My Little Bronies, Sweet Little Bronies

My boys love My Little Pony, or as Aidan calls it, "Little My Pony." It reminds me of being a kid myself. One summer, for 3 wonderful days, Applejack and I were best friends. Then the neighbor dog got her and turned her into a chew toy. Childhood can be cruel.

Odd glamour shot I stole off of eBay. Creepy say what?

Oh Applejack, I miss you still. What a great toy for a nerdy, bookish little kid like me! Ponies were much like Care Bears in their embracing of individuality, friendship, and celebrating the differences in others. Every pony was unique. Aside from the commercials that branded Ponies as "girl" toys, they were perfect.

When Jude developed his current obsession with the Ponies, I couldn't have been happier. Until I went to get him a few for Valentine's Day. All I can say is, WTF Mattel? What have you done to the Ponies??

In my day, those cute sturdy little ponies definitely sported Disney eyes and super shiny manes, but they still looked like ponies. As a refresher, ponies are short, stout, kid-sized.

And THIS is the current rendition of My Little Pony and Jude's favorite character Twilight Sparkle:

Notice anything different, on this current "girl" toy? How about her super slender physique? Her giant bedroom eyes? And, most telling, her lack of a muzzle?! It's a pony! This one looks part anorexic teenager, part squirrel.

Suffice it to say, I'll take Ponies over Super Heroes (less "Hulk smash!" more "You're my best friend!") but if I had had daughters instead of sons I'd be writing Mattel some hate mail. According to the show, friendship is magic...but so too is food, the innocence of childhood, and a pony with enough snout to breathe and legs sturdy enough to keep it upright.

Homemade Chalk Paint Renovation

I write a guest blog, Hey Neighbor, for Dwell Denver Real Estate once a month. This was August's post.

*****

Hey Neighbor,

My newest DIY infatuation is with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. It's easy to use, the colors are beautiful, and a complete furniture transformation takes place in a day or two. The only drawback is the price - the supplies last a long time, but the cost of entry isn't cheap! Enter my sister-in-law Li. She's so frugal she'd make a penniless monk look like he lives his life with frivolous abandon. 

Li and my brother recently moved from a 700 sq foot New York apartment to a 3000+ sq ft, 4 bed / 4 bath home just south of Denver. Movin' on up! The trouble of course lies in the fact that they do not have enough furniture to fill their new suburban palace. It's a familiar story, but fortunately for us, we get to learn from a thrifty lady, her auction find, and a Pinterest recipe for success.

Li bought a $10 end table at auction to go with her new couches and super fab $100 estate sale rug. The table had good bones, but an ugly finish. It also did nothing for their decor.

With her sleuthing skills, Li then did a Pinterest search for chalk paint and found the following recipe on LiveLoveDIY's blog:

Homemade Chalk Paint: 2 cups paint, 5 TB Plaster of Paris, 2 TB water.

The bonus of the self-made paint is that you can pick any color you want - Li went with Benjamin Moore in a punchy Japanese Kimono color - and all of the supplies cost her less than $50. (Full disclosure, on my first trip to an Annie Sloan dealer I left the store with $230 worth of similar merchandise in my bag.)

We spent a Saturday together transforming the little end table that could.

First, a quick sanding to take off any peeling varnish. Then, Li made her chalk paint. 

Two tips: 1) mix the water and plaster of paris first to make a slurry before adding to the Benjamin Moore paint and 2) if it's too thick, add a little water until it's the consistency of normal paint.

Three painstaking coats were added to the table. If Li had been going for a distressed look she could have gotten away with two, but the goal here was a modern pop of color.

After letting the table dry between coats, and then overnight after layer #3, Li applied Minwax Paste Finishing Wax with cheesecloth and buffed the table to a shine.

Voila!

As the recipient of half a bag of Plaster of Paris, I can't wait to try this new painting technique in my dining room on a sideboard begging for a facelift. I'll let you know how it goes! And Li and I would love any tips you have on furniture restoration. We are officially addicted. Thanks, neighbor.

Perfect Pasta Salad

In theory I've always loved pasta salad. A quick meal in the summer. An easy side dish for get-togethers. Something I can make the night before and dinner is already taken care of the next day. In actuality, most pasta salads I've tried have been pretty to look at and nothing for the palate to write home about.

