I made the switch to cloth.

I used disposable diapers with Johnny. And it was great. But I had a hard time with the waste (no pun intended) that disposable diapers generated. When Johnny was 8 months old, I even did a "test drive" where I received 15 different cloth diapers to try out to see if I liked any of the styles. In the end I decided that cloth diapering was just too much for me to handle. There's the washing, the drying, the stuffing and the time needed to do all of that. Each type of diaper has different washing instructions. Most diapers are supposed to be line dried and each diaper has a different insert that has to be put in just so. I was already crazy-overwhelmed with motherhood and decided that cloth diapering was not something I needed to tackle.

Then I met Darcy, who cloth diapers her adorable little boy and has since birth and she made the whole thing so much more accessible for me. Talking to her was real and I got immediate answers instead of having to search forever on the Internet only to come up with four different ways of washing your diapers. So, I bought my first diapers on craigslist just to try them out. And I found out that it's actually pretty easy once you get in the groove.

I've been cloth diapering Hank (except at night, we'll work with that soon) for a few months now and I'm loving it. I mean, I don't LOVE having to deal more with his poop on a daily basis, but I love that if I'm running low on diapers, I do a load of laundry instead of buying more at the store and agonizing over the cost difference between Vons and WalMart and WHY COULDN'T I JUST REMEMBER TO BUY DIAPERS WHEN I WAS THERE YESTERDAY?!?! <--- That happened to me a lot with two babies.

Anyway. So yeah. I like cloth diapering. And Hank does, too. I mean, look at this face:

Happiness is a butternut squash colored Fuzzi Bunz diapers

My favorite diapers: BumGenius 4.0 (it's a workhorse and my most reliable diaper) and the Fuzzi Bunz One Size Elite. The Fuzzi Bunz used to leak like crazy, so it wasn't my favorite, but then Darcy helped me fix that by instructing me on how to seal the diaper. Since then? I love them.

If you want to start cloth diapering, or at least try it part time, I recommend going on craigslist and getting four or five used diapers. Wash them in hot water a few times and then try them out. It took me actually DOING it to get over my hang ups and just go for it.

Hank is 10 months old!

I'm 10 months old... now!

My biggest accomplishment this month is taking all of my naps in the crib and SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! Well, Mommy is more excited about that than I am and I can't really understand why. I mean, who wouldn't want to spend the hours of 11pm to 1am with me? Sheesh. Anyway. Most nights I sleep from 6:30pm to 5am and then during the day I take at least two naps. Mommy hasn't quite figured out when I want to nap, but she's getting there. My naps are usually 45 minutes, but the occasional longer-than-one-hour-nap has become more frequent, so we're obviously making progress. That, or I'm ready to drop to one nap. I'm certainly getting close to that age!

This month I started walking... kind of. I can walk and will toddle from one thing to another if I'm really motivated, but mostly I'll get to a stand then then squat back down and start crawling to wherever I want to go. I've gotten really fast at crawling, so it's much better than walking at this point.

I have also mastered the pincher grasp and use it daily in my Cheerio binge-eating fests. I love Cheerios. A lot. And since I love them so much, Johnny loves them a lot too. We eat a lot of Cheerios around here. However, we probably spread around as many (if not more) Cheerios than we eat, but that's just a part of the process, right? My meals now are about half purees and half finger foods. Mommy even gives me small pieces of her dinner so I can eat what she, Daddy and Johnny are eating! I'm like a real, live person now!

Foods I love at the moment are cheese (OMG I LOVE CHEESE), crackers, Cheerios (obv), strawberries, cooked broccoli, grapes, sesame sticks, oatmeal and Greek yogurt. Every day after my afternoon nap, Johnny, Mommy and I share some Greek yogurt and I love it! I have learned what the container looks like and Mommy gets one out of the refrigerator without opening it, I have a freak out session to make sure she realizes that she forgot to put the yogurt in my mouth. It works almost every time.

Lastly, my biggest development is I learned the sign for "more". I still use it at random times because I'm not exactly sure what it means, but I can make the sign and have figured out that when I do it, I get more crackers. It's awesome.

28 months

I'm 28  months old today now!

