18 months!!

Orren is 18 months old today! I tried to take a picture of him, but he was too busy to be still, so what I got wasn't the best. I can't believe he's a year and a half old already. It's gone by too fast. What a big boy! He says so many words, knows 3 or 4 body parts, loves music and tries to sing and dance. He's really into dinosaurs, cars, and blocks. He can throw his football all the way across the room now!

He still eats like crazy. His favorite foods are avocados, peaches, bananas, Kix, string cheese, and yogurt. He still wears a size 3T. He's not growing as quickly as he was, which is normal for this age, and fine with us since we were having a hard time keeping up with his constant outgrowing of clothes.

Orren 18 months ago, just a couple hours old:



Orren today, too busy to sit still for a picture!



Oh, and in case you didn't know, this means there are exactly 6 months left for Christmas shopping, and more importantly, to find the perfect birthday present for Orren! None of these single presents for two occasions. He asked me to pass that along.

A good day trip

We went to Ruidoso, NM yesterday (Sunday). It was nice. I can't wait to go back in the winter when there's snow. It's a nice little ski resort town, which happens to also be very beautiful when it's not snowing. It's green there! There were a lot of nice shops, but it being Sunday, lots of things were closed pretty early, and we spent most of our time playing in the river anyhow. It was really great. We are planning to go back to either Ruidoso or Cloudcroft in a couple weeks, for a little weekend getaway for Thak's 35th birthday! Just one day away from the ugly, dead, dry, brown city we live in was very refreshing.

On our way there, this picture was taken from Apache Peak, which is almost 8000 feet above sea level. There's still a little snow up on the mountain! I believe that mountain is actually where the resort, Ski Apache is. That is a good place to ski. They give a great military discount, and Army Times rated them as one of the top 10 ski resorts in the nation.


Then right after that, it started raining!! Yes, that is real rain on our windshield!! We hadn't seen rain, REAL rain, in about a year.


Then we arrived in Ruidoso! We were walking through downtown, and saw the river down one of the side streets, so we decided to go check it out.

Orren was scared of the water at first. It was LOUD rushing over the rocks!


He wasn't so scared when daddy took him in.



Erin and Orren playing in green grass!!


This field was really pretty.


Erin took this one of me and Thak.


Then we walked around a little more. This is downtown Ruidoso. I'll bet it's so pretty covered in snow!


Then we went back to a different part of the river, which had less steep banks so the kids could get in easier.

Orren had to do it on his own terms. It was still too cold for him, and he needed daddy to warm him up after a short time.


Sissy taught him how to throw rocks!


Looking for more rocks to throw into the river, and enjoying the mud! The mud was fun!


Me and my little boy on the bank of the Rio Ruidoso.



Shortly after this, Orren fell into the river, and Thak had to fish him out. We had to go home after that because I forgot to bring an extra outfit for him. He had to ride through downtown Ruidoso in his stroller wearing nothing but a diaper, but he had a blankie in the car, so he was able to stay nice and warm on the way home. Despite a somewhat rough end to the day, we'll definitely be going back to Ruidoso as often as we can! It was really nice, not to mention 79 degrees compared to the 110 it was in El Paso that day.

A victory's a victory, no matter how small.

It just occurred to me that in less than a month, Orren will be 18 months old. At that point, we will have broken even THREE times on our cloth diaper investment, AND we'll be halfway to our rear-facing goal.

Of course, we'll rear-face Orren for as long as we can, but if it's just not working out anymore when he's 3, we wouldn't feel too bad about turning him around since 3 represents a major milestone in ossification of the vertebrae. That means that if we wait until at least 3 to forward-face him, he'll face a greatly reduced risk of spinal injury or internal decapitation in a crash than if we forward-faced him sooner.

See the difference? If you can just make it to at least 3 years rear-facing, then the spinal cord is SO much more protected than before.


I think this pretty accurately describes why our minimum rear-facing goal for Orren is 3 years. I'm so happy that we're almost halfway to that.

You want to hear something hilarious? I just had to uninstall and reinstall the car seat, because I had to move Orren's straps up to the next slot. After I got the straps adjusted, and vacuumed the seat of the car, and the car seat, I set the Radian in there forward-facing just out of curiosity of what it would look like in a couple years. Funny enough, it looked weird to me. It just showed that it's all in our perspective. I've gotten so used to looking at rear-facing toddlers, mine and other people's, and HUGE rear-facing car seats like the Radian, that it will take some getting used to when it's time to turn him around. That won't be for a long time, though. We've got miles and miles of room left in this seat to rear-face, and Orren's happy that way, so we're going to keep at it until AT LEAST 3 years old, longer if it works out.

