...is when their friends come over to play, you don't have to hang out with them the whole time, they just sort of go off and do their own thing. It's nice.

Posted by Jenn at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's 4:20 and I've already had my dinner. After picking Henry up from pre-school, we walked in the door, took off our shoes, and Henry said "I'm hungry." Then I realized I was, too. I eat lunch on his schedule, and since he has to be at school by 12:30, we have lunch at 11:30, which is way too early to get me through the afternoon. So at 4 I sat down to a big plate of chips and vegetarian chili. Oh, and sour cream. Hmmm, I think I'll go have some more.

This weekend we're escaping the 'burg for brighter horizons further East and North. A little big city action is just what the doctor ordered after a couple of weeks of colds. (I ended up catching the latest on Friday; Dave has escaped thus far, but is terrified nonetheless.) So far on the agenda: the piano staircase at the Science Museum; sesame buns from Chinatown; yarn shopping with my mom; riding the subway; stamp show in Andover; celebrating my mom's birthday; Clam Box if we do end up going to Andover. What we will probably end up accomplishing: celebrating my mom's birthday; riding the subway; lamenting about how we never get as much done as we think we will. So it goes.

Posted by Jenn at 04:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Any guesses as to what this is?

How about another angle?

Why, it's Mavis! Remember her? Started in September of 2007. Finished in March of 2010. Not bad, especially considering all of the napping I could have been doing instead of all of the knitting. Right now she's drying away on a towel in the bedroom, scrunched in some places, stretched in others, working hard to attain the most flattering shape possible for she of the saggy jiggly billowy tummy:

I have a tendency to knit large despite matching the gauge when I swatch, so after conferring with one of the local knitting gurus, I decided to go ahead and knit the small size in the hopes that it would come out the medium size I was going for. It seems to have worked. When I tried it on pre-blocked, it fit very nicely, aside from being a little short, which is easy enough to fix after washing it. From now on I'll probably go ahead and knit the next size down on all the sweaters I make. I'm looking forward to trying it on once it dries!

Posted by Jenn at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

H² have caught colds. Henry was all set to go to school today, but then I noticed lots of sneezing and snuffling. Sure enough, about an hour and a half before drop-off, he stood in the living room and said "Today is a bad day." When I asked why he said "Because it's still winter and I'm sick." So I kept him home. He's not so sick that he's miserable, so I'm trying my best to keep him entertained so he stays out of trouble. It's "J" week at pre-k so for the sake of consistency we've made paper plate jellyfish with ribbon tentacles, right now he's matching numbers of dots to their numerals, and later he'll practice writing his "J"'s. Just so everyone knows, I'm not cut out to be a teacher, certainly not to my own kid. I'm cut out for lounging in bed with a book and a plate of cheese and crackers. The "work" is not only keeping Henry honest, but me as well.

Meanwhile, Holly developed a runny nose a few days ago which I chalked up to teething because her top front teeth are working their way down. However, yesterday it became clear it's actually a cold. It's not too bad so far. Hopefully this is the worst of it.

Posted by Jenn at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by Jenn at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Tomorrow I'm getting in a car and driving an hour with a friend so we can attend a belly dance boot camp. Why we're going to anything that has the words "boot camp" tacked onto the end of it is beyond me. To prepare myself, this evening I'm going to drink lots of water for hydration and I'm going to eat lots of Ginger Snap Ice Cream to bolster my fortitude.

Posted by Jenn at 07:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just got back from the first belly dance class I've been able to attend since before Holly was born. It felt really good to get back to something that's become so important to me. Thank goodness I signed up for that first class a few years ago. Not only did I accidentally stumble upon something I absolutely love to do, but I also met two women at that class who have since become close friends. As someone who's fairly awkward at the friend thing, that's something I'm very grateful for.

Speaking of bellies, amazingly those four boxes of Girl Scout cookies I bought on Sunday lasted until today. Unfortunately I ate ~ 90% of them. What do they put in those things?

