Diaper Drama Day 2

Do I talk enough about diapers to officially be considered a mommy blogger? Bring on the ad revenue! I'm talking to you Pampers! Come on Pampers, don't you want a frazzled, disorganized, Megan Fox look a like to be your new spokes mom-dle?

OK, back to the dummening. I was with other Ladies Who Lunch (at Target) and we were in the diaper section. My Ladies Who Lunch (at Target) friends are two co-workers with toddlers about Jack's age. They were discussing Size 4 diapers vs. size 5 diapers. I said, "What? Jack is still in 3s! Why move to 4s? You get at least 12 fewer diapers for the same price!"

They had a lot of answers to my incredulous question:
Because 3s are too small!
They leak!
Have you looked at the size recommendation?!!

It is a little odd that we haven't moved up a size yet, because normally I am the first person to move up a size, weight guidelines be damned. My policy is this: 2 consecutive blow outs and you move up a size. Someone recently questioned the 2 in a row policy. Why deal with that twice? Are you insane? Yes, but 1 blowout could be an isolated incident resulting from bad diapering. And Jack really hadn't had any leaks or blowouts.

I insisted that 3s were fine for my small bottomed and possibly thirsty little boy and I bought another box.

They did seem a little small, but so what? 96 diapers for the same price as 84! So what if he looks like he is wearing a diaper thong.

Before my next trip to the store, Dave happened to mention Jack's weight.

Dave: Jack weighs 25.2 pounds, in case you need that info the next time you buy diapers.
Megan: 25.2?
Dave: Yes, 25.2

I looked at the size recommendation on the 3s (16-28 pounds) and I bought another box. Just one more! Dave said, "3s again? He's at the top of the weight range!" I said, "22.5! No he isn't! Dave said, no, I said 25.2, and you repeated it." Oops.

Almost immediately, Jack had 2 consecutive blow outs. Ugh. 94 diapers to go. Dave had a good solution though. Just take all those diapers to the daycare and buy bigger ones!

Diaper Drama Day 1

I am going to kick off The Week of Dummening with a little story about diapers. The last time I mentioned the topic is was in reference to the fact that we were days overdue for bringing a new stash of diapers to the daycare. It is funny, because there are a lot of families with kids at Luke's school and younger kids at Jack's daycare, and we see the parents up to 4 times day, crossing paths at various drop offs and pick ups. But we can rarely coordinate something that would make things easier on anyone. Just twice I've plopped one of Jack's friends into the bike trailer with Jack after dropping off Luke at school to save another parent a trip to daycare. But that accounts for 2 times of the 1000 times we have discussed some sort of coordination with other parents. And of course, I've never successfully pawned off my kids on anyone.

One cold day, I decided to drive Luke to school because we weren't organized enough to catch the bus, and we certainly weren't organized enough to drop off Jack first. So after standing around until the bell rang, in the cold, I was carrying Jack, both of us in puffy coats, back to the car, to go to daycare when one of the other moms said, "Want me to take Jack?" I said, "Oh, that would be so great! But DARN IT! If I forget diapers again... And I left them at home, so I need to go get them. Drat!" I may not have actually said drat.

And once I managed to buckle Jack in the car for the second time that day, there was no way I was going to go through it again before dropping him off for the morning. I knew Dave was working from home so I called him and asked him to meet me at the end of the driveway with diapers so I wouldn't have to get out of the car. He said he would just get on his bike in a couple hours and ride the diapers over to daycare. Great! Problem solved. Too bad I didn't take the other mom up on the free stroller ride to daycare. Oh well. I said hi to her again when I saw her a few minutes later. And Dave dutifully took time out of his day to pedal the diapers over to school because we just couldn't forget one more time.

Eight or so hours passed and Dave texted to discuss was picking up whom.
Dave: Target plans? Took all the diapers to daycare.
Megan: No problem. There's a box in the trunk.
Dave: Doh!
Megan: ?

10 minutes or so passed and a light bulb comically lit up over my head. I had diapers in the trunk of the car that whole time!

Leaves

Note the time. I had already been up for 2 hours when I took this picture. I started to shut down databases and applications, and I watched the scripts run on part of my screen, while on the other part, I watched Weeds while I pedaled my exercise bike. I had the pancake mix almost totally ready to go on the griddle before the boys woke up at 6:45. I was feeling pretty good about things until my big stack of pancakes fell over and I realized it was going to be a really long day.

Dave was not yet awake when I took this picture, but I can't complain because he did some serious yard work today.