So, I made up my own. You may think it looks just like everybody else's, but the key is in the type of ingredients. And a homemade dressing. I encourage you to make it once, as is, before you stray. Also, I am not responsible for a lesser choice in tortellini, meats or cheeses.

Perfect Pasta Salad

serves 4

1 12 oz bag dried Barilla Cheese and Spinach Tortellini 
4 oz Tillamook Monterey Jack cheese, cubed
4 oz Olli Norcino Salame, cubed (FYI - in Denver you can get this at Marczyk's)
3/4 C fresh or frozen organic peas

1/2 C Quick and Easy Vinaigrette, heavy on the red wine vinegar

Boil pasta according to package directions. Add peas in the final 30 seconds if fresh, 60 seconds if frozen. Pour contents into colander and rinse with cold water. Allow to drain while you prep the vinaigrette.

Mix all four dry ingredients gently in a large bowl. Mix in vinaigrette, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour, preferably overnight. If it's a little dry when you serve it, add a few dashes of red wine vinegar. The acid balances the meat and cheese.

When accompanied by crusty bread and sliced fruit, I can easily feed my family of 4 with lunch leftovers for my husband and I. We drank an excellent three-buck-chuck Shiraz with dinner and found that it paired quite nicely. Enjoy!

Chick Killer

It was me. All me. Months of prep, research and reading down the drain. I poisoned 5 innocent chicks. I am the Lady Macbeth of poultry.

So, in an attempt to absolve my guilt and save others from the heartache of a murder most fowl, let me shed light on a common problem with new chicken owners: Death by Electrolytes.

If you buy a water soluble vitamin and electrolyte solution suitable for all livestock like the one pictured here:

do not try to follow the dosing instructions on the package.

For chickens, a pinch of granules should be added to one gallon of water. 

Your water should look like this (palest yellow):

Not like this (deadly yellow):

With the strain that this overdose put on the chicks' systems, their hearts had to work overtime to keep up. This in turn stressed out their respiratory systems and resulted in ascites. Ascites is commonly referred to as "water belly" and can be identified by excessive bloating in chicks that results in a loss of energy, an inability to support their own increased weight, and labored breathing. Some recover, but the mortality rate at high altitude is much higher.

These two Ameraucana ("Ella") chicks are the same age, but the darker one is currently ailing from ascites. She's a trooper though and I am hoping that she'll be able to release the toxins from her system successfully. She's smaller today than yesterday, and if she recovers she'll return to her natural size.

Note the dark Ella's inability to support her weight, tuck in her wings (resulting in a very splayed appearance), and the size of the two chicks' bellies in relation to each other.

I hope my error can save someone else from going down the same deadly route. Every new endeavor has a learning curve, but unfortunately for two Sunshines, two Ellas and a Sadie the cost was their little lives. I'm sorry girls.

Hip-hip-hippie Hooray!

Okay, we are two and a half months in to our diapering adventure and drumroll please...we LOVE the cloth diapers! Instead of merely using them a few times a day, we use them 90% of the time. They are adorable, easy to use, and create so much less waste. It's also wonderful not to drop $50 on diapers every time we go to the grocery store. The absolute best part? Look how cute my baby's bum is. (And here I thought we couldn't improve on perfection.)

These diapers are also ideal for summer, when no one wants to wear any extra clothing.

I'm glad we did a trial before going whole hog on this thing though. If you'd like a recap of our initial investment, the original blog post is here.

RESULTS:

The Good.

The GroVia hook and loop diaper shells are the best. We've tried both hook and loop (or "velcro" to normal people) and the snap shells, and velcro is the easiest and most like the disposables we were used to. They are also the fastest to secure on your kid, and this is key in winning the 7-month-old Wiggle Olympics. They are comparable in bulkiness to a disposable diaper (bonus!), so Aidan's clothes still fit.

The snap-in Soaker Pads are super. They are lined on the backside so that they trap moisture and help control leaks. They also produce less laundry than I expected since you simply unsnap the liner, toss it into the dirty clothes, and reuse the shell. Paired with a reusable organic Booster Pad (a versatile new addition to our arsenal), they can last for a few hours between changes. The soakers do take a lot to dry though. I flip them inside out, put them through a full cycle, and then let them air dry as well if needed.