I think our reasons are justified. Spinal development is a good reason to keep rear-facing in my opinion. It doesn't matter how big or strong your baby/toddler is. Their spine is not any more developed than any other baby their age, and they face the same risk of internal decapitation and spinal injury in a crash. My son is strong as an ox, and huge for his age, but his spine is still immature because he's a baby (ok, a toddler...)

I can't believe Orren is almost a year and a half old!! Here is is on his 17 month birthday, happily rear-facing in his Radian XTSL. Look how much leg room it has. It's such a comfy seat! (And yes, per the manual, it is allowed to brace against the front seat like that, and the more upright install we do with it is also approved.)

My kids behaving badly

OK, so my kids are usually good. I generally show pictures of them being adorable and sweet, and they do have that side to them. They also have another side... a side that's decidedly crazy, messy, and even a little nasty. Here are my kids behaving badly. All these photos are less than 24 hours old.

Boys are still different.

So Orren is a nut. We all know this. Part of his craziness is being a climber. I'm trying to break him of it, and really the only form of discipline that works for a kid his age is redirection, and being really consistent. Man, that takes a toll. I remember a few months ago, his thing was opening drawers. We'd redirect him 10-20 times, and then he'd get the idea and stop it. He still doesn't try to open drawers. (Knock on wood.)

Now that his thing is climbing EVERYTHING, he's a little older, and has apparently realized that being redirected just means he can come back, do it again, and mommy will pick him off of it again and again. He thinks it's a game. It's to the point where he's not even allowed on the furniture anymore because every time he gets on any piece of furniture, he climbs to the top of it and dives off. (I will be shocked if we make two years old without a broken bone or stitches, probably both.) It's just as if the world is his monkey bars or something. Everything we own is just something else for Orren to climb. Just the other day, I was getting him a cup of juice, and came back in to find that he'd climbed our pub-height dining room table, and was trying to grab the chandelier. I guess we could take all the chairs away from the table so he couldn't climb it, but where would we even put them that he couldn't just climb them and dive off anyhow? There's really not a lot of the house he's not in, so that's not really an option. Plus, I believe in house-proofing the baby, and less so in baby-proofing the house.

I never had these issues with Erin. She was never a climber, or a particularly physical toddler. Orren, on the other hand, acts like an NFL lineman. He pushes everything and everybody around. He moves furniture where he wants it, to use it to get up onto whatever he's wanting to get onto this time. It's ridiculous how physically adept, not to mention strong, this boy is.

I just feel like I'm spending almost all day (except when he's sleeping) redirecting him and picking him off of stuff. I wonder if we got a climber of some sort for the back yard, if that would help. Then he'd have somewhere to climb, and wouldn't have to get in trouble for climbing the furniture and the counters. Yeah, that will probably be a tough sell for Thak at this point. The last thing we want to do is accumulate more stuff just a year before we move cross country AGAIN, and incur more expenses during a time when we are trying to save as much as possible. We'll see, though. Maybe if I find a used one on Craigslist... although that's not likely here since this city's Craigslist is filled with stuff that belongs in the dump that people are asking tons of money for. Something's got to be done, though. I'm completely wiped out at the end of the day from just picking Orren off of the furniture all day long. On the positive side, though, the workout is good. My arms look fab.

Boys are different.

Erin was such a nice baby. She never wrote on a wall, or nose-dived off furniture, or took her diaper off. I never turned my back and then looked back to find her standing on the table. The worst thing she ever did was jump on the bed. She was just sweet, and happy, and adorable. Everyone loved Erin because she was just delightful, easy to be around, and even allowed me to keep a fairly clean house until she was like 4 and learned how to make BIG messes.

Orren is not Erin. From day one, he's been fussier. He walked earlier (Erin was nearly 10 months old, Orren was 9 months and 9 days), talks more at 16 months than she did at 3, and is generally 10 times as curious as his sister ever thought about being. He's a very intelligent and hands-on boy. His occasional discontent is frustration at not being able to explore things that he wants to know about. I can see in his eyes that even if this one never makes it to the NFL, there could well be a place for him at NASA. He's incredibly intelligent.