Parental Proclamations

You know how every parent ends up saying something without thinking and then being totally surprised about what came out of their mouth? Like, you swear you are never going to say, "Because I said so, that's why!" and then when you do, it's sort of startling, but also really satisfying. You've finally accepted your role as a real parent, and joined that elite group of half the population that needs to finally just say something and have it be the end of the conversation.

Or sometimes you end up saying something and suddenly you realize that you have turned into your mother or your father? Well today I said something that I have no doubt has been said by countless parents, but it is certainly something I never heard growing up, and I have never said before. It went a little something like this,

"Hey! No fighting by the top of the stairs!"

What? I mean, it's good advice, but not something I imagined myself saying when I envisioned myself as a parent.

Interesting Solutions

Remember all that snow? Me neither. It was 77 yesterday. Today, Jack was playing outside and he dumped a play lawn mower full of water onto the patio. Then he jumped in the water. Then he fell in it.

Then, as I valiantly attempted to continue reading the paper, in order to be a great mother, by knowing what is going on in the world, Jack wandered off saying, "Oh no! Water. Oh no! Water." Then that sweet sound trailed off into silence. Soon I realized that a quiet toddler is a dangerous toddler. It turns out that Jack's method for absorbing excess water in your pants is to roll in the sandbox.

I should have seen that one coming, for sure.

And that is a good segue into my programming announcement for next week. Are you ready for 5 days of dummening? Starting Monday, it will be all dummeing all the time, all the way through into Friday. I can think of 4 ideas right off the top of my head, so I am either going to have to think harder to come up with a fifth one, or else just keep my fingers crossed that I do something dumb in the next week. Chances are good.

My Pumpkins

I had some compliments on our carved pumpkins, but I can barely take any credit. Dave did most of the the cutting, cleaning and scooping. And cleanup. Luke did the actual design and carving on his and I did the carving on mine. But all the credit goes to Dave.

Luke's is on the left on top of the cooler and mine is on the right. Dave did both of the lower pumpkins. The grim reaper was from a stencil and he did his own alien design.

They look even better in the dark!

Then And Now - Pumpkin Style

Then:

Now:

A Study in Contrasts Part 2

Yesterday was a tale of two sledding hills. Today it's all about the 18 inches of snow that closed down boulder:

From Blog pix

And how it wasn't totally melted, but it sure did warm up 2 days later in time for Halloween.

From Blog pix

From Blog pix

A Study in Contrasts Part 1

We had 2 snow days last week, and it was sort of silly if you ask me. I mean, since when does 18 inches of snow stop Coloradans from going to work and school? For 2 days?! My work was sort of closed for part of the time. I had to work from home because school was canceled, and the daycare was closed. So when my work said people could go home for the day, what was I supposed to do? I worked on and off and I played outside and shoveled. We went sledding once on Wednesday and once on Thursday.

On Wednesday we walked to the sledding hill near our house, and on Thursday, we rode bikes to a hill slightly farther away.

The hill within walking distance is really steep and dangerous, and my rule is that one parent (Dave) drags the sled to the top with the kids, making sure they don't get knocked down on the way up, while the other parent (me) waits at the bottom and prays that they make it down safely. At the hill a little farther away, Luke can just sled with his friends all he wants, while one parent (Dave) sleds with Jack while the other parent (me) socializes with other parents at the top of the hill.

A couple more differences between the two days...

Posses of 18-21 year olds:

From Blog pix

Vs. Toddlers in Inner Tubes

From Blog pix

40's chillin in the snow:

From Blog pix

Vs. Kids drinking hot chocolate:

From Blog pix

Crazies in One Piece Snowsuits from the 80's... and yes, there is someone hitting a jump on a kayak in the background:

From Blog pix

Vs... Ok, yeah, I have nothing to contrast with that.

But hey - how cute can you get:

From Blog pix

Somebody Put Baby in the Corner

I just started to upload pumpkin patch pictures, and snowstorm day 1, and snowstorm day 2, and Halloween and everything in between. And I thought, "Wow! I have a lot of material for my blog!" and then I thought, "Good thing! It's November and I am planning to blog every day in November!"

So I thought I would start with the most random picture, and the big announcement that you can look forward to 30 days in a row of posts here, so yea!

Oh, and one Jack story. We have started the 6 month period of the year where he has a runny nose, and I had wrestled him onto my lap so I could wipe his nose and apply some lotion. He was kicking and writhing and yelling, "Down, Down!" and then he segued right from an angry, "DOWN!" into a laughing, "down down baby, Elmo do karate", and it worked. I started laughing and let him down.