The disposable Biosoakers are a nice standby when all of the soaker pads are in the washing machine. I've also used them on short excursions when I anticipate a diaper change but don't want to be stuck carting a used diaper around. (Gross. I am not that mom.) A note of caution, while these disposable inserts look similar to disposable diapers, they do not retain as much moisture and will leak if not changed in good time.

In general, since cloth diapers are not as dry for a baby as disposables, I do recommend the Bummis fleece liners or a booster pad so that something dry is against the baby's skin. If we leave a wet diaper on Aidan for any amount of time he gets a bit of a rash from the damp.

Finally, Bioliners are a must have. They look like a dryer sheet but are much more vital - they contain the poops and make it easy to flush the whole shebang down the toilet. Hooray for that.

The Not-So-Good.

Compared to disposables, cloth diapers in general are much more prone to leaks. A disposable diaper can hold a lot of liquid. In our house we call them 20-lb pee diapers, as in "That was a long day out. Looks like we got ourselves a 20-lb pee diaper here." Because of this, we will continue to use disposables for overnights as well as long afternoons spent running errands. And for car trips. And honestly for any kind of travel. Once again, I am not the mom to cart around a bag of dirty diapers waiting to be laundered. Blech.

Concerning specific products we bought and don't like, I am not a fan of the "all-in-one" style of diaper. The snap closures are odd and hard to secure on a moving target. They are also the first to leak and result in a lot of laundry for a simple pee diaper. I only use these now when everything else is dirty and I ALWAYS pair them with an organic booster pad. Otherwise they are totally useless. These are also the bulkiest diapers of the bunch.

Using a different brand of prefold diaper insert (we tried OsoCozy) is ridiculous. They are way too big to fit in this sleek little diaper shell. They also made my baby look like a fat old man. Not a waste of money though - my baby's a puker, and these make the best spit rags.

Finally, the initial investment is steep but you have to do it. We bought so few supplies to start. It made for a good trial, but not enough equipment to sustain our cloth diaper revolution. We were always out of inserts. I've since upped our count to 2 all-in-ones, 4 shells, 8 soaker pads, and 4 boosters. I'm going to purchase 4 additional shells and another dozen soaker pads and call it good for the next year.

Hot Tips:

We got a great recommendation from a friend and purchased a bumGenius Diaper Sprayer for our toilet to make rinsing poop diapers easier. It will also be useful for cleaning out a training potty when we get there again. And, according to the box, it can even be used as a personal bidet! (Again, gross. If you come to our house and use our bathroom, please do not cleanse yourself with this little sprayer. You will not be invited back.)

Secondly, we bought a Planet Wise Diaper Wet Bag to store the dirty diapers between washes. I wash the diapers every other day and the bag every few cycles. Between bag washings I spritz the inside with Febreze and let it air out. Works just fine. We need to buy another for the upstairs though.

Final adjustment - flushable toddler wipes instead of traditional diaper wipes. We were at a loss - throwing wipes in the trash without the convenient package of a disposable diaper was nasty, and flushing them is bad for your plumbing. Storing the used wipes in a smaller wet bag and tossing the contents a few times a week was a recommendation that I couldn't stomach, and we were NOT going to go so far as to embrace reusable cloth wipes. (My eco-conscience only extends so far. Apologies, Gaia.) Flushable wipes are a lifesaver.

And there you have it. Our little effort to conserve, one diaper at a time.

Quick and Easy Sides: Roasted Kale Chips

Kale is my new favorite super food. It has replaced spinach in all of my soups and stir-fries, and I make it all the time in chip form. Thanks to my cousin-in-law Eryn for turning me on to this recipe. It makes a great pairing with the Quick and Easy: Salmon filets.

Toddler tip: We flat out lied to Jude and introduced these as green potato chips. He loves them.

ROASTED KALE CHIPS

Ingredients:
Organic kale
EVOO
salt


Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Wash and dry your kale thoroughly - the leaves hide a lot of grit. Then cut off the ribs and chop the leaves into roughly chip-sized pieces.

Put the chopped kale in a baking dish, sprinkle on some EVOO and salt, mix it up and pop into the oven for 15-20 minutes. I usually give it a stir halfway through.

A note on baking dishes: This is perfect for a trusty 9x13 Pyrex dish. Don't use the dark, dented metal cake pan that we all have in the back of our cupboards. This will make the kale taste more like burnt pot. Not that I'd know. (Hey, Mom. Dad. So...what's new with you guys?)