The downside is that he's NUTS! You can't leave Orren unattended for even a minute (yes, this means I get just about zero bathroom breaks during the day) because when you come back, you will likely find him standing on the table, jumping for the chandelier, climbing the bookcase, or on top of the couch, about to jump off. He has NO fear at all. Yesterday, he was spinning around on the couch going "Wow! Wow! Wow!" When I picked him off of there, he jumped up on the coffee table, and launched himself from there, swan dive style onto the ottoman. This was right at bedtime, by the way. I'm really surprised we haven't had our first ER visit yet. Knock on wood that we haven't. I seriously do not know what I would do if I had to take the kids to the ER in this place... probably go on post even though it's farther. On the up side, I do know an ER nurse at Del Sol, and she could possibly get us in faster... Is it bad that I'm already thinking of what ER we'd go to if/when Orren needs his first stitches?

The other thing is that Orren is really rough. I don't think he's violent, or that he would intentionally hurt someone, but we've had to do away with certain toys because he would literally beat the crap out of me and Erin with them and think it was hilarious. He'll jump off the furniture on you, and dive bomb you if you're on the floor, laughing the whole while. I have no idea where he learned this stuff from, but all I can figure is that it's coded into the DNA. All I can do with him is take him outside and hope he runs it out enough during the afternoon. He's barely napping anymore, so there is a lot of figuring out what on earth to do with the boy.

Now we're going to try to brave the grocery store. Thankfully, it's only Super Target, which doesn't have long lines or too many people, but even so, shopping with Orren is always interesting. I hope we make it through this without anything getting damaged.

I guess I have a better understanding of some parents with wild kids now. Of course, there are still some cases in which the kids are just undisciplined, but Orren is very well disciplined. We're extremely consistent. (For example, he's no longer permitted on the couch because he can't behave safely while up there, and I've spent all day picking him off of it. He's beginning to get the point.) Even with our consistent discipline, and calm yet firm approach, he's still wild. It's just who he is. He does follow the rules that he understands, but teaching him new rules is very hard compared to how it was with Erin. For one, at this age, it requires redirection, and a lot of repetition, so I'm picking him off of things dozens of times a day. He's BIG, and he fights me on it every time. My back is absolutely killing me. I don't even pick him up at all on the weekends so I can have a break. Thak does it then.

OK, off to take my rough and tumble little boy and my drama queen princess grocery shopping now. This generally proves interesting, but we get what we need.

John Deere

Daddy insisted on it. He had two requests on behalf of his boy when mommy started making diapers at home. Daddy insisted that there must be Vikings ones for football season (107 days till the first preseason game!! SKOL VIKINGS!!) and there must be some John Deere ones. The John Deere one was easier because I had some of this fabric on hand already. It matches my kitchen curtains. I think it's rather nice. It fits him extremely well (I reworked the pattern a bit. That was a success.), but he's not in a good mood today, so he's not exactly photogenic at the moment (unless you LIKE to see screaming babies flailing their cups, while covered in Crayola marker).

Next week, we order our Vikings fabric, and start on that. The search is still on for Gators and Georgia Tech fabric that will look good on a dipe or a cover, but we'll find it somehow! I know Thak will also want Mossy Oak sooner rather than later, but definitely in time for hunting season (which begins long after football season). Making dipes at home is great! It doesn't take long, and they fit him great. It's pretty easy, and the sizing is unlimited. Plus, we can have them any way we want them, and nobody else has the exact same ones as we do!

New playroom!

We converted our breakfast nook to a playroom. With more than one kid, it just doesn't work to have all the toys all over the living room and all that. It was just getting entirely ridiculous. We keep their books in their bedrooms, and some of their toys go in their rooms, too, but there are so many that just don't work out for there. Some are toys that they both use (like the blocks, the legos, and stuff like that), others are just messy and I don't want them in their bedrooms (like art supplies), so we really needed a playroom. The nook wasn't working out as a homeschool room, because we always end up doing any formal lessons we do on the couch, and mostly informal lessons anyhow. (I believe the name is "unschooling".)

I can't remember who came up with the idea to make the nook into a playroom. I think it was me, but it could as easily have been Thak. Whoever it was, though, it's worked out very well. The nook is not terribly big, but also not tiny. It's about the size of either of the kids' bedrooms (thus making it roughly 1/3-1/4 the size of our entire on-post place at Ft. Stewart!) so it's not a boundless playroom like some people have, but it's got enough room for many toys (we'll still keep the books in their bedrooms. We wouldn't have room for them in there with all the toys.) and an art table, with floor space to spare for playing with push toys, ride toys, and of course, building with blocks and legos.

View from the door. A baby gate keeps it separate from the kitchen, keeping Orren out of the hazards. I have a separate kitchen door from the formal dining room.

Yes, it's messy now. This is after a whole afternoon of use! This is the view of it from the kitchen.



