fixing my pockets, among other things

...pocket diapers that is.

Yesterday I bit the bullet and attempted to remove the old, curling velcro from a pair of my Bum

Genius 3.0's and replace it with fresh velcro that came in the BG refresher kits I bou

ght not long ago. The instructions said to seam-rip the old velcro off, and sew the new stuff on. Piece-Of-Cake - right? Well, not really

You see, there are two sides to the velcro, a hook, and loop side. I had to carefully position them with the stretchy diaper tab in the middle without pinning them together. The biggest difficulty I had was keeping them properly ligned up while sewing them together. Have you ever tried to sew two pieces of velcro together? Well, let me be the first to tell you, it doesn't necessarily do wonderful things to the tension setting on your sewing machine. bulky bulky bulky.

I neglected to get "before" pictures, but as i have more diapers to "refresh", I will eventually be able to post a picture of what my unrefreshed diapers look like.

In the mean time, here's the finished product with new fastening tabs, and new laundry tabs (laundry tabs are the things you stick the fastening tabs to when you wash the diaper. If you don't stick those fastening tabs to something they'll fasten to anything they can find in the wash and you'll end up with a "diaper snake" when you go to put them in the dryer.)

In other news, in a grand attempt to get my early-rising 13-month-old to sleep past 5am, we kept him up until 9:00 last night. Praise be to God, he slept until 6. He woke up crying which tells me he wasn't rested. So, we'll do the same thing for a few consecutive nights and see if he decides that sleeping longer feels better. I'm also limiting his morning nap because his afternoon nap is beginning to shorten. This is all trial and error, I'm well aware; although I wish there was some calculation for making babies sleep when you want them to.

Lately, Levi and mommy have been having a great time hanging out with friends in the

sunshine. He's so active now, and so INTERactive that it's become loads of fun to watch him play with others. I know that all too soon he'll be grumbling when somebody takes his toys, but for now he's content to give and take and give and take. Very fun to watch.

Among the many things we've done recently are: visiting Prairie Land dairy's dairy days, going to the childrens' museum (LOVE our annual membership), Swimming in Rachael and Teague's apartment's pool, playing in our sprinkler, learning animal sounds, successfully using the potty chair (multiple times a day, although I'm under no illusion he is being "potty trained") and

enjoying calcium fortified rice milk with each meal. I'll have to post an update about our MSPI issues shortly - they are, for sure, ongoing.

I DID end up getting a new camera, without which this post would certainly be devoid of pictures. it's a Canon Powershot A3100. I was going to go with a cheaper model, but this one had image stabilization which I need. It also has a kid's & pets setting which allows you to take pictures of moving targets. Essential in our home.