Maggie is really walking a lot now.  She doesn't like me to seat her when I put her down after carrying her around a room–she likes me to put her down in a standing position.  Then she stays standing and sometimes takes a step or two before plopping down on her rump. 

I'm grateful for how well they get along together.  Most of the problems between them are mishaps (like just now when Degen accidentally slammed the tip of Maggie's thumb in a drawer, causing a blood blister) or the results of too much affection on the part of one or the other.  Degen will often "overhug" Maggie, holding on longer than her sense of independence allows.  Maggie follows Degen around and wants to do everything he does with whatever he's doing it with and Degen doesn't like sharing that much.  But most of the time they get along great.

We're slowly working on potty training with Degen and occasionally Maggie gets in on the action, like today.  I asked Degen if he wanted to wear his car underpants, his nemo underpants, or his diaper.  He wanted to wear a diaper, but thought it would be great if Maggie wore the underpants.  Both pairs of underpants.  At the same time.  So, I compliantly put them on over her diaper and clothes and she didn't seem to mind wearing them at all, so they stayed on for a couple of hours till it was time for a diaper change for her.  Won't they both love me for telling this story to the world once they're teenagers?  All I have to say for myself is that it was darn cute and the memory needs to be preserved for me, if for no one else.

This morning was pretty hectic with getting ready for church.  "Getting ready for church" means finding everyone's clothes, getting everyone showered or bathed, getting everyone into their clothes, packing the diaper bag, finish preparing lessons, gathering supplies for lessons, making breakfast, feeding everyone breakfast, and getting everyone in the car.  The last two weeks we've been trying to get to church at around 9am even though church doesn't start until 10am because I have to get the Primary room set up (put the chairs out in rows, get out the microphone, make sure there's nothing on the floor, unlock supply cabinets, etc.)  Last week both Colin and I were teaching, so it was pretty crazy, but this week I was teaching two lessons and the kids were grumpy, so this week was crazy too.  Oh, and Colin ended up subbing for a class in Primary because a teacher didn't show up, so it turned out we had to do three lessons between the two of us.  Yikes!

I may have mentioned that right now our Primary is seriously understaffed.  In addition to having very few teachers, we have no secretary (so I'm doing that job) or chorister, and my amazing first counselor is sick with pneumonia and was hospitalized the last two weeks.  This means that this week I did Sharing Time, Singing Time, and did a singing time with the nursery (18 months to 3 years old) myself.  My wonderful second counselor conducted and made assignments for next week and got copies of the class roles from the ward clerk and tons of other things (and next week she's doing Sharing Time!).  It makes me tired just thinking about it.  I'm extremely grateful for the people who substituted today and the people who helped watch Maggie while Colin and I were teaching because my job would have been virtually impossible without them.

After Primary I was planning to go to ward choir, but Colin and I were both exhausted, to say nothing of Maggie and Degen.  Both of them needed a diaper change and both were badly in need of a nap.  All of us were hungry.  It was so nice to come home and know that there were things worth eating in the house and that the sheets on the bed were clean because I'd changed them the day before. 

I hear Maggie waking up… 

First, Wal-Mart really does have the cheapest prices for diapers (even on the name brands), at least around here.  And it's not just by a few cents–usually they beat everyone out by a dollar or two.  Costco is also a pretty good choice, but still not as inexpensive as Wal-Mart and you have to buy in huge quantities.  So, keep that in mind when you start shopping.

Next, I think that disposable swimming diapers are great for the pool, but that there needs to be more competition in that segment of the market.  Right now Huggies has a corner on the market (maybe they have a patent or something that prevents competition).  You probably don't want to buy them from Amazon since it's about $10 less to buy them at your local grocery store if you count shipping and such, but the link above will take you to some reviews that may be useful.  I haven't tried the washable or reusable swimming diapers, so let me know what you think of them if you've used them.

