7 Quick Takes, Vol. 36

As always, Jen, thank you so much for hosting, and many prayers for you as you undergo your procedure today! 

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Well, we're recovering from the week of sick over here, and praying that we can do better at staying healthy! Really, Holy Week was the worst of it, but it took until yesterday for me to say that both girls finally seemed better. The first trip to the pediatrician, on Holy Thursday, gave us a diagnosis of "that virus that's going around." The second, to urgent care on Holy Saturday, gave us a diagnosis of ear infections and some amoxicillin to fight them. The third, which was just for Erin, we came away with an albuterol inhaler, which finally opened up her airways enough to get her back to breathing well. My poor babies! I pray I don't have to see them this sick again for a long time.

It's hard to decide whether to keep your kids home and away from germs during the winter or let them get out a bit and exposed to the world - at least for me. Since we're lucky enough to have our family watching Emily and Erin during the afternoons/evenings I'm at work, they're somewhat limited in their exposure. This makes things like going to Mass or even to the store a risky venture. I know every parent has a different philosophy on going places vs. staying home when sick - heck, every person seems to have a different philosophy on that. Plus, there are always circumstances that trump that philosophy and bring a sick person out into the world out of necessity. Just some things I've been mulling over in my mind rather than pondering the amount of snot it's possible for one nine-month-old to produce in an hour.

A sweet snuggly moment from this week - Emily spent a lot of time in the Ergo with Mommy.

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We're trying cloth diapers again, and this time I think things might work out better. For one thing, we have more absorbent diapers this time around (thicker and heavier prefolds to go with our existing covers) and I feel like I'm trying to do less than I was the first time we tried them. It's really easy to overlook exactly how many diapers I change in a week when we're using disposables (other than changing the diaper pail liner) but when you're washing and folding them, it's pretty hard to ignore. There's something that feels kind of virtuous and frugal about it right now, though I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon. I'm hoping by then it will have become a habit. Twenty-one days, right?

Plus, cloth diapers are just so darn cute!

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My babies, splashing like big girls *sniff*

We passed a huge milestone last night - Emily and Erin can sit up well enough to take a bath in the big tub! Well, to be totally honest, they have to have help sitting up just right so they're stable, mostly because we have yet to get a grippy mat thing for the bottom of the tub (that's a technical term, by the way). But when I drained the water down so that it was only a few inches deep, they loved swimming around and splashing in the bubbles. When we got to the end, I wasn't sure how to get them out without having to leave someone in the tub, but it occurred to me to drain the tub all the way and then scoop each up and whisk them into their cribs wrapped in a towel. Their room is literally inches from the bathroom, so this worked out pretty well. The time savings here is huge, because running the water into the infant tub takes a lot of time, and the baby who isn't being bathed is always unhappy, whether she's clean or waiting to get clean. They love to watch each other take a bath, so I think they'll really like bath time together - they sure had fun last night!

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Erin (left) and Emily, playing with their bouncy chair. 

Emily and Erin love playing together all of a sudden. They've always played close by and seemed confused and upset if their sister suddenly disappeared, but it always seemed to be due more to the lack of attention. I'd hear them talking back and forth, but they would often be on opposite sides of the room having a "conversation."Now that they can crawl quickly and are starting to move around upright on their knees, they interact over various toys and seem to have all sorts of fun. They're getting better at catching themselves when they lose their balance, too, so there have been fewer tearful tumbles in the last few days. They really want to stand up and move, but it's still going to be a few more weeks at least before that happens. Or maybe not - maybe they'll surprise me. They're getting pretty good at that!

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Erin finally decided to crawl with her tummy up!

You know how baby food is designated by whether or not your baby crawls with her/his tummy off the floor? Well, if we went by that rule, Emily and Erin wouldn't be very adventurous eaters. They have been crawling around our house for months now, but they never seemed very interested in pushing up and moving on all fours. They just take their tummies along for the ride. I did some reading on where the crawling milestone came from, and determined that they were strong enough to start moving on food-wise. After all, every baby is different. 

I was starting to think, especially as they started pulling up and pushing up, that maybe they'd never actually crawl with their tummies up - but then this week Erin proved me wrong. Not for very long, but she did it. See above blurry pic for proof. Emily watched her, but for some reason she didn't try. She has her own special method of crawling that involves being able to crawl and carry a toy (skills!) and I think she'll stick with it for the duration.

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"La canción de A, B, C..."

I absolutely love this new activity table that I picked up at the baby/child thrift store, and Emily and Erin seem to love it too. It's really showing off Erin's dominant personality. I actually caught her scooting the table across the floor, dragging a protesting (also kneeling) Emily with her, happily singing and bobbing her head with the music. The best thing about this table is that it plays in both English and Spanish, so I can switch the mode to Spanish and they are rocking out to the ABC song....in Spanish. Yeah, I'm that crazy mom...

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So I have to end this by giving a shout-out to my husband, since I threatened to post this on Facebook/Twitter and never followed through. Earlier this week, we were talking about going back to cloth diapers (for a variety of reasons, the main one being all the things which can be bought with the immense amount of money spent on disposable diapers for two over a period of two or three years). He agreed to support us in this venture - in fact, he actually said: "Yeah, let's do that." Then, within the next hour, we were talking about adding raised beds in the backyard for a vegetable garden this summer. Dan said, and I quote: "We should definitely do that. That would be great, because then we could compute some of the garbage." Yeah, I'll admit it, while swooning over the wonderful man I married who wants to build us raised beds and a compost bin, I got nit-picky about compute vs compost. And yep, he's taken. But he's also awesome. Just had to throw that out there. Happy Friday, y'all!

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