And here's my messy back yard (when it's this windy, it's hard to keep it clean!) through the big windows. I like that about the playroom most. There are lots of windows. The light bulb is actually blown in there, and you can't tell because the windows let in so much light.

Homemade diaper!

I found a great tutorial for converting prefolds to fitteds, and for once, it didn't require a serger. Seriously, if I'm going to try to save us money by making diapers at home, buying a serger doesn't make much sense since we'd be out more than we would if we just bought more diapers. I needed to see how to do this WITHOUT a serger.

I also wanted to use fitteds because they're excellent for older babies and toddlers since they stay on so well, and while they do require a cover while out, you can use them without a cover at home, and allow the skin to get more air. Fitteds are great. They're also not exactly cheap to buy, and at Orren's size, it's getting to the point where our commercially available options are becoming slim pickings. He's in the biggest size of pocket diapers commonly available at this time, and will probably outgrow that before he potty trains. Fitteds come in the same sizes, roughly, as pockets and all-in-ones, so pretty much our only options are to go just prefolds until he potty trains, or make some diapers at home. I choose Option C, all of the above. I like our prefolds just fine, but I like to have other things, too, because frankly, there are days when I just don't want to mess with hunting down a snappi, and fighting an active toddler to let me snap his cover after fighting him to get his diaper snappi'd on.

Today, I made our first ever homemade diaper! It's a fitted, made out of a prefold and some cute blue flannel I have tons of on hand. (The cool thing is that I already made some burp cloths out of this flannel and some repurposed terry cloth from a towel that had gotten stained, so this dipe makes those into kind of a coordinated set!) It closes with a single row of size 20 KAM snaps. So here's Orren in his brand new sheep diaper! I have to tweak my pattern a little bit, but all in all, this diaper is pretty good!


More of a close-up of the dipe itself.

The kids, as themselves

Here's Erin, being crazy, dancing to the music at the beginning of Maya and Miguel. She was going nuts! These pics are blurry, but you've got to see how cute she is when she does this. It's the silliest, most adorable thing ever. Best of all, she has no idea I took these pictures, so she couldn't do her overly posed, big fake smile, trying to look natural but failing miserably, bit.



Here's Orren wearing daddy's motorcycle helmet! He did not want to take it off!



Last, but not least, we have Thak saying goodbye to Orren before leaving for school yesterday. Did you know my husband is a total hottie? Yeah, he is, especially in his motorcycle jacket!

Murals and money

There's a first time for everything. I always was so proud of my exemplary parenting skills that resulted in my lovely daughter Erin NEVER having drawn on a wall, or furniture, or anything but paper or easel (or sidewalk, in the case of chalk). Oh, how the mighty have fallen! As the millionth way that my kids are the most diametrically different people ever, the world is Orren's canvas.

It started last week, when Orren got ahold of Erin's crayons, and drew on the floor. I understood why he did that. We do sidewalk chalk all the time, and have literally 100 sticks of it and a giant patio that the kids always draw on.

This morning, he got ahold of a red marker, and while Thak was getting dressed for work, the little studmuffin made a lovely mural on our bedroom wall, and continued it on the tile floor over by our sink counter.

I should have taken pictures of all this stuff. I'm not quite sure why I didn't. I just cleaned it up, and vowed to be more vigilant the next time. Of course, that doesn't happen... It's rather impossible when you have a 6-year-old, to keep crayons and markers out of reach of the baby all the time. He plays with his baby markers on a supervised basis, but Erin leaves her stuff out all the time, and he gets ahold of it.

I'm thankful for a few things. These things are, washable markers, tile floors, and Clorox Greenworks spray.



In other news, I counted down our change jar the other night, and we had $108 in there!! There's more now because we're always adding change to it, but OMG $108, and it's not even high on the jar yet!! I was really surprised by that.

I never realize until I have reason to compare.

A dear friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a lovely message board for cloth diapering mommies. Well, this message board is like perfect for me because they have subsections for every single one of my favorite parenting topics, and the place is just crawling with mommies who think similarly to me on these things, or at least understand where those of us who do think this way are coming from. It's nice to be in the majority for once, and to be able to tell honestly what works for me without being lambasted for doing things differently than mainstream society.

Well, there was a car seat picture thread on that board, and I like car seat picture threads when they are of correct use. Believe it or not, it helps me learn about car seats, what kinds are good for what ages of kids, what 3-across combinations work in what vehicles, and just generally what's out there. I also like to see how long other people have been able to rear-face in the seats I own, and how comfortable or uncomfortable the kids look in those seats. Basically, I like seeing other people doing it right. It makes me feel good, and reminds me that there are lots of smart parents in this world, and that at least in that venue, we outnumber the idiots a million to one.

