Nuggets

Here are some nuggets from the week:

* I could swear Meg said both "ball" and "nigh-nigh" tonight. Clearly the kid is a genius.
* She's discovered how to be ornery. She now gets annoyed if I try to redirect her from something she wants. Uh oh.
* I suspect her bottom two molars are coming in. I fear this means several weeks of disrupted sleep. Sure, its' obviously uncomfortable for her, but it's all about me, right?
* Yesterday I was packing up some baby bottles to give to a mother in Meg's daycare who is due in April with her second. Andy asked if we were going to have another baby. I said no and he burst into tears. I know, what?
* Later, he told me he, too, would have a baby in his tummy when he grew up. When I said only girls have babies in their tummies as boys are daddies, he burst into tears again. I clearly think he was tired, but the whole exchange was rather amusing.
* I randomly got a package from Pampers yesterday along with a size N diaper. I know! Size N! It was like the size of my hand and not the big tortilla size she has now. I get so caught up in the day-to-day work/life balance that I sometimes forget how far we've come. Size N! So tiny! And they come in packs of like 3,000 to a box.

Speaking of how far we've come, my cousin Frances sent me some info on a little boy in Austin named Ike who is having a rough go of it (as is his mommy). Take a look and say a prayer, drink a beer or whatever it is you do. They could use it.

Eureka

Well bust my buffers (as Thomas the Tank Engine would say), Pampers is coming out with size 7 diapers. It's about darn time. As you may remember from my earlier rant, the size 6 diapers aren't big enough for Andy overnight and they only make overnight diapers overnight.

Funny, when I heard about this from an anonymous post, I promptly Googled it to find out that my information was correct. I also found some interesting rants from parents alleging the diaper industry is shrinking their product and bumping up the sizes to sell more diapers. I love the conspiracy theory angle - that Pampers, Luvs and Huggies are colluding to deceive consumers. I do think the sizing is wonky. Andy is barely 30 pounds and the size 6 diapers allegedly start at 35 pounds so in theory he should be fine in these until he hits 35 pounds or potty trains. That said, I don't believe some criminal mastermind out there is out to really manipulate the market. Or are those folks at Proctor and Gamble smarter than I think?

Meanwhile, have I bragged lately about how much I love the Fairfax County Public Library? Simply awesome. I went today and checked out a Thomas DVD. I saw that it has a 7 day rental and since we're out of town next week, I ask about renewing it. She went ahead and bumped up the return date to after our trip to Dallas. How cool was that? Now we have the perfect video to watch on the plane. Andy will be thrilled.

An Open Letter to the Disposable Diaper Industry

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a big fan of the disposable diaper. The technology is vastly improved over what I used during my brief stint as a teenage babysitter. The velcro tabs are genius -- huge improvement over the plastic tabs of yesteryear that easily got stuck on the wrong spot. The absorption is also amazing. I have changed some two pound wet diapers on occasion and I have been amazed that the outer core was still dry.

With all this brilliance, why do you have to screw up when it comes to the sizing of things? And don't you think it's time for a size 7 diaper? My 2 1/2 year old son is a decent sized kid. He's 3 feet tall and about 30 pounds. He's not huge though - he's still in some 18-24 month shorts because his waist is fairly small. Although size 6 diapers technically begin at 35 pounds, my son has been in them for about six months because your size 5 diapers cleverly don't hold very much. Unfortunately, your size 6 diaper doesn't hold much more.

The size 6 diaper cracks me up. First off, you are clearly geniuses. Once you get to size 6, you stop selling diapers in your generic or lesser brands. There are no size 6 diapers from Target, Costco, Sam's Club or Wal-Mart brand. Once you hit size 6, you have to go back to your more expensive name brands - Huggies, Pampers and Luvs.

Then you get into the so-called overnight diapers. Huggies sells a line, but it only goes up to size 5. At this point, I believe I'm supposed to be transitioning to the pull-up style diapers, but the 2T-3T pull-ups are too big around the legs. So even if they were as absorbent (which they're not), they leak around the legs. As my mother would say, "that's a design flaw."

I know the obvious answer is potty training, but my son isn't ready yet. That should be good news for you. The longer you can keep him in diapers, the longer I keep supporting your industry.

So diaper manufacturers, I implore you. Please create a size 7 diaper or start selling overnight diapers in size 6. Or if you prefer to stick with your pull-up style diapers, figure out how to improve the gathers around the legs to prevent leakage.

The laundry and I thank you in advance.

