The Monteiro Family

Someone from the Holliston, MA area has come to this page every evening for at least the past 5 evenings…and I can’t figure out who you might be. This someone is coming directly to this site, using a MacOSX, safari 4.0 as a browser, a resolution of 1024×768, has javascripts enabled, and Fios as an internet connection. If we know you, please let us know who you are (leave us a comment, email me). If you don’t let us know who you are, I’m going to have to block youe IP address from visiting us as it feels a bit creepy…this blog is really not at all interesting if you are not a friend or family member! If we do know you and you faithfully are checking daily waiting for an update…sorry I’ve been slacking on the blog…we’ve been VERY busy…but at least say HELLO!

Why is it that when it seems I should have more time to post, I seem to actually have less? May not be the case this year with K going full day…

Anyway, June, July, and August 12 on the 12th pictures coming soon as well as a summary of our summer activities. Hopefully I’ll get them all up before I go back to work. If not, rest assured it is because we are having a great summer vacation! Lots of time relaxing and enjoying the kids!

I was interested in cloth diapers when Lauren was born 2 1/2 years ago but didn’t know enough about them, or anyone else doing it, and with so many other things to think about, I just ended up defaulting to disposables. I was going to make the switch to cloth when pregnant with Carter last summer (mainly for cost savings) but Lauren freaked when I tried to put a cloth diaper on her, and since she was so bothered by the change and was facing many other changes, I ended up staying with disposables again.
Recently though, Lauren got a really, really bad diaper rash and her Dr. recommended a hypoallergenic diaper. I didn’t mind paying the high cost for her since we’re going to be potty training this summer anyway so I bought some Seventh Generation disposables for day care and some gdiapers (a hybrid of cloth and disposables) for home. I really wanted to like the gdiapers but she leaked out of them 75% of the time so we’re using just Seventh Generation disposables for her now until she is potty trained to avoid a repeat rash.
I still really want to make the switch to cloth for Carter though. I’d like to avoid any more possible rashes with him, it would save a bit of money in the long run, I like the idea of not putting so many diapers in landfills and they are SO cute! Johnny isn’t so keen on the idea though since: 1. he could care less about the environment, 2. Carter’s skin isn’t as sensitive as Lauren’s, 3. Carter is already 8 months old and since the startup cost for cloth is so high there is only a small savings over the Target disposables we now buy. BUT, if I got some FREE cloth diapers I’m sure he’d be willing to try them while we’re at home for the summer and if that went well, I bet I could convince him to buy a few more and switch at day care too….so…I’ve entered the giveaway contest at http://simplemom.net/the-simple-mom-cloth-diaper-review/. I’ll get an extra entry into the contest for posting about the giveaway on my blog so that is why you are all reading about my cloth diaper dilemma. What do you think about us making the switch? Post a comment…my uncle said comments weren’t working but I can’t seem to figure out why. So post a comment and if it doesn’t work, send me an email and let me know…

1. Carter is HUGE! He wasn’t all that into eating solid foods when we first started but over the past week or so, he’s really gotten into it. He eats everything! And when the bowl is empty, he gets MAD. We are wondering if his internal “full meter” is broken. He has put on a ton of weight and is now about 19 pounds! Yikes!

2. This week was bad. I came down with a weird strain of strep and had to be put on a very strong antibiotic. So strong that for a week Carter had to survive on frozen breast milkand I had to pump and dump. Thank God for my huge frozen supply and thank God Carter went back to nursing like we had never stopped when I was finished with the meds.

3. Lauren was home sick most of the week. Turns out after 5 days of a high fever she came down with pneumonia. The 12th was her best day. She got to visit me at school (note the Sheehan School Visitor sticker) and make several phone calls to her favorite people while playing at home in her kitchen with Daddy.

4. Love the new food masher for things like banana and avocado that can’t really be mashed in advance and frozen.

5. When you’re sick, you get to eat a whole lot of kid friendly food, like chicken nuggets and french fries. At least they are whole wheat breaded chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries!

6. Did I mention that Carter LOVES to eat?

7. Is that a beautiful face or what?

8. This was a chaotic week as is evidenced by the mess all over the counter by the front door.

9. Lauren visited me at school today to bring me my laptop power cord that I had left at home. She even stayed for a story. She fits right in in Kindergarten!

10. My responsible girl loves to help clean up by putting her dirty dishes in the sink.

11. To add to the chaos of the week, the motherboard in our refrigerator died causing a fan not to work properly and the temperature to rise in te freezer. My handy hubby put a fan behind the fridge to keep things properly cool until the repair guy could come and fix it. Thankfully it was still under warranty!

12. He’s just such a happy baby!