our homemade diapers at home, but take the fancy ones out on the town because they're more user friendly when you're visiting or shopping.

The only downside is that on kids under 6 months, one-size-fits-all diapers look huge. So, when Ada wears a fancy dress to church, she does wear a disposable because it looks nicer under her dress (vanity, oh vanity). But on other days she wears one-size-fits-all under her pants and although she looks like she has a "front butt", she's still cute.

I hope this post helps to dispel some of the myths of cloth diapering (mainly the startup costs). Both Nialle and I love that we switched to cloth diapers and haven't looked back since.

__________________________________________________________

*I want to buy a nice plastic bag to put our diapers in, but haven't gotten around to it yet, so we just put the dirty cloth diapers in an old grocery bag when we're out and about. Last Sunday, we were over at our friends' house and the husband actually threw out all of our bag of diapers because he thought they were a bag of garbage. Luckily, I discovered this mistake quickly and our diapers weren't taken out to the street with the trash. The moral of the story is that if you're going to use a plastic grocery bag to store your dirty diapers in, look out for people inadvertently chucking it in the garbage!

Energy Costs of Cloth Diapering

When we first started cloth diapering before Ada was born, I have to admit I was a little wary of the whole process. I thought it would be a nuisance and an inconvenience and that I would regret ever making the switch. I thought the smell would be awful and the mess disgusting. Kindra's posts on cloth diapering helped me to decide to finally make the switch from disposables to cloth.

We've been using cloth diapers for about 3 months now and the results are in - I love cloth diapering! It is a bit more work than using disposables (and I only mean a bit), but the amount of money we are saving makes it all worth while.

Ada's clearly not impressed with the view

One of my friends remarked that she thought of using cloth diapers, but figured that the amount of water she would use to wash them would make the savings negligible.

Liam...future underwear model. He's wearing Happy Heinys, a brand I was introduced to by a generous relative. She bought Ada some of these diapers as a gift and I loved the diapers so much that I had to buy more!

There's lot of websites out there that talk about how much you can save by using cloth diapers, but I wanted to figure out how much savings we were seeing in our little house each month. That way I can give an accurate account to friends and family and it's always nice to know how much we're spending too.

Our washer and dryer came with the house and by no means are they energy efficient. These beasts use a lot of energy, but in spite of all this, still save us big bucks when it comes to diapering.

Here's how much it costs us to wash a load of diapers at our current energy rates:

WASHER
50 gallons/load of water @ $2.20/cubic metre of water = $0.36 of water/load
(one cubic metre of water is about 264 gallons of water)
959 kWh/year of energy@ $0.1125 per kWh = $0.30 of energy/load
$15.99 for a jug of Ecos laundry detergent (105 loads/jug) = $0.15 of laundry detergent/load

Total: $0.81/load


DRYER
898 kWh/year of electricity @0.1125 per kWh = $0.27/dryer load of diapers

Total: $0.27/hour of drying time

For two kids in cloth diapers, I wash about 27 diapers twice a week. In the summer I line dry our clothes. In the winter I also line dry the clothes, but I expect I'll be popping the diapers in the dryer because I'll have too much laundry to line dry all the time.



Let's look at monthly energy costs of cloth diapering:

SUMMER
(washing + line drying)
$6.48

WINTER
(washing + machine drying)
$8.64

If I had both Liam and Ada in disposables, I'd be spending $90/month. This cost is based on how we used to diaper Liam by using the cheap Superstore diapers during the day and the expensive Pamper diapers at night. If we had only one child in diapers, we'd probably be spending $45/month in diapers. This cost would be significantly more if we used only the expensive disposable diapers. No matter how you look at it, cloth diapers are cheaper!

We see more savings because we have two kids in diapers right now. Once Liam is finished potty training, our savings won't seem as impressive, but we'll keep with cloth diapering. Over the past 6 months our bills (fuel, property taxes, water, electricity) have gone up so much that we are now paying $150 more per month than we were in the spring. I guess what I'm saying is cloth diapering helps keep our costs down.

Look out soon for a post on the costs of starting cloth diapering ...(hint: it's not as much as you think)

Consulting the Book of Toddler

And Mr. Poopy-Pants-Know-It-All spake and said, "The time is nigh for me to act two-years-of-age. As I biddest, so shall it be done.

"From this day forth shall I utter such abominations as, 'NO' and 'HOLY SMOKE' and 'NO' again. And, when I have said it a million times before, I shall sayest 'NO' again.

"I shall beget much confusion and fury in my kingdom whilst I throwest my toys about and whilst I touchest the things I was bade not to touch. There shall be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as I resist the discipline of my fathers.

"Stiff necked boy that I am, so shall I be done with naps. But though my napest time be gone, I shall rise before the sun at 5:30am.

"I shall push my sister in her swing most vigorously and I shall try to carry her about the house with all my strength.

"So shall I refuse the eating of my vegetables and the cleaning of my ears. So shall I also refuse to heed my mother's warnings. Refusals shall be the name of the game and the name of the game shall refusals be.

"Heartily will I roll my eyes and heave my breast with sighing when my mother dost bid me do as she please.

And Mr. Poopy-Pants-Know-It-All also spake, saying, "I shall fill my diapers with The Great Stink four times a day. Four times a day, no more, no less. Four shall be the number I shalt fill, and the number of the filling shall be four. Five shalt I not fill, neither fill I three, excepting that I then proceed to four. Five is right out. Once the number four, being the fourth number, be reached, then shall I be satisfied with the filling of my pants.

"So shall it be!"

...and so it was.

Ada Two Months Old

Such a good sleeper. Ada already has slept through the night twice!
Watching Curious George with her big brother (both sans pantalons)...

Daddy's little girl...

Full of smiles and even gave her first laugh on her two month birthday!

She's a doll and each day is better than the last with our little Ada!