Stepping Towards 1st Birthday...Literally

Days, weeks, and months are just flying by and Rory's changes are becoming hard to keep up with!

He's 11 months old now (how has this happened?!?!) which means we are on the countdown to his first birthday.  I just can't believe it.  

So, here's what happened in September:  

Teeth

He now has four teeth!  They, of course, all came at one time, but fortunately didn't seem to bother him too much. They are super cute, but he is very stubborn about letting you see them (meaning he doesn't let you see them).  His lip muscles must be really strong because I seriously can't even pry them open.

Walking

Pulling up, Cruising, Standing, now Stepping!  They happened in that order, and in about a blink of an eye!  This sounds too good to be true, but he took his first step on his 11 Month-day.  Since then, he's becoming more bold and has taken up to 3 steps at one time.  It is so awesome to watch.  He seems to have great balance, so I think once his confidence gets boosted he'll be ready to go!  Here's a video:

Words

He now has two words:  dada and duck.  He's been saying "dada" for months now.  He must really love Joe because he crawls around the house all day calling his name.  (Luckily I'm not insecure at all about the fact that he has only muttered mama twice, while hysterically crying.)  But the duck thing is new.  We've been practicing it for awhile, and a couple of months ago he toyed with the idea, but now he's got it.  And if you show him one of his many duck toys, he'll say it for you!    We wanted him to love monkeys, but he has chosen ducks and we're embracing it with him. Here's a video to prove it:

Humor

He seems to have a great sense of humor (Joe takes credit for this).  His laugh is amazing - it sounds like a squeaky toy that is getting repeatedly stomped on.  One of our favorite games is to point our finger and say "Dad, I've had it with you!"  This was inspired by our sweet Melia.  I'm sure this game will backfire on us sooner rather than later, but we make sure to tell him that we're just kidding each time.  But our most favorite game is scaring each other.  Joe and Rory play it best.  Here's a video:

Sleep

He slept from 10:45-6:45 in his crib without a peep last night!   If you know Rory, that's enough said.  But seriously, this annihilates any sort of record we've ever had before!  What a wonderful night!  (Joe didn't sleep well at all, unfortunately.)  Also, you can imagine my panic at 6am when I woke up trying to find Rory in our bed!

Potty

Quick update - Rory has pooped 3 times in the potty!

Hair

For those of you who have bugged us about getting Rory's hair cut, we found a better solution.

Before

After

And finally, we'll leave you with this:

Grandma Rosey!

This past week, Sandy came to visit!  She came to meet her new, sweet granddaughter, Livvie.  We were lucky to get to spend a lot of time with her and the Cuomos!  The trip is better recapped in pictures.

Our sweet niece Livvie!

:) 

Enjoyed some Paseos on a beautiful day at the beach!

Eli and I controversially prefer naps to Paseos.

I love how Rory is showing his love here.  At least I think it's love!

Erin & Vic

What more could we have asked for? 

Me, my pumpkin, and our crazy hair.

Two peas in a Northwest pod.

Ballard Market

Rory loves his Grandma Rosey

Sandy's visit ended with a Steelers game!  They lost, but we had fun.
Rory found it boring.  Just kidding.

Cloth Diapers, Potties, and Bleach

So we made the decision after Rory was born to embrace cloth diapers.  For those of you who are already disgusted, cloth diapers really have come a long way in the past 30 years.  They're only slightly more disgusting than disposable diapers and really saves a lot of money in the end.  Plus, you get to attach a sweet hose to your toilet, and who doesn't want that, right?  Plus, they are so cute!

So for about 6 months, Rory's Fuzzibunz (there's like 20 brands to choose from) worked great and gave him some amazing bum padding! But around the 7 month mark, our amazing cloth diapers stopped being so amazing and started smelling really badly of ammonia.  For the scientists out there, apparently detergent build-up, when mixed with urine, produces an ammonia smell.

The smell is pretty horrendous and we weren't sure exactly what to do. 

About the same time, Rory's bowels became quite regular, and another funny quirk about Rory revealed itself.  Each morning, Rory would wake up practically soaking through his diaper. Being the good mother that I am, I would change his diaper first thing.  (Joe definitely did his fair share as well.) Almost every single morning was the same, within 5 minutes of giving him a clean diaper, he would have his daily poop!  It was like clockwork!  He would NOT poop in a wet diaper.

My first brilliant idea was to remove the wet cloth diaper, put a disposable diaper on, let him poop, then put on a clean cloth diapers. I thought it was genius.  It eliminated our need to handle poopy cloth diapers (and use of the toilet hose) and I was feeling pretty clever.

Then, another lightbulb went on.  Why not eliminate the diaper altogether and just get that morning poop straight into the toilet!  (Apparently I'm not the first to think of this, and there is a philosophy called Elimination Communication that starts potty training at birth, but I'm not that crazy.)  So, I ordered a little froggy potty from Amazon.  Day 1 our alarm clock (Rory) woke us up right on time at 6:30.  I took off his diaper, stuck him on the froggy potty, and I kid you not, he pooped!  Joe and I were practically rolling on the bathroom floor laughing!  Rory was equally excited, though I'm not sure he knew why.  Here's a picture from the moment after.

Since then, we sit on the froggy potty most every morning.  He did another poop last week and frequently pees on it (In one 20 minute session he peed 4 times!  Most of it ends up on the floor.)  So we're embracing this, not putting pressure on it, and seeing if we can eliminate diapers altogether (may be a 2 year process).

The unfortunate reality is that even though he has miraculously pooped and peed on the potty, there's still 23.5 hours in the day where he's not sitting on a potty, so we're back to our diaper smelling dilemma.  

There are tons of theories on how remove the detergent build-up in order to rid of this ammonia smell, and I've tried them all.  We were down to our last option - bleach.  

Now - I've been avoiding this bleach option purposely, because bleach and I don't get along, and never have.  I swear that no matter how careful I am with bleach, I end up with white spots on clothing that wasn't even near the bleach!  I hate it with a passion and prefer to never have it in my house at all.

So, Shauna to the rescue as usual, says she has a great relationship with bleach and would be happy to bleach our diapers for us.  So, on Thursday night I went to the store.  I searched for a small bottle of bleach (to minimize risk) but they were only selling gallons.  It was only $2, so I bought the gallon and planned on throwing it out as soon as this mission was accomplished.

I put the bleach on top of our dryer where the rest of our detergent has lived peacefully for months. Friday morning I'm getting ready for work.  Queue loud noise. Gallon of bleach plummets nose first from the top of the dryer, the entire bottle splits open splits, and begins drenching our carpet.

While the bleach did destroy about 4 towels that we used to clean up, I am very thankful that for some unknown reason the carpet was not affected AT ALL.  It's a miracle if you ask me.

So the moral of the story?  The froggy potty is awesome.  I will NEVER buy bleach again.  Our diapers still stink and I will humbly ask Shauna if she could bleach Rory's diapers at her house.  We're using disposable diapers full time right now.

But hey - we're trying!