It is official....

So, for the last little while, I've been trying to be really conscious about what things I'm consuming, what I'm supporting with my dollars, my carbon shoe marking, whatever... all of that. I was at Fred Meyer, trying to figure out the best way to get snack foods with the least amount of packaging when I remembered I was also really low on diapers. Which are like the most wasteful thing ever. Which I have constantly been offering an incessant supply to the landfills of our world over the past...oh, 7 years or so. Yeah. Fun, right? Anyway, I'm in the 'natural foods' section, which is just fancy lingo for 'twice as expensive' when I decide that I'm gonna solve this un-ecofriendly diaper problem today.

I end up spending 15 dollars for a pack of 40 decomposible diapers, along with a 20 dollar pack of plastic G-pants. As in, very easily twice as expensive as normal phosphate packed bleached disposible diapers. And, really, before all you coupon mothers get on (because I know you're out there!) and tell me all the ways to save on this? Just remember who you're talking to. Or not talking to, as the case may be.

Anyway, it has actually worked out okay. And I figure, yeah, a little less conveinent, but not bad. Not near as gross as I thought it could be. Or at least, not any grosser than normal diaper changing has been. There is the little trick of remembering to wash them, but a person can get used to anything (new motto right there, btw, which I take full copyright credit for), and even washing them isn't that difficult to do because, hello! I'm already doing my ten billion loads a week anyway. It's not that difficult to find room.

After all this effort, of course, my baby-boy decides he wants to use the toilet. Which is actually really cool, because, remember these 'refills' come in packs of 30-40 a piece. Which is enough for 3-5 days tops (unless you're awesome like me and stretch it to the full 7). This sudden interest in the toilet may have more to do with the fact that it took me the first three days and a touch of pressure sore on my baby's bilateral hip bones to realize that I was velcro-ing the darn things on backwards.

But, back to Ben, my boy-man! Who has successfully landed one in the toilet, a harder skill to master than one might think. I think he might have left some pee there too, but that's not easy to decipher. The only problem with this new development is that Ben is also right at the stage of running off and 'hiding' when he plays. He's moving ever closer in the elusive direction of independent toddler.

Which pretty much means that he will dismantle one part of the house at a time, only leaving when I come in to check on him. Which means that I'm the one cleaning up one mess while he's making another. Not really a great combination when toilet training, but we'll take what we can get.

Started speech with this same boy-man last week as his vocabulary hasn't expanded past his favorite 8-10 words over the past few months. He seems to really thrive with the one on one which is perhaps the point.

And Adam was our first child to sucuumb to illness in this the new year. Fever, headache, laying motionless on the couch all day--- the full nine yards, minus the puking fest, thank good-ness. He goes in for his first lab draw since he's started his epilepsy medication early tomorrow morning. Yeah! Anyway, his mom and all three brothers will be tailing along, so we'll all share his suffering together, because isn't that what families are all about? If one is hurting, you all are. You just can't get away from it.

I've received two more rejections and turned in my article for the parenting magazine which at least won't be rejected because I got my foot in as an unpaid contributor. But, this may be for the best. I took a chance and randomly picked out four juvenile fiction books to skim through (aka: read), as Steven King himself recommends that every serious writer should read at least as much as they attempt to write. It seemed like good advice at the time, but now, everything I read has me comparing my own stuff to it, and that's just depressing. Plus, every story I've started in the last few months has dead ended with some major plot carrier dying.

I wonder what that says about me. Hm.