The pursuit of awesomeness

03/10/2008 Nichole

I just learned that today is the International Day of Awesomeness. I haven’t performed any “feats of awesomeness” yet — unless you count cleaning the microwave and forgetting Pete’s 4-month checkup as “awesome.”

I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to actively pursue the awesome. Is awesomeness on your agenda today?

While we’re on the subject of “awesome,” here’s our menu for the week. (That was a terrible segue. My apologies.)

Monday: Dinner with friends

Tuesday: Apricot-glazed chicken

Wednesday: Breakfast for dinner

Thursday: Spicy chicken with snow peas

Friday: Pizza

blessings, Eating

Enthusiasm's reward

03/08/2008 Nichole 3 Comments

We stopped at a Baskin-Robbins/Dunkin’ Donuts hybrid store for a little treat this evening. While I mulled my ice cream choice, Rockford went over to the cash register — which was right in front of the giant wall o’ donuts — to pay. As I walked over to join him, he was starting to point at the wall in an “I’ll take 3 of those and 7 of those and 3 of those” sort of fashion.

I shot him a look.

“Aw, alright,” he said, crestfallen. “They’re just so awesome.”

“What’s awesome?”

“Nichole!” he exclaimed with a little Charlie Brown-style jump. “They’re Bavarian cream-filled donut holes!”

The woman behind the counter turned around and grabbed two donut holes. Rockford beamed as she handed them across to him.

“Really?” he said. “That’s so nice!”

She laughed.

“I’ve just never seen anybody get so excited about donut holes,” she said.

Rockford popped in a donut, and she asked him how he liked it.

“That’s great!” he exclaimed. And his new best friend turned around and filled a bag with the wee confections.

He practically skipped out of the store.

Family matters

Greenin' up the diapers

03/08/2008 Nichole

In our ongoing effort to “green” up our household, I decided to give a few brands of eco-friendly diapers a try. I ordered three brands from Diapers.com: Nature Babycare, Seventh Generation and TenderCare.

The first package I opened was from Nature Babycare. Here’s what they say about their product:

Nature babycare is the result of many years of intense work and development. It is the first ECO-friendly high-performance diaper, based on new green technology, protected by a Swedish patent. The diaper is soft, thin, comfortable and with perfect sizing. Its performance is as good as the best ”traditional” diapers. It has an exclusive 100% chlorine free absorbent material and the material against the baby’s skin is based on corn instead of plastic like traditional diapers, 100% compostable, breathable and extremely kind for the baby. The packaging is 100 % compostable and based on corn.

The diapers feel sturdy and nice to the touch — much more papery than our usual. This is our first experience with “green” diapers, so I’m not sure whether or not thickness is generally an issue. The Nature Babycare diapers are a bit thicker than Pampers, but not so much that they seem to be uncomfortable for Pete.

We’ve had a problem with leaks with these diapers, but I suspect that’s because of the sizing. Despite their claims of “perfect sizing,” Nature Babycare diapers seem to run small. I bought the 12- to 18-pound size, and they’re very snug on our 15-pound boy. I’m not crazy about the closure tabs, either. I like to wrap the dirty diapers up into a little bundle to throw them away, and the tabs on these don’t stick well enough to do that successfully.

Get $5 off your first order from Diapers.com with referral code “nichole.” I’ll get $1 off my next order, too!