Posted by Jenn at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Before Holly was born, I knew that I wanted to go down a different diapering road than the Pampers one I had travelled with Henry. Don't get me wrong: I loves me some Pampers! Disposable diapers are so convenient. However, for a while now I've been experiencing post-disposable guilt over the hundreds of diapers that are sitting in a landfill somewhere filled with, well, you know, and there they will sit for another 500 years. After doing some research (read: asking my friend Megan what she does and deciding to do that, too) I decided to go the gDiaper route. She and another friend lent me their small gDiapers and Megan got me a medium size starter kit plus a few extra gPants as a baby gift. I used the flushable/compostable inserts when Holly was little, but it became very clear after she graduated to the medium/large size insert that our toilet wasn't particularly happy: it started clogging with increasing frequency. Since we don't have a composter, we ended up tossing them into the trash. Not a terrible thing, but not quite what I was hoping for either.

Twice Megan told me she has been using cloth inserts in the gDiapers for her second kid and that they work great, but I was only ready to really register and digest that fact the second time she mentioned it. After doing a bit of online research (for real this time), I decided to make the switch. I picked up a couple of packs of Gerber trifold cloth diapers to use as inserts, and ordered flushable liners to help with poop disposal. So far, I've been very happy with how it's been going.

The breakdown is: After I wash (great washing instructions here) the cloth inserts and liners (which you can usually wash and reuse at least once), I assemble a days worth of diapers so I don't have to worry about it during diaper changes. At first I was a bit of a dope in the way I was folding the cloth inserts. They're a bit longer than the gPants, so I was folding them under a little bit on each end, until I read somewhere that you should fold them under where the "wet zone" is for extra absorption. Totally obvious solution, however, my brain didn't go there for whatever reason. Per Megan's suggestion I use an old pillowcase, which I put in the Diaper Dekor we used for Henry, to hold the soiled diapers. When it's time to wash the diapers, which I do approximately every three days, I throw the pillowcase in as well. So far we haven't had any issues with smells because the poop goes right into the toilet, but I have read in a number of places that a few drops of tea tree oil, which has natural disinfectant qualities, in the diaper pail would help. I've ordered some just in case.

At night we still use disposable diapers, either Earth's Best (which I prefer for the fit), 7th Generation, or Full Circle diapers, depending on where I happen to be shopping. We generally only use one disposable at night so one bag lasts us a long time.

All in all it was surprisingly easy to make the switch to cloth.

Posted by Jenn at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today I'm trying to catch up on everything I couldn't be bothered to do last week because I was both sick and lazy. Mostly picking up the house, which, technically, I did last night with Henry, and vacuuming.

This weekend was great because although we had no plan, which is usually bad for us, we did manage to get out of the house. We walked to the park and had a lot of fun running around, although Henry was a little bummed there were no other kids there. We headed to Lowe's where Dave and Henry picked out materials to make a big xylophone, which they immediately got cracking on when we got back home. I scored four boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, so you know I'm happy. Holly went with the flow with a smile on her face, per usual.

Since the weekend was a bit willy-nilly, we didn't get any bread baking done and we didn't roast the chicken I bought for last night's dinner, both of which are crucial elements for one of the other dinners I'm making this week, so I'm getting all of that done today. I'm trying out this honey wheat bread recipe. The Friday my parents were here I dropped off a meal for a friend who recently had a baby. They're vegetarians, so I made vegetable soup. I thought rolls would go nicely with it so I tried out this recipe for Cloverleaf Honey Wheat Rolls and thus a honey wheat obsession was born. Hopefully today's bread will be just as delicious as the rolls turned out to be.

Thus ends a pretty mundane post.

Posted by Jenn at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Henry: I would like to watch some TV, please.
me: Okay. Wait a minute, I don't think so. You watched a lot of TV this morning.
Henry: No I didn't.
me: What do you mean "No you didn't." You watched an episode of SpongeBob while you were doing your fish medicine (aka his nebulizer) and then later on you watched Wall-E. I think that's enough TV for one day.
Henry: *thinking* I would like to watch a *real* lot of TV today, please.

I gave him credit for trying and for being polite, then had him practice writing his H's. I'm such a mom.

Posted by Jenn at 07:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)