Hey Peter, What's Haaaapening?

So aside from the ridiculously cute kiddos and the going back to work stuff, what's going on with us? Here's a recap:

Matt and I have a 10K (6.2 miles) to run on (eep!) Saturday. Matt will do fine … me? Well I am trying hard, but I probably will not quite be able to run the whole thing. 2/3 … 3/4? I'm sure to be sore on Sunday. Perhaps that's why there's beer at the after party?

What else? Hmm … The basement is moving right along. We are pretty much done with one of the hardest things: getting it cleaned out. We still have a few items listed on Craigslist, but a bunch have sold and a few we've given up on and hauled off to Goodwill. We've pocketed quite a bit of cash and seriously decluttered our basement. Matt has done the layout for it and we are now getting input on it from some experts. We hope to break ground within the next week or so. To say I'm a bit nervous about this doesn't even come close. I work in construction and know many of the ins and outs of what can go wrong on a job done by professionals … my husband and brother-in-law at the helm? Yikes. But I have a ton of confidence in Matt. He is a perfectionist and researches everything to the nth degree and does quality work and makes good decisions. I'm sure it will be fine.

And after over two years of just faking it, Matt and I are going to finally learn how to be proper parents. I have signed us up for Love and Logic parenting classes, hosted by Matt's employer and our own loving HMO, Kaiser. It is going to be a pretty big time investment – two hours per week for 7 weeks – but I hope it will pay dividends in the future.We have switched Tabby from disposables to cloth diapers recently. This change is mostly due to our interest in getting her to potty train … we wish for her to start full-day preschool in June and while that's a ways away, these things have a way of creeping up on us, so we wanted to plant some seeds early. Many sources suggest that cloth diapers help kiddos to feel wet and better let them make the connections between peeing and wet. I confess that the conservationist in me also likes the idea of keeping unnecessary crap out of the landfills.

I did my research and opted for all-in-ones, mostly because I want to be considerate of our sitter. I have been extremely happy with the results and not just a bit surprised. These aren't the cloth diapers our grandmas used! They were pricey, each about the cost of a case of diapers (the cheap Target kind), but since Tabby goes through a case a week, we have already pretty much made the cost of them back and I want to get just a few more so we don't have to wash absolutely every day. But even so it hasn't been too much of a problem. We have so much laundry at our house that we are constantly running a load of wash and I just toss the diapers in with something else that needs washed anyhow.

And the clincher is that it seems to be working. Tabby is asking to be changed much more frequently, often right after she's peed. Before it would only be after a #2 or when she was really really wet.

Anything new with you?