The final result is crispy and addictive. This basic recipe also works with the addition of any spice mix you like, and was quite delicious with a little good balsamic as well. Eat up!

Afternoon cookie break?

I make a mean cookie. I know, I know. We've been down this road before. But today, I share with you my best recipe. This is the one that friends curse me for as they are eating their second...third...fifth...enormous chocolatey treat. I, on the other hand, easily justify this as a breakfast food because it has oatmeal. It all depends on how you look at things. I prefer to view the world through sugar-coated glasses.

Usually I have to adapt baking recipes for high altitude (curse you, Denver) but this chocolate chip cookie is courtesy of 5280 Magazine and Denver's own Fuel Cafe. I've swiped this directly from the 5280 article, so hopefully they'll forgive me. Subscribe to 5280, eat at Fuel Cafe! (See? Free advertising!)

I've also decided to use this as an opportunity to try out my new Miu silicone baking liner and Wear-Ever half sheet pan. I usually rely on my Pampered Chef Stoneware Large Bar Pan for cookies, so we'll see which one produces the best results. Or if there is any difference at all...

FUEL CAFE'S CHOCOLATE-CHIP OATMEAL PECAN COOKIES

Ingredients:

½ pound unsalted butter, softened but not melted

1 cup brown sugar

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

2 cups old-fashioned oats (not instant)

2 cups mini chocolate chips

2 cups pecans, chopped and untoasted

Preheat oven to 375°. In a stand mixer, with paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar, and regular sugar for about 5 minutes. Add salt and baking soda. On low speed, add one egg at a time until incorporated. Do not over-mix. Add vanilla. Mix in flour at low speed until incorporated. Do not over-mix. Add oats, chocolate chips, and chopped pecans, only until combined. 

NOTE: Part of the reason these cookies work at this altitude, and taste so so delicious, is the high "chunky bits : dough" ratio. Don't mess with this, or your cookies will pancake out. If you decide to leave out the pecans for some crazy reason, replace them with an additional cup of oats. The adorable beater-licking toddler is optional, but I can't recommend him enough. 

Scoop dough by ¼ cups onto parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for approximately 11 to 12 minutes until golden brown.  

Miu baking liner with Wear-Ever sheet pan

Pampered Chef Stoneware

Cool briefly on baking sheet before transferring to wire cooling rack.

Makes 20+ large cookies.

And for my results?

Stoneware vs. Miu/Wear-Ever

Both sets of cookies were chewy and addictive, but the cookies on the Stoneware pan kept their shape and density while the Miu cookies fanned out. I'm sure I'll use the silicone liner and half sheet for other things, but I'll keep making cookies on my secret weapon, the Pampered Chef Stoneware. (I use their pizza stone as my second pan for large batches.) 

Bake on.

Restoring Cast Iron, or History Repeats Itself In My Kitchen

Reduce, reuse, recycle. I choose not to question whether my zeal for second-hand goods is a result of wanting to cut down on consumer waste or a direct result of what my Grandma called her "cheap Scotch blood." (Scotch as in Scottish - she'd haunt me if she thought I portrayed her as a boozer.)

Either way, I love a good deal. The majority of the baby goods in my home - from bassinet to swing set, high chair to clothing - have both a previous and future owner. But this is not a blog about Craig's List baby goods. Consider this one giant segue leading you to my newest kitchen obsession.

Cast iron.

I have fallen in love with a #10 Wagner cast iron pan from the early 1900s that my mom found for $10 at a yard sale. (Huge benefit to me that the "granny" of ebay's Granny's Trinkets and Trash is my mom.)  It weighs more than a bowling ball and I have definitely built some arm muscle since I've started cooking with it. There is comfort in the heft though - the feel of a thing that is well made. I like to imagine the three generations of mothers before me using this same pan to feed their families. It has good mojo.

When I first got it though, there was work to be done. Most old cast iron requires some reviving. It was covered in rust and layers of cooked-on grease that the cast iron world technically refers to as "gunk."

