Posts from — August 2010

In celebration of my second son’s eighth birthday today, I’m posting an acrostic that reveals a bit of his personality and what I love most about him.

Kidder (loves jokes)
Ebullient (overflowing with enthusiasm)
Rascal (mischievous)
Reveler (life of the party)
Ingenious (see the 3D stars he made from magnets—without instructions!)
Comrade (friendly and loyal)
Keeper (I can’t imagine life without him!)

Sometime during the past month and a half—don’t ask me exactly when—we reached a milestone around our house: Our diapering days  officially ended. Now you might think that when Keillor—age 2 1/2 and the youngest of our four children—made the transition to wearing “undies” (his word) around the clock,  it would be a big deal. Such a momentous occasion, you might say, is certainly worthy of a paragraph or two in the journal I started for him before he was born—or at least a one-liner in his baby book. And you’d be right. (Note to self: FIND Keillor’s journal and baby book and write something—anything—in them.) Did I mention he’s our fourth child? Best intentions aside, I definitely suffer from that syndrome you hear about—you know, the one in which the mom painstakingly documents every detail of her first-born baby’s life and then slacks off just a little more with each subsequent child until the last one is lucky if his birthday makes it onto the calendar each year. (Another note to self: HIDE all other siblings’ journals and baby books.)

The thing is, life’s been a little busy lately, and it really does seem like the whole thing happened rather suddenly—literally overnight, in fact. The truth is that we probably kept Keillor swaddled and Velcroed in his little bumGenius-brand cloth diapers a bit longer than we  needed to. So when he fell asleep late one night recently with nothing but his favorite Lightning McQueen briefs on under his jammies and woke up completely dry the next morning, I had one of those forehead-slapping, “duh” moment as I realized he’d actually been waking up with a dry diaper every morning for a few weeks. And that’s when I surprised myself by getting a little sentimental about—of all things—the diapers.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been looking forward to this time for about five years. That’s how long I’ve been laundering a load of cloth diapers every two to three days. With both our pocketbook and the planet in mind, I made the decision to use cloth diapers when our third child—Kennah, now 4 1/2—was born. And after using the same set of diapers on both Kennah and Keillor, I like to think that all of my effort did save a couple thousand dollars (for us) and a little landfill space (for the Earth). At the very least, I’m crossing my fingers that we’re kind of close to even-steven in both regards after using disposable diapers on our first two babies.

So why the wistfulness? I’m sure it has something to do with what the diapers symbolize: babyhood. Or, more precisely, that that fleeting period of time is, in fact, over for our family. (Don’t tell Kennah. As our only girl, she hasn’t completely given up on the idea of getting a sister someday.) Sure, it took some work to wash the diapers and hang them up to dry on our backyard clothesline every other day. But after I had a system down, it was actually kind of satisfying to look out the kitchen window and watch those pretty pastel colors pinned up and swaying in the breeze. Or to see them—on the rare occasions when I managed to fold them and put them away—stacked neatly in their cubby beneath the changing table.

In addition to the nostalgia for what is no longer, my misgivings might also be a little bit about the uncharted territory that lies ahead. As I let go of the diapers, what other—maybe more demanding—parenting challenge will take their place? (We are, after all, entering the tween years on the other end of the childhood spectrum.) If you already know, don’t tell me. I’m sure I’ll discover it sooner or later. And chances are, whenever I happen to realize that the next milestone has passed, I’ll want to write about it in someone’s journal or baby book—if I can find them.

I’m sharing this post in the Simple Lives Thursday blog hop, hosted by four bloggers, including my friend Wardeh Harmon at www.gnowfglins.com. Click here to see what everyone’s sharing today.

While the heat is still with us—and will be for several more months—the dog days of summer are drawing to a close. We started our full homeschooling schedule last week, and this morning, Kellen and Kerrick bid their best canine friend (our puppy, Sweetie) farewell before heading out to the first day back to their once-a-week, school-away-from-home program. As you can see, Kerrick was a little more broken up about it than Kellen was. Regardless of seasons and schedules, we plan to continue the dog days around our house—spending plenty of time taking Sweetie on walks and teaching her tricks, as well as digging deeper into the stack of dog books on our read-aloud list. We just wrapped up Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls (look for a future post on that experience), and next on the list is a little-bit-lighter title: The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog, by John R. Erickson. I’m pretty sure our dog days will last well into winter.

I did it! Two weeks ago, I wrote about wanting to make a fig tart with fruit from the trees of family members (see Fun With Figs). And a little more than a week ago, in honor of Shawn’s birthday and at his request, I actually made it. I followed a recipe in Rose Levy Beranbaum’s cookbook The Pie and Pastry Bible, substituting sprouted whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose flour it called for in the tart crust. We thought it tasted like a fruit-infused tiramisu—especially on the second and third days, after the tart crust had moistened from soaking up the marsala-flavored mascarpone filling. It was the most gourmet item I’ve made in awhile. The process was time-consuming and required focus (something that’s often in short supply around our house!), but it was worth the effort to have something special to celebrate Shawn’s day. And I don’t even think he minded that I refused to mess up the masterpiece by poking 44 candles into it for him to blow out. After all, he’d already gotten his wish.

This post is part of the Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by www.gnowfglins.com. To link to today’s Tuesday Twister on that site, click here.