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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

After the meal was over, I told Dave how cool it was that we had just had homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese with homemade bread. He agreed. Then I said "If only we could start making our own cheese." That sound you heard last night around 6:45 was the sound of Dave rolling his eyes. He can be *so* dramatic.

Anyway, over the weekend we: delivered a meal to a friend who recently had a baby; delivered birthday presents to the most angelic 3-year old you've ever seen; had hot dogs, chili fries, onion rings, and lots of root beer at A&W; went bowling; ate sticky buns from Mr. Sticky's; attended a Hafla; put together an amazing Valentine's dinner; stuffed ourselves with chocolate dipped strawberries courtesy of Dave; came down with colds; squeezed in a late-evening, girls-only trip to Target; played an addictive game of Solitaire that turned out to be a fun group game; spent a day at home watching the snow fall. Not bad for a three day visit.

On Friday, Holly was showing signs of having caught Henry's cold. By Monday it hit her sinuses and she was absolutely miserable. We brought her to the Dr's Monday morning for a quick checkup since Henry had been diagnosed with bronchitis the week before and she seemed to be working at having to breathe. The Doctor said it seemed like it was just a really, really bad cold, which was good news. Holly had a nice long nap when we came home, then was sort of in and out of it the rest of the day. We put her down around 7PM and she cried and cried and cried. I brought her downstairs and we spent some quality time on the couch watching the Olympics. It was very sweet having a cute little girl tucked under my chin. We had to wait until 8:30 to give her another dose of Tylenol after which I nursed her and put her back to bed. That seemed to do the trick. She woke up twice that night which surprised the heck out of me because she seemed pretty miserable; I was certain Dave and I would be switching off comforting her all night. She's feeling much better now. Tomorrow she has her 6-month checkup. Between well-baby visits, emergencies, and sickness, I feel like we're spending a ton of time at the Doctors. Ah well, soon it will be Spring.

Anyway, we left with a prescription for antibiotics (his first in over a year, which I mention only because that's how long it's been since he's had an ear infection: hooray!), a recommendation for Robitussin CF, and a better attitude about doctors in general because someone didn't get a "pinch" (aka. shot). I told Dave I didn't really want to give him the cough suppressant/expectorant, mainly because I don't take the stuff myself, and it seemed like we were loading up his system with a lot of medicines. Dave felt like we should, so we did. Henry had a huge coughing fit about forty minutes after taking it, got a lot of junk out of his lungs, and then settled down for a very quiet, restful night of sleep, during which I don't think he woke up once coughing.

Today we're snowed in, with another 4-6 inches expected. It's going to be a quiet day. Tomorrow I expect he'll be heading off to preschool in the afternoon. He's very anxious to get back. He's been bemoaning the fact that he's missing "V" week. Tomorrow he'll be participating in his very first Valentine's Day card exchange. We spent part of Sunday making them, which was a lot of fun. I think I may be more excited about the exchange than he is, because I used to LOVE opening up my Valentine's Day mailbox and seeing all of the cards from my classmates. Good times, good times...