Earth Hour

Power (MW) versus Time of Day (h)

Red is last Saturday's power consumption in Ontario. Green was yesterday's. I had to tweak in Paint to make the axes true.

I created this graph-like thing from data and images from the ieso. I was really surprised that I didn't see any comments on their front page about Earth hour. It must have made their scheduling nightmarish. How does one predict the effect of Earth hour?

I'm such a geek.

You know that you've been spending too much time surfing Wikipedia when you know that the every-day pronunciation of "writer" and "rider" are distinguished only by the consonants by British English speakers, distinguished only by the vowels by (many) Canadian English speakers, and not distinguished at all by most American English speakers. The writer/rider vowel distinction and house/houses vowel distinction in Canada are a result of "Canadian raising." This confirms my discovery during my 1999 travels that the distinctly Canadian pronunciation occurs when the following consonant is unvoiced.

The Diaper Chronicles meta blog entry

I followed a link from Strollerderby (ha ha, get it?), which is a group parenting blog at babble.com, to Kendra's blog entry about cloth diapering. Kendra and her husband admit that they are pretty hard core about it. They certainly are. And here was my reply. It's kinda rude, I don't know what possessed me. Sorry, Kendra.

That sounds like WAY too much work. I am more committed to disposables than ever. 17-20 per day. I don't know if you guys are martyrs or kamikazes. Good for you, though.

Kendra responds...

We're neither martyrs nor kamikazes (though we admit to being pretty hardcore) - and the number of diapers per day has diminished considerably. I did have to use an emergency paper one when we were out longer than expected two days ago, and couldn't even tell whether it was wet or not! Those are freaky.

I lightened up and responded...

Okay, okay. Lemme be a little more open-minded. Either my imagination is too vivid or I lack imagination entirely but I can't imagine the switch to cloth now that I'm a year into disposables. But we if we have more children and if cloth is really better, then it might be worth investing now. It's not just the folding and washing, the increased amount of changing and waking is also daunting. Or are these myths? I do know that I never used 17, let alone 20 disposables in one day. Disposables can be wet more than once (much more overnight) without bothering the baby. Some questions:

-Will an otherwise sleeping cloth-diapered infant wake up at night for diaper changings?
-How often does a cloth-diapered infant need to be changed during the day?
-during the night?

Kendra tracked me down here and gave me some helpful information...

Hi Karen - What a beautiful boy! Just wanted to respond to your comment on our blog. We cloth diaper for many other reasons - to save money, to save landfill waste, to avoid disposible diaper chemicals (some contain known neurotoxins!), and because we like the way it feels! We sleep with our son, so if I hear him poop in the middle of the night I change him. If he's just wet, and I am quick enough with feeding, he sleeps on. I haven't really been counting changes during the day, but yes, it's more than disposables. He feels it more when he is wet - and supposedly, this will help him not like being wet and potty train faster (may be a myth too!). In any case, we're pretty new at this, so we'll see how it goes. But I love being able to cloth diaper.

Kendra gives me more credit that I deserve. Of course, the question I meant to ask was, "Will an otherwise sleeping mother be awakened to change a wet diaper?" The baby feeling the wetness of a cloth diaper may help with potty training (less diapering later) but I'm guessing it means more diapering now.

I know that the new pocket styles make cloth diapering easier than ever and Dion and I are pretty, er, frugal, but ... I still don't think I'm game. Add that the jury is still out on the environmental considerations* and I'm sticking with the Seventh Generation disposables. Indeed Becky and I drove to Richmond Hill to get some on sale the other day. Of course, I bought many, many more than she (24 packs! versus her 4) because Becky has switched over to cloth. I saved 28% compared to my local health food store and Becky saved 39% compared to hers. I saved $124.

*A pretty major UK governmental study undertaken to justify a "real nappy campaign" proposal found that it was a tie. Hence, the campaign never happened. Advocates on both sides criticise the study's assumptions, which are pretty much worst case for both sides - cloth diaper service (transport, high temp/lots of detergent laundering) versus landfilling bleachy disposables. Many people home launder and disposables can go in Toronto's municipal compost.

overdue update - gross motor development

s I read on Baby Squared, hitting the walking milestone is not an overnight event. Adam was cruising at six months, standing at seven, taking a few baby steps at a time at eight months, and spent a month practicing walking at nine months. At ten months he was walking as much as crawling and now at eleven months, crawling is a thing of the past.

I remember reporting at his nine-month check up that he was taking 3 or 4 little steps at a time but it didn't really seem like that counted as walking. There are two times I might say marked the official start to walking. At almost exactly ten months, we went to Indigo where he'd take around 20 straight steps towards the Thomas train set table. If he got down to crawl, it'd be too high for him to see, so he was pretty motivated. Then at 10.5 months, the first day of our visit to Great Auntie Joan's, Adam decided he was done with crawling. I counted 98 steps one time.

My brother took some video with his cellphone while Adam still doing the zombie walk. Now he still holds up his left hand for balance as he toddles along. That leaves his right hand free for doing stuff. He's more and more clearly right-handed these days.

some recent photos

These are all from when Adam is 10 months old, except the first shot (almost 10 months old)

"See Adam, I know I wasn't in many of the pictures, but I was around while you were a baby."

pretty chill. And horizontal stripes do add ten pounds. :P

I like to call this piece "Over-exposed."

Not the best shot but it captures the delight from the piano.

A bit of a cleaner shot.

still chill

My cousin Bruce was in town on business one day and my Aunt Joan tagged along for the ride.

Things that make you go .... Hmmmm
Photo credit: Rebecca Ho

Pretty in Primary!
Guess Who.
Photo credit: Rebecca Ho

Eye Colour Ten Months Edition.
Click the photo to enlarge.

By the way, I tried the crop in on my own eye. Don't try it at home folks. It weren't pretty. I really didn't need to see the circles under my blood shot eyes, the crows feet, or every enlarged pore on my nose in such detail.