Like all innovative DIY newbies, I went online for information on how to restore this beauty. I found that people are CRAZY when it comes to cast iron. I'd find a blog with what I thought to be good information only to be dissuaded by reader comments hundreds deep on why a particular process does or does not result in a perfectly seasoned non-stick pan. For cast iron junkies, the "perfectly seasoned pan" is the elusive holy grail of cookware. So, I read a lot and then decided to wing it.

My salvaging supplies consisted of oven cleaner, protective gear for me and the patio, a few garbage bags, 2 wire brushes originally for stripping paint, vinegar, borax, and those blue soap SOS pads that you can probably find right now corroding in a corner of the cabinet beneath your kitchen sink.

My process consisted of spraying down the pan with oven cleaner, double-bagging it, and letting it sit in the sun for 48 hours before rinsing it off and going to town with the wire brushes in an effort to get the gunk off. It took 4 rounds of this, and a final bit of elbow grease courtesy of my husband, before I got the pan down to its raw iron core. It still looked rusty but it was smooth.

Then I gave it a final scrub with the SOS pad before I soaked it in a 50/50 white vinegar and water bath for about 12 hours. After that I thoroughly cleaned the pan with borax (borrowed from my laundry room - 12 Mule Borax is great for your whites) to neutralize the vinegar.

Time to wipe it off and then pop it into a 200 degree oven for 20 minutes to get it bone dry. Let the seasoning begin! I coated it with a thin layer of organic flax seed oil and put it in a 500 degree oven for an hour, then let it cool in the oven for 2 additional hours, before taking it out and repeating this process. Based on a blog I found, I did this a whopping SIX TIMES. I was about 2 weeks in to this pan at this point, but things were looking pretty good.

I still didn't have that deep dark black that I coveted though, and my first trial with cooking salmon was semi-disastrous. I wanted my friend Julie's pan from The Crankin' Kitchen - she makes amazing food with a jet black pan that was her Grandma's.

Back to the internet, and I stumbled upon the best piece of cast iron advice yet. In essence, a very down-to-earth man, whom I picture to have a slightly shaggy haircut and a handlebar mustache ala Sam Elliott, advised the cast iron world to calm down and take a breath. He told us all to clean our pans with soap (since we'd be re-seasoning), dry them with heat, wipe them down with a good layer of shortening or lard, and throw them into a 300 degree oven for 2-3 hours. Wipe them down once more and then start cooking. He said to break in the pans in with fatty meats (hello bacon friend) and deep fried dishes until they reached a glossy black finish over time. Yep, just like our grandmas did. I would have to slow down, curb my notions of instant gratification, and give my pan some time.

So, I have been frying bacon, chicken cutlets, and these delicious Asian fish cakes to my heart's content.

After dinner I wipe the pan down with a paper towel and leave a light coating of oil from that night's meal. And lo and behold! Little by little, meal by meal, my lovely history-filled pan is turning in to the skillet of my culinary dreams.

Tools of the Trade

How have I just learned about America's Test Kitchen? I am in food nerd love. Not only can I watch their geek-not-quite-chic show on PBS, but for $30 a year I have access to a dozen years of knowledge online.

I can lose hours reading their product reviews, and since I am cooking so much right now I found the following directive on cookware sets to be incredibly useful:

Our ideal set would include a roomy 12-inch traditional skillet (or fry pan—we use the terms interchangeably) that’s big enough to fit four chicken breasts; a 10-inch nonstick skillet for cooking delicate omelets and fish; a 12-inch cast-iron skillet for frying and searing; a 4-quart covered saucepan for vegetables and other side dishes; a 2-quart covered saucepan for heating soup or cooking oatmeal; a 6- or 7-quart enameled cast-iron Dutch oven for braising, deep-frying, and even baking bread; and a large stockpot that can do double-duty for pasta, lobster, or corn on the cob.

This "ideal set" doesn't exist, but I am using this list as a guide to build my own collection one piece at a time. Having the right tools makes any task more enjoyable, especially if it's a task that you love. I'm also a big proponent of buying a quality item and taking care of it rather than buying something cheap and having to replace it every few years.

Quality pieces already in my collection include 10- and 12-inch nonstick skillets (Calphalon for Mother's Day last year - thank you, Jude), a #12 Wagner 10-inch cast-iron skillet with 3-inch sides (100 years old - I'll post soon about restoring this yard sale beauty), a 6-Qt enameled dutch oven (Lodge is a totally functional $55 alternative to the $300 Le Creuset that I covet...), and a 6-inch Le Creuset enameled skillet (not on the list, but incredibly useful for reductions and reheating single servings).

