Auggie is slowly, slowly working up to walking. Yesterday, he officially took a step. Towards the record player. Yes, he is his parents’ son! Today, two steps. Tomorrow, who knows?

At the doctor yesterday, he weighed 22 pounds, 15 ounces. No wonder my neck, arms and back are killing me! Must find time/money to get back to wonderful massage therapist Angie, who rocked my world after Mother’s Day…

My mother thinks I’m crazy for using cloth diapers with Auggie. I think it’s crazy how much disposable diapers cost, and how much of a given it is that everyone will use them. (See also near-daily rants about formula and the poor, circa October 2001.) My friend Heidi makes these totally beautiful, incredibly functional cloth diapers and sells them to me at a discount! You can visit her web site at Sugarbums. It’s not that big of a deal for me. Just an extra load of laundry every couple of days. Yes, cleaning out the poo is disgusting, but you get over any poo-squeamishness very quickly once you have a baby. I guess her main objection is the initial cost of the diapers (between $10-12 per diaper, a little more per cover). For example, I just got 10 diapers for $100. But I also just shelled out $25 for 136 disposables (we still use them at night and when we travel) at Sam’s for the cheap-o Smiles brand (so old-school, they have Muppet Babies on them!). If we were using disposables full-time, those would last between 2 and 3 weeks. The 10 cloth diapers I bought will last at least a year, if not longer. So that’s $100 (+$100 for diapers I already own + $25 for the used diaper covers I already own) for a total of $225 for a year’s worth of cloth diapering. Disposables, at a case every three weeks ($25 x 17 cases per year) would cost $425. Plus, I can feel good that we’re not filling an entire landfill with my son’s poopy diapers.

Whoa! That’s enough math for one night. I’m probably going to have that nightmare about missing my Calculus final again. Does anyone else do this? Occasionally, I’ll have an extremely vivid nightmare that I’m in college and I remember that I’m missing a test or a final on a course that I forgot that I had or never went to all semester. It’s very stressful, and I’m completely relieved when I wake up and realize that I graduated five years ago.

Auggie thinks it’s pretty neat to feed us now. He likes to pick up Cheerios and hold them up to us. Sometimes he lets us eat them, sometimes he pulls his hand away just in time and eats the Cheerio himself. It’s very entertaining. Especially when he holds the Cheerio in his fist and there’s no possible way to extract it. Another funny sight in the morning is Auggie holding court in his throne/high chair, bestowing Cheerios upon his loyal subjects below (the dogs).

And when did we get to be so dang social? We have some sort of gathering every single weekend this month! We are going to be sick of barbecue by the end of July…