Geez, I'm getting old, aren't I? Well, not too much has changed this month. I'm still obsessed with numbers and love to watch number videos on YouTube. Though I'm starting to throw in the occasional alphabet video now, too. I'm talking more and more every day and repeating random things I hear on videos, from people or the radio (like advertisements that say "866-590-CASH!" Mommy thinks that's hilarious). My longest sentence is, "Play Mommy phone while put Hank down nap?" Now that Hank requires some time to be put down in the crib for his nap, Mommy can't play with me for a while, so she gives me her phone to mess with. Then when Hank wakes up I say, "Mommy go get Hank? Johnny turn off Hank noise" (Hank has to sleep with white noise since I'm kind of loud when he's sleeping).

Speaking of naps, I don't take one any more. I'm officially over naps. How do I know this? Well, if I fall asleep at any point in the day (usually in the car) that means that I refuse to go to bed at the usual time. I still wake at the same time in the morning (about 6:30am), but instead of going to bed at 7:30pm, I fall asleep around 9pm on a good night. I think Mommy kind of likes not having to worry about putting me down for a nap when she has to deal with two naps a day for Hank.

I love to watch videos on YouTube and also videos of me or Hank on Mommy's phone. While that may not be new, I'm starting to act them out throughout the day. I particularly like this one video of an 18-month-old who knows his alphabet and shows off his knowledge in the bathtub with his foam letters. I have these same foam letters, so I just reenact the scene as best as I can remember, which is certainly better than Mommy can remember.

Hank being mobile has made me much more possessive of... well... everything. I respond to Hank's desire to touch my stuff by trying to squish him into the carpet or pushing him face first into the floor. I have finally figured out that the best way to keep Hank out of my things is to bring them into my room and close the door. So I spend a lot of time in my room with the door closed. But I like it that way. What? I'm an independent kid.

Pictures of my nephew

Last weekend I got to spend a lot of time with my adorable nephew, Jack, and I didn't post any pictures of him in Monday's post because I wanted to touch them up a bit and make them pretty. I'm learning to edit at the moment and I took some really cool pictures of Jack with bubbles that I wanted to play around with before posting. So here are some pictures I took of my incredibly photogenic nephew:

I had to throw in this sweet picture of Aunt Leslie and Hank. Adorable, right? I like it in B&W.

Jack was mesmerized by the bubbles

That JUST happened

In case you need a reminder, Hank is 9.5 months. Oh geez.

One hell of a week.

Last week was a doozy here in the Durso household.

First, I came down with pink eye. And then Johnny did, too. And apparently my father in law did as well, or at least something similar.

Second, Johnny came down with a fever of 103 on Tuesday, which ended in me taking him to Urgent Care. But not before I dealt with a rather uninformed nurse on the nurse referral line for Children's Primary Care (our group of doctors). The woman told me to take Johnny's temperature in his armpit HIS ARMPIT because the ear temperature tends to be "off". Great idea. You obviously don't have children, or if you do, they were never sick because jamming a cold piece of metal in your sick toddler's armpit and requiring he stay still for three minutes TOTALLY doesn't happen. She also argued with me about how many wet diapers he had had in one day. Ugh. Long story short = I'm never calling them again. I obviously know more than they do. The positive of going to Urgent Care was the doctor telling me that I don't have pink eye and neither did Johnny. Whoo-hoo!

Third, getting Hank to take naps this week has been AWFUL. He's been running on two 30 minute naps a day, which isn't nearly enough for him. My usual "bucket of smiles" baby has been taken over by a meltdown-prone diva who can't handle being put down for more than three nanoseconds. Exhausting.

Fourth, cabin fever isn't a strong enough word for how chained to the house I felt this week.

Good things did happen this week though. John's uncles came to visit and they are always a lot of fun to be around. We made it to the Safari Park with Aunt Lisa, Jack, Aunt Leslie and Grandma. Granted, it ended in a car trip home with two overtired, screaming children, but the time we spent there was fun. Just getting out and about was worth it! Also, Hank has slept through the night nearly every single night this week! Except for Friday, but that was probably because he managed about 50 minutes of nap time during the day which makes it hard for him to settle at night. I know, I know, we've talked about how little sense this sleep begets sleep thing makes, but it does work. At least with my kids.

Anyway. Here are some pictures I took this week:

Fleeing the scene of his toilet paper mess.

What? There are numbers in here to play with.

Next he'll be walking. No, really. He will be.

One of the reasons Johnny loves Pa: His crazy facial expressions.

Pepe. My other nephew.