The only weird thing about these car seat picture threads is that they remind me just how big Orren is. I always forget that he's huge for his age. He's my son. I spend every single day with him, all day long. Yeah, he's growing a lot, and is actually getting rather difficult to pick up (especially if he's not cooperating!) but I still don't think of him as enormous for his age. He's just my son, my baby boy. Seeing other kids in their car seats, with their heights and weights listed, just reminds me that my boy is growing so fast. I saw one pic of a little boy in the exact same car seat as Orren has, a red Radian XTSL, and he was just slightly smaller than Orren. I looked at his height and weight, and sure enough, he was only three pounds smaller than Orren, and an inch shorter. Then I looked at his age. 3 years. Holy shit.

I continued scrolling through the pages, looking at the other happy kids in their awesome car seats, and every single kid I found who was anywhere near Orren's size was more than a year older than him.

I love having a big strong son. I think it's great! (Is it funny that his name means Pine Tree, and he's so tall? I think it is.) It just takes having something to compare him to before I ever really see how big he is.

Look at Orren!

Orren is the Robeez "Little Starz" photo of the week! My studmuffin is the best!!

New pics of the kids.

This is a little late for Earth Day, but it's better late than never. It was about time for a new cloth diapering photo. Look how big our studmuffin is getting!! 16 months of exclusively cloth diapering, and 16 months of not contributing to the environmental crisis that disposable diapers create. (They comprise one of the biggest components of the trash in our landfills.) Thak said that he's never had a moment's hesitation about cloth diapering, because when it comes to the planet, this decision is just so obvious. I second that, and might I just say how awesome it is that Thak is such a dedicated cloth diapering dad!


Orren also got some new Robeez. He got some brown sandals, which he hasn't had occasion to wear yet, and he got some canvas ones (with leather bottoms) which are called "Weekend Surfer". They show a van with a surf board on top. So cute! The only way to show you these shoes was to have him pose on mommy's surf board! Yeah, it would be better with water... tell it to Uncle Sam. He's the one who plunked us down in the desert.


And here's Lema! We were watching the NFL Draft on TV yesterday, and she put on this Georgia Tech hat. I think it looks good on her! Maybe she knows that's where the Vikings will be drafting her brother from in about 20 years. Hmmmm..... thinking.... ("With the 32nd pick of the 2030 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings choose Orren M, Fullback, Georgia Tech.") One way or another, this just proves once again that we raise our children right in this family! Haha!

Editing photos

I got bored yesterday, and decided to edit some photos. I use Picasa, which is a free editing program. It doesn't have as many actions as Photoshop, but like I said, it's free. Plus, it's really easy to use, whereas Photoshop takes more to learn, and I no longer live near anyone who can teach me.

Anyhow, here are a few photos I've edited.

Minneapolis Skyline (before)




Minneapolis Skyline (after)


Ceiling of Minnesota Children's Museum (before):




Ceiling of Minnesota Children's Museum (after):


Thak and Orren (before) ((They are so studly!!)):




Thak and Orren (after):


Erin at Tybee Island, GA (before)


Erin at Tybee Island, GA (after)


Another of Erin at Tybee. I don't have the before of this handy, although I'm sure I can find it somewhere. All I did was change the color:



Orren at Minnesota Children's Museum. I don't have the "before" of this one either. It's just cropped and red-eye removed. I edited this one for a photo contest given by my favorite car seat company (Sunshine Kids, who makes Radian and Monterey). They're giving away three Radians to the three cutest little boys, so I had to give my studmuffin the best chance to win one!

Coloring and Jeep Riding

Here is Orren, coloring with the markers the Easter Bunny brought him. He loves coloring, and I love that there are so many art supplies for babies his age now.

OK, OK, I suppose he's actually a toddler now. I mean, he is almost 16 months old. He wears a size 3T in clothing, and stands nearly 3' tall. He runs around the house all day, and pushes furniture around the living room like he's a lineman pushing through to sack the other team's quarterback. I guess he's officially a toddler.

Anyhow, here is my big toddler boy, coloring.


It won't be long before we'll have to buy him his own Powerwheels vehicle, because once he realizes that the pink Barbie Jeep is kind of girly, he won't want anything to do with it. For now, though, he's rather fascinated with the Jeep.

One day, he climbed right in behind the wheel. He couldn't reach the pedals, though!


Another day, he climbed in and let Erin take him for a ride around the yard. He loved it, and Erin loved being able to drive him around!!