Yay! Pictures!

Apologies for the woeful lack of postings and pictures. Excuses are that my camera died and I still haven't gotten around to buying a new one, so these pics are actually courtesy of my mom's camera, which I borrowed. Also, you'd think that by now I'd have figured out that when school starts at 7:45 in the morning, and school is 1/2 hour away, I should really go to sleep before midnight, because even getting up at 6:00 is pushing it. But no such luck. So I go to bed at 12:00 or 12:30 or 1:00 and I'm chronically sleep-deprived. Also trying desperately to finish a correspondence Spanish class that I should have finished a year ago. I'm hoping if I can do 16 assignments in about a month (ha!) I can count the credit toward a master's program. I'm not optimistic about finishing, but who knows...

April/May mean crazy weeks and crazy weekends. Sammy's been skipping Hebrew School for Little League and skipping them both for choir practice. But his big choir concert's tomorrow, the kids have a piano recital in a week, Hebrew school is finally(!) almost over and then we're full-on into summer activities. I am finally getting our summer plans in order. And we've got just 7 more weeks of school before my kinders are officially 1st graders. Yikes.

So, without any more rambling, here are some kinda-recent pics (late March, early April). More when my new camera comes...

Emma in a rare picture with flat-ironed hair.

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Emma as a "Doll" after her performance in Guys and Dolls.

Sammy kicking back before Emma's performance

And here's Miss Molly

We call this the "Hey, John McCain! You just won the Virginia primary!" smile

What Would Nietzsche Do... at Quiet Rest Time?

Yesterday in my class we were discussing Earth Day and ways to help the planet. We had a spirited discussion about recycling, and why it's important to help save our planet.

Me: We need to take care of the Earth. Because if we mess up this Earth, do we get another one?

My students (all together): Nooooooooo....

One student (seriously): Because God is dead.

And yes, I realize that nihilistic German philosophy isn't technically part of the kindergarten teaching standards.

Cultural Literacy

It occurs to me that Sammy may be the only 9-year-old boy in the world who can recognize Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke from his picture but who does not know that a chicken is a bird.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke


A chicken

Keith Olbermann, eat your heart out.

Sam: What kind of animal is a chicken?

Me: Hmmm. You really don't know? Well, what does it have on its body?

Sam: Uhhh, fur?

Me: You really don't know?

Sam: Yes! I know!

Me: Well, what is it then?

Sam: The question is, what doesn't it have on its body?

Me: Answer the question!

Sam: Uhhh, hair?

Me (to assembled family members): He really doesn't know! He's not a farmer.

Matt: Ok, think about this. "Which came first the chicken or the..."

Sam: Egg!

Matt: And what kind of animal lays eggs, and has feathers, and wings...?

Me: I can't believe Sammy didn't know that a chicken was a bird.

Sam: Mom! I blanked! You were yelling at me like Chris Matthews and I blanked!

It's just a little eerie is all...

Molly's language is exploding and she has new fun things to say every day now. Today's trick was holding her face in her hands a la Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone" and saying "Oh, no, oh, no." Very amusing.

One of her very favorite words to say is "Emma," and she uses it to refer not only to her big sis but also apparently to every older girl/young woman she sees or runs across. And Sam. She also says "dada" very specifically and only for Matt. And she says "mama," but she doesn't seem to necessarily be referring to me when she says it. It's just a more generalized term.

So a couple of days ago we were looking at some pictures from our trip to Ethiopia. (Molly was 7 months old when we got her and 3 months when she was relinquished into the agency care center.) So we got to the pics that we took the day we went South to Hosanna to meet Molly's birthmom: pictures of Matt, Emma, and me standing with her birth mother. Molly looked at the picture, pointed right to her birthmom (out of all the people in that crowded picture) and said "Mama."

Ok, that's kinda weird, right?

Cloth Diaper Controversy

It's the latest controversy in our house: To cloth or not to cloth. First, a little background:

When Emma was a baby, lo those many years ago (12 1/2 to be exact) wanted to use cloth diapers. This was in the dark ages, before baby wearing (we had a crappy snugli that didn't work at all) and glass bottles and Bisphenol A-free plastic cups. So I had no fun natural baby stores or really any resources at all. I just trucked over to K-Mart and picked up a couple of packs of Gerber cloth dipes and bought a few diaperaps online. Which was a disaster. I didn't know how to use them, or wash them. And I've since learned that those Gerber diapers at the discount stores are filled w/polyfill that basically makes them anti-absorbent. They're great for wiping up cat puke, but not so great for containing baby pee and poop. So needless to say, every time poor Emma peed we had a big wet mess, and I was changing her clothes 12 times a day. So cloth diapering lasted about 4 days and we gave up.

That was 12 1/2 years ago. I didn't even bother w/Sam after that experience. But times have changed, and I was determined to give it another go. Mostly for environmental reasons. I hate the idea of throwing out all that nonbiodegradable paper and absorbent gel and crap (haha) that's in disposable diapers. Plus they're spendy. But I wanted to do it right this time. so before Molly even came home, I went to a seminar at a cute little natural/crunchy baby store in Madison and learned about everything I was supposed to be doing and everything I'd done wrong before. We waited til Molly'd been home for a couple a months, and then I bought some cute little cloth diapers (BumGenius, to be exact, although the politics at the website of the manufacturer still give me the creeps, so I'm not linking to them). They're supereasy to use and they come in cute colors. The plan was to do a "hybrid" where when Molly was at daycare or Matt was at work with her (back when he took her to work) we'd use disposables, to make everyone's life easier, and at home and on weekends she'd use cloth. So we started on this journey and everything seemed dandy.