My newest love? A 12-inch traditional skillet by All Clad.

Glorious. Even the packaging was wonderful. I was looking at cheaper stainless steel sets and singles, but ATK gave this their highest rating and I now trust those public access food scientists with all my culinary needs.

As with all things, you get what you pay for. But I do love a deal so I waited to buy this $155 treasure until Macy's had their Friends and Family special. 20% off plus an old $15 store credit and she was all mine for $106 with free shipping. If I were Julie Andrews, and part of me has always wished that I were, I'd be singing to you about three of my favorite things right now - food, quality American-made products, and a sweet sweet bargain.

We christened the pan last night with sea scallops - easily fitting 8 in the pan without crowding them. I didn't take pictures, but here's the fool-proof recipe for melt-in-your-mouth scallops.

As for my lovely pan? Ah, she did just fine.

SIMPLE SCALLOPS

(serves 2)

Ingredients:
8 sea-scallops, cleaned and patted dry
2 Tbsp EVOO
salt and pepper
1/2 C dry white wine
3 Tbsp butter

Preheat your pan over high heat with 2 Tbsp EVOO and 1 Tbsp butter. Liberally salt and pepper your scallops. After butter foam starts to subside, add scallops to the pan and let them cook 2 minutes until they release easily and have a nice dark crust. Cook an additional 1-2 minutes on the second side and then remove to a warm plate where they will continue to cook slightly as they rest. (Do not overcook them - they get tough and gross. I didn't think I liked scallops for years because I had rubbery restaurant scallops the first time I ordered them.)

Deglaze the pan with half a cup of dry white wine - reducing by half while you scrape the nice crusty fond from the bottom of the pan to create a lovely sauce. (I used our go to chardonnay by Cupcake Vineyards. Half cup in the sauce, half bottle in my glass.) Remove sauce from heat and thicken with 2 Tbsp butter.

Spoon pan sauce over scallops. Cry because they are so so good.

Eco-friendly Hippie Bums: A diapering adventure!

I am a big believer in the idea that many people making small adjustments can create big change in the world. Time to put that idea to work for us by way of my baby's bum.

I always thought I'd be a cloth diaper kind of mom. (This was back in the day when I thought I'd do two years in the Peace Corp.) Who was I kidding? When Jude was born we said we'd start with disposables and then get cloth diapers once he was bigger. But there are so many options, and we were so tired, and we'd gotten a lot of diapers at the baby shower...and...and...And we never made the switch.

Fast-forward three years.

We now have Aidan, we are once again so so tired, and we are burning through boxes of diapers at an astonishing speed. So in honor of Earth Day, and because I am home now and able to take this on, we are finally embarking on our cloth diapering adventure. An adventure in washable poo!

For $130 I put together a starter kit. It helped that I hit a one-day sale for the GroVia diapers on babysteals.com. (If you are a mom that doesn't yet go to this site daily, you should. It's a frugal brand-whore's paradise.) The rest I bought on Amazon.

In the kit, I have 2 GroVia hybrid shells, 2 GroVia all-in-ones, GroVia bio liners (roll of 200), GroVia bio soakers, bummis fleece liners (5-pk), GroVia soaker pads (2-pk) and a box of 6 OsoCozy unbleached prefold cloth diapers to try as another insert option.

I have also ordered Woolzies drier balls to replace my beloved Bounce dryer sheets.

They were cheapest ($29.99 with free shipping) at drugstore.com. Cloth diapers react poorly to fabric softener, so this was a great motivator to move onto something reusable in the dryer. Wool dryer balls are also supposed to decrease drying time - bonus to my energy bill and a nice bump for Mother Earth.

THE CHALLENGE:
Use cloth diapers overnight as well as replace 2-4 disposable diapers in the day, assuming it's a day we're at home. At $56 for a box of 144 diapers, each disposable diapers runs me about $0.39. If I average 3 cloth diapers a day, then the cloth diapers pay for themselves in just over 3 months. In that 3 months I'll also have kept over 90 diapers out of my local landfill.

Wish me luck! I'll report on our progress. Any tips from parents who have traveled this treacherous path would be oh so appreciated.