Crazy Mumbum

I'm going a little nuts, I think.  

Not nuts like the horrible postpartum depression I experienced last fall.  That debacle was seriously bad around the time I started this blog.  It only started subsiding in any meaningful way after we decided around Christmas that our move back to the US was imminent and I would say it wasn't really over until after we had been in our St. Louis house about a month (less than two months ago for those of you who are counting).  I've started to volunteer with a group called Mother to Mother that provides moms experiencing postpartum depression with support by pairing them with mentors in the form of moms who have gone through it before.  I'll have to go through some pretty extensive training in the fall before I actually get to help someone, but I'm very excited about the possibilities.

But anyway, that's not the crazy I'm going through now.

The crazy I'm going through now is a fairly benign kind mostly induced by a little boy who loves reading so much that he's made my shins black and blue.  How could reading cause bruised shins, you may ask?  Picture this: a mommy is trying to wash the breakfast dishes.  A little boy wants to hear "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!" for the tenth time that morning.  So he brings it to his mommy and throws it to her.  Her knees don't make the catch.  She reads it.  He repeats.  Five times.  Before noon.  It's great, really, but I don't know how much more my legs can bear.

It isn't helped by the fact that this is Jack's idea of a fashion show:

"Manatee Baby" onesie was a very cute birthday gift from Uncle Stephen (and a meaningful one for those of you who know the story of Ben's 21st birthday).  Polar bear slippers are adorable, if I do say so myself.  And I find his penchant for Ben's socks adorable.  But all together?  The socks look a little like legwarmers.  And with that obvious pose?  As my friend Kristin is fond of saying, "The Eighties called.  They want you back."

The other main cause of my current craziness is that Jack is really starting to say "Dada" now.  This is a great development, and I'm really happy about it.  Occasionally it comes out "ah-da" (Dada minus the initial d sound), and sometimes Jack says it in reference to my cell phone (I'm assuming he's recalling talking to Daddy on the phone), but it's definitely there.  Not so about "Mama," which is the rub.  Except for a brief appearance in London (at which time I'm pretty sure he was instead saying "yum, yum" in reference to his food), the closest to saying "Mama" Jack gets is when he says "Mumbum."  I'm trying to be excited about it, but I'm really jealous.

Also Jack just finished his very last Ella's Kitchen packet, our miracle British-only pure organic fruit and veggies in a pouch.  Even though over the past month and a half he slowed down to eating only about one every week, and even though he now eats well and drinks tons of milk and yogurt from a similar pouch, it's a little unnerving not to have that safety net.

About the only evidence of my newfound craziness, however, is that I'm considering switching to cloth diapers.  Now hear me out on this one.  They're not as bad as they used to be; no pins are involved, and velcro and all-in-one innovations mean they go on just like disposables.  The brand I'm especially considering is called Bum Genius and was created by a mom in St. Louis but has become a big name in reusable diapers worldwide.  The only difference is that we would have to rinse smelly diapers off over the toilet (FYI, according to basic sanitation standards and diaper packaging, that's supposed to be done with disposable diapers as well!), and would have to wash the diapers every other day.  That and the fact that they'd be slightly less expensive even if we only used them until Jack was two and we'd be creating lots less waste that takes over 500 years to degrade.  

I don't know.  I'm not bothered at all about the prospect of extra laundry (more on our fantastic new washer and dryer in another post), and with the addition of a portable spray bidet-like toilet attachment ($40 and easy to install), I'm not even all that concerned about the yuck factor.  But Ben's threatened to strike and not do any of the poopy diapers if I "insist on persisting in this pointless crusade."  I'm not sure I'm willing to risk that actually happening.

Thoughts on that, anyone?

Oh, and here's the "woof, woof," I promised.  It has changed a little since he started in that he used to get his head into the action so much that he looked like he was frantically nodding as he said it.  But I think it's equally cute now.