And it was, for a while. But within a month or so, things got weird. Specifically, whenever Molly peed, the diapers started smelling really bad. They warn you about this at the cloth diaper sites and tell you that it's because of a) hard water (which is always a problem around these parts) and b) too much detergent residue on the diapers. So now I use as little detergent as possible and baking soda, and I wash the batch of diapers (I've only got 8--because of our hybrid plan) 4 TIMES in hot water--once w/the detergent/baking soda and 3 times just the water, each time to get rid of the residue. Which kinda makes me feel crappy because it negates the whole "environmental" aspect of the experiment. But whatever. The fine folks at Happy Bambino, my little local baby store, suggested using this stuff called "sport wash" which you buy at sporting goods stores and which hunters use to take the scent off their clothes so animals don't smell 'em coming, but politically and morally I can't support any product that's designed to help anybody kill another living creature, so I think that's kinda out.

So I thought things were better. But still, when she pees, it smells really strong. I think it's mostly an ammonia smell. But Matt calls it a "toxic chemical" smell. Which i think is a little harsh. I think she's just in her dipes for too long, because we're used to disposables, mostly, and we need to change them more often. I also think that I'm lazy, so I don't necessarily wash the diapers after 2 days, per manufacturers instructions, and if they didn't sit (or sit in the washer between hot washes) they'd be better. Upshot is, Molly has gotten irritated and Matt's blaming my beloved cloth diapers.

Now I am not so crazy that I will continue to use diapers if they're making my baby sore. But it seems to me that people have used cloth dipes for thousands of years and they had perfectly healthy bottoms. So I'm not ready to throw in the chinese prefold, so to speak, quite yet.

Matt has made it clear he wants nothing to do with these diapers. So that's fine. But here's my plan: I am going to buy new detergent that's supposed to be even more residue-free than the stuff I'm using (which is supposed to be pretty good, but nothing's perfect). I'm going to be a better/more consistent diaper-washer, because i fear that the sitting is perpetuating bacteria growth and that's our problem. And I'm going to try adding tea tree oil to the mix, to see if that acts as an anti-bac, too.

But it may be a lost cause. We may soon have a lot of adorable BumGenius 2.0s to sell on Craigslist, because for whatever reason, they're not working on our adorable baby's adorable bum.

Anyone w/any cloth diaper advice? I'd love to hear it.

Posting from sick bay

Home sick today. We've had the flu or whatever you want to call it whizzing through our house. Sammy was sick first, cuz he's a little magnet for whatever bugs are in the ether. Then Matt got sick, which is weird cuz he never gets sick. But he was a mess: coughing and shivery and miserable. I've been teetering on the brink and working sick all week and last night the combo sinus headache/migraine/cough just did me in. The only ones who escaped so far are Emma and Molly. Molly's got a perpetually disgusting snotty nose, but that's hardly news. Healthy, healthy Emma is unscathed, although she did sprain her ankle in gym the other day. I always said gym is evil.

So I'm home. Hope to nap--soon.

It's rare to be alone, actually. Molly's off at daycare, so no baby chasing. Last night when we got home, I had a yucky headache, felt awful. Matt is on an out of town author visit. And inexplicably, Molly didn't want to sit quietly rubbing my temples and saying "I understand, I'll let you rest." Luckily, we have stored-up "Teletubbies" on the DVR. Ah, TV. Nature's babysitter. "Teletubbies" is the only thing that will keep Molly riveted and still. The minute she sees that Baby Sun she starts clapping. And she looks at us as if to say "Could it be? Really? 'Teletubbies'? Do you see this? Guys? Guys?" When she is crying, we sing the "Teletubbies" theme and it instantly calms her down. But then she starts looking at the TV and is a little confused/distressed that it's not on. We're just a tease.



"Teletubbies" has also led to Molly's newest favorite trick. If you ask her a question, especially, "Where have the Teletubbies gone?" She cocks her head to the side lifts her hands, and shrugs her shoulders. It's awesome.

So I realized it's been so long since I posted, and much has happened. Mostly, Molly started walking. It was right in the middle of January, just after winter break. She was 13 1/2 months, which officially makes her the earliest walker among all my kids. She really is fantastic. Maybe she'll potty train early, too!

When she walks, she leads with her belly, and her belly is considerable., which makes her look a little like Alfred Hitchcock.

Our camera crapped out, so I don't have good walking pictures of Molly, but I'll post a few fairly recent pics here.

Molly and Sammy.

MMMM... yogurt. Note the hair flip.

Molly engages in her favorite hobby--making phone calls. Emma hasn't taught her how to IM yet.

Molly and her buddy Abe share a moment.

One last comment: Can I say how excited I am that Wisconsin did the right thing and voted Obama by 17 percent. Woo-hoo!! Biting our nails here until Tuesday in Texas and Ohio. I just don't trust those Clintons. And they've got help now from the Repub. slime machine b/c everyone's scared of running against Barack. With good reason. I love him.