I am just back from the doctor, an appointment I almost didn't make it to. I was sure my appointment was at 2:00; at 12:59 I glanced at my calendar and saw that it was really at 1:00. Oops. Fortunately, the diaper bag was packed, Eric had eaten recently, and he was wearing a clean diaper, so I was able to dash out the door.
Eric charmed all the doctors and nurses, and the phlebotomists in the lab, too. Although it was obvious he was getting sleepy, he forced himself to stay awake and flirt until we were on our way home, and then he crashed in the car.
This is a new Eric thing: he fights sleep in the daytime. It's like he's so in love with the world that he doesn't want to miss anything. I tell him, "The world waited 4 billion years for you, it will wait while you take a little nap," but he doesn't believe me. It's not too bad; I have been indulging in the pleasure of rocking him to sleep for his naps. It's kind of fun to watch him struggle to stay awake as his head and eyelids droop.
We have made the switch to cloth diapers. I ordered a mix of pre-folds and super-fancy fitteds. The prefolds I was able to get from Stephanie right away, so I have been using them. They're working so well I am returning the super-fancies. I remember prefolds leaking like crazy when Noah was using them, despite the fancy anti-leak folds taught by the diaper service. My method, taught to me by Stephanie, is just to fold the diaper in thirds so it's a big rectangle, tuck it into the cover, and put it on him. It's much quicker and easier than trying to twist and fold the diaper into an hourglass, or one anti-poop-leak method I remember for Noah that involved rolling the two sides of the diaper, holding the diaper on the baby (while the sides tried to unroll) and trying to put the cover on over it. Big pain.
I would say we do have a small increase in leakage incidents with the cloth diapers, and it is good to change them more often than was necessary with disposables. But I really like using them, for some reason. I find the big pile of clean white diapers on the shelf very satisfying, in much the same way I am satisfied whenever I make my daily quart of formula, load it into bottles, and put them into the fridge. I also find myself hanging the diapers on the clothesline to dry. Cloth diapering brings out the earth mama in me, I guess.
David has not switched to cloth diapers. I think he's a wimp.
Teaching is going well. As predicted, I'm having attrition from my 8 a.m. class. I get 16-18 out of 21 students on any given day. Today I had only 13. They rotate, though--it's clear that all 21 think of themselves as actively enrolled. But if they keep attending only sporadically, they'll get dropped. The department policy is that they can be administratively dropped if they miss 8 hours of class time (and I can count tardiness as missed class time). I have one student who has missed six hours already (3/5 class meetings) and one who has missed 5, plus another six who have missed 4. Bad bad bad.
Their first essay is due Monday. It will be interesting to see how many show up.
Posted by Su Penn at September 12, 2003 03:08 PM | TrackBack