Probably the most important factor in buying disposable diapers is size.  Go by the baby weight range printed on the package since they vary a little bit from brand to brand.  I've found that the smaller the size, the less effective generic brands are.  In other words, if your baby is a newborn the fancy Huggies Supremes will prevent leaks and work better than the generic brand, but once your kid is a size 3 or so the brand won't matter a whole lot.  Some brands have gathered, elasticized areas around the legs to keep things fitting closely, and that seems to be helpful in preventing leakage, especially when your baby is still small and it's hard to find diapers small enough. 

The next factor to consider is the tabs at the top of the diaper that hook it all up to stay on the baby.  I like the tabs that have some sort of elastic in them to make them stretchy.  This keeps you from tearing the tabs off when you're hurrying to put the diaper on a wiggly baby, and the manufacturers say it makes it more comfortable for the baby (my babies never complained either way).  The tabs used to all be just tape that sticks to the diaper (which made it almost impossible to un-tape and re-position the tab if you put it in the wrong place or didn't make it tight enough, etc.), but most tabs now have a velcro-like hook system that makes it easy to re-position.  Some tabs have both the velcro stuff and the tape, which is fine too.  Just make sure you don't get the tape-only kind. 

I'm not convinced that those brands that advertise having an "extra-absorbent core" are really any better than the ones that don't.  They seem to be pretty close to the same absorbency, and you want to be able to tell when it's time to change the diaper anyway.  If it absorbs too much, you'll have a kid running around with a heavy, saggy diaper before you or they notice that they're wet.

When you buy diapers, the quantity you should buy is tricky because you don't know how fast your baby will grow, but you want to buy the largest quantity (for the quantity discount) without buying more diapers than you can use.  The younger they are, the faster they grow.  Maggie went from Newborn, to size 1, to size 2, to size 3 by the time she was 3 months old, to give you an idea.  My babies were about average weight at birth (7 lbs 11 oz for Degen and 7 lbs 12 oz for Maggie) and they were both out of newborn diapers in about three weeks.  The rule of thumb for number of diapers used per day on a newborn is 6-10, so plan for somewhere in there and then adjust to your baby's needs.  My kids stayed in size 1 until they were about 6 weeks old, then size 2 until about 3 or 3 1/2 months old.  Then there's the size three plateau, which lasts until about 12 months.  Degen is 25 months and still in size 4.  So, there's an approximate guide (every kid is different) to how to plan your diaper purchasing.

My husband likes to buy diapers based on the cartoon printed on the front of the diaper, especially now that we have two kids in diapers (only a size apart now!) and have to somehow differentiate.  One kid gets Sesame Street, the other Blue's Clues or Lion King or Care Bears.  You get the idea.  It is nice when you have multiple kids in diapers to buy two different brands for the sake of fast identification.  Also, Degen is now at the age where he's starting to care about cartoon characters and like certain animals, so he's slightly more cooperative when I say "let's put on your lion diaper now" than if I say "let's put a diaper on." 

Speaking of diapers and cartoon characters, I've got updates to our potty training efforts that I described earlier here.  We bought some Cars underpants with Degen at the store the other day and he's pretty pleased with them.  More than wearing them, he likes to carry them around with him, though.  He's made quite a bit of progress in the potty training area even though he doesn't like to wear underpants very often yet. 

We bought a new Safety First 3-in-1 potty chair and step stool for Degen and we use it as an adapter for the toilet seat and a step stool.  Every night before he takes a bath he stands on the stool and goes "wet" in the toilet and now he even sits on the toilet, though the times he's gone "poo poo" I think have been pretty much coincidences.  He's getting the idea as we go along, though.  He likes to sit there and then wipe himself (there's nothing to wipe most of the time, but it's good practice).  Then he gets to the favorite part where he gets to flush the toilet and say "bye-bye poo poo!"  Then we move the stool to the sink so he can wash his hands with his special foaming soap. 

My biggest problems in all this so far have been getting him to sit on the toilet seat adapter (which is solved now–he just needed time to get used to seeing it there and then try it a couple of times in a calm atmosphere when I wasn't being pushy), not getting upset about the toilet paper being unrolled, and not getting impatient when he wants to spend more time playing with the potty.  I think we're doing pretty well if those are our biggest problems!