Operation Big Boy Bed continued

We spent most of yesterday moving things around and I'm pleased to say it's finally looking good. Andy's room is set up with a twin bed, diaper table, bookshelf and chair. Andy's old room now has the carpet pulled up, both desks and the bookshelf. Unfortunately, our Linsys router has decided to stop working again so we're down for one computer temporarily. We're also exhausted! Who knew moving so little stuff just between two rooms would be so much work?

Andy took his first nap in the bed just fine (photos to come once I can get back to my computer and upload them). He did wake up in the night last night with a leaky diaper that had naturally leaked onto his new bed and sheets. I may need to invest in a plastic liner to get us through the toddler years.

We also went to my nephew's opening day Little League baseball game. I forget that baseball is boooring. No offense to the kids playing, but there was a lot of standing around waiting for a play to happen. At least with soccer or basketball, there is always some motion no matter how uncoordinated the kids are. Plus, there is a time clock. We left after two hours and apparently it goes until 2 1/2 hours. It was fun to watch. Well, for the first hour at least. By the end, even the kids seemed tired and bored.

The funny thing I noticed about baseball dads is that by and large they have more facial hair than soccer dads. Goatees and mustaches were present all more than half the men at the games. The park near us has both soccer and baseball so I've been noticing this trend for a while. Bjorn didn't believe me until we got to the game and he saw it with his own eyes. I wonder what's up with that?

Praise yee heavenly portable DVD player

We are out in sunny (but chilly) southern California for the next few days. We flew to LAX yesterday which which surprisingly smoothly, thanks to our trust friend the portable DVD player. Watching "babies" (his code for TV for babies as Bjorn calls it) kept him occupied off and on for the 5 hours and 30 minute flight. He took a decent, but small nap but was generally in good spirits and not overly hyper. Although he did manage to drink about four full sippies of juice requiring frequent diaper changes. Thankfully, I thought to make an extra change of clothes once he leaked through a diaper due to all the water.

Speaking of diapers, we need to figure something better out because if he really needs to go, he can easily fill a size 6 diaper full of pee yet often a diaper change three hours after is almost dry. He's not taking to potty training at all so perhaps more laundry is in order until he is ready? Any thoughts, let me know.

Movin' on up

I've been in denial for some time now, but I think it's officially time to move up to size 6 diapers. This disturbs me because this is the final frontier for diapers - they don't make size 7 diapers. This is it. This particularly scares me because while we've had some successes with the potty, he's not ready. Take a look at this list on the signs of readiness to potty train. I don't think he can do any of these. Although we have been practicing with him pulling his pants up after a diaper change, he can't quite pull them off on cue. Not that he knows what that cue would be necessarily. The good news is that he's been in size 5s for ages now, it seems, so I'm not expecting him to blow through these they way he did size 1 diapers for example. Still, it's unnerving to know we've maxed out. It also sucks because not all companies make size 6s. I have really liked the Costco/Kirkland brand diapers, but they only go up to size 5. It seems that it's generally the more premium (therefore more expensive) diapers like Huggies Supreme that go to size 6. I think the manufacturers are trying to get him into Pull-ups, but from what I hear, they're confusing for potty training since they're not quite a diaper and not quite real underwear.

Speaking of pants, getting them onto his increasingly strong little body is turning out to be a challenge of late. The good news is that I think I've figured out that he'll wear pants, so long as they're sweats or pajama bottoms. I can't really argue with him as I'm sure they're way more comfortable than jeans. My main argument is that he has some cute pants that finally fit and that I don't have enough sweats to keep him in clean ones. I stopped by Target this weekend to get a couple birthday presents for him and stocked up on a couple pairs. They're not as cute as the Old Navy version, but their Hanes sweats were on sale for $1.88. Hard to argue with that price.

Fun

It's a fact - throwing diapers all over one's naked body and all over the floor in the span of about three minutes is about the most fun a 23 1/2 month old can have. Kudos, my friend, for ignoring the wealth of new toys Santa brought you and heading right for the Luvs.

Bjorn and I are both better today, but neither is close to 100 percent so at 8 p.m., we're both thinking about going to bed. In talking to folks, it seems just about everyone we know has someone in their family who has a stomach bug this week. Considering how similar Bjorn and my symptoms are, I'm wondering now if I had a stomach thing and not a reaction to the antibiotics. Either way, my stomach is still mushy. In theory, it should be making me us thinner, but we're both too bloated to see any measurable difference. Damnit. At least that would be one positive out of this whole mess.