Dear Blogger:

I put two spaces after each period on purpose. Please stop "correcting" it to just one space. I like to live life deliberately, authentically, and you are totally throwing off my mojo. Also, I think two spaces looks better and gives me a mental breather before moving on to the next sentence, which, given my writing style is probably very labyrinthine and full of parenthetical statements, is very necessary.

All my Love,

Amanda

Rock Reading to Himself

I stepped out of the room to run potty, and I walked back in to find this, so I grabbed the camera and tried not to miss the moment, as I usually do.



I know I put this on facebook already, but I would rather have it on my blog.

It really is so cute. He's making the animal sounds like he does (pretty much all animals sound kind of like a monkey). He's trying out his new wolf, which was a pretty new sound for him when we recorded this video on August 1st-ish.

OnTrac Still Sucks

But one nice thing I can say about them is that they keep good records. I called OnTrac and they knew the exact time and reason I called a few hours before. They hadn't done anything about it, but at least they knew.

OnTrac Update (OnTrac Still Sucks)

Four phone calls later, on hold for a total of about 1.5 hours, and they are finally going to "error out" the delivery time. The driver is only 26.75 hours late. This is ridiculous. There is no new ETA, but the last supervisor I spoke to said that it looks like the driver "misdelivered" the package. How on earth did two other guys get here perfectly fine JUST TODAY and he has taken the last 30+ hours to find where I live? This is the company that keeps perfect directions for my address in the computer system--down to the last turn, things I don't even know. The last thing it says is IN THE SKYPARK AIRPORT UP THE OUTDOOR STAIRCASE ON THE SIDE FACING THE STREET.

I sent an email to Diapers.com about the package and someone called me right back! It was crazy. The girl was so nice and she said that they could change me over to a national shipper, just that my future orders would take a day longer. Who cares if it takes a day longer as long as it actually gets here when it says it will? She said that regional shippers are faster than national. I think the regional shippers just fudge their numbers so they LOOK like they are faster. They are not faster nor are they better. Just better at lying. So often, the package says it was delivered hours and hours before it's ever delivered.

The girl at Diapers.com told me a different story than I heard any of the four times I called OnTrac--how many lies can they tell? Did they lie to her, too? All that I know is that the package finally says that it hasn't been delivered yet and, if they can't deliver it tonight, Diapers.com is going to have them send the package back and they'll send me a new one from a national shipper (I have my fingers crossed for UPS).

Ode to OnTrac (OnTrac sucks)

I can't believe I'm saying this, but OnTrac is even worse than FedEx. I know, crazy. Usually, OnTrac's online tracking system will say that my package was delivered at 5 or 6 or 7:30 PM and my package won't be here until 10 or later at night, sometimes at crazy hours in the morning. But when my package still wasn't here in the morning, I called the customer service. They WOULDN'T change the delivery time to show that my package hadn't arrived yet--they just promised the driver would "come back" (as though he had been here in the first place) and deliver the package by 5PM. Then, I get a package from OnTrac at 11:31 AM. It's not the one I was expecting, so I call to see what is going on with the first package. I was assured the package would be here by 5 and the other one must have gone with another driver.
I wait until 5:27 to call back, even though I got ANOTHER package from OnTrac at 3:30pm. I don't usually get three packages in one day, let alone three from OnTrac. I avoid everyone who isn't UPS if I can help it. But today was a crazy day. So I call back and I'm on the phone with some nice, but totally unhelpful guy. I was super polite and finally asked to talk to a supervisor. But what on earth is up with THREE drivers all coming to my apartment in ONE DAY? Seriously? How ludicrous is that? Why on earth would you not have a set route for a driver to minimize costs?
Anyway, I was finally connected to a supervisor and she wouldn't change the site to show that the package hadn't been delivered yet. Why on earth not? IT HASN'T BEEN DELIVERED YET! The proof, you ask? I don't have the freaking package. That is how I know it hasn't been delivered. I looked all around--maybe it was left at the front of the building, maybe the guy was too lazy to walk up the stairs and left it in the grass. But no. It's just not here. This is ridiculous. Finally, after being placed on hold again, the supervisor said she talked to the driver and he is running "a little bit late" (try a over day--it was supposed to be here by 5pm yesterday), but he'll be here in less than an hour. So he has 45 minutes before I call back and start hating.

Are they really so dishonest that they just lie about their delivery times to make it look better for their company? I can't believe how upset I am. I think it's the lying that really gets to me. If they would just have the correct delivery time on it (when I actually get the package, and not when the driver needs to say he delivered it so his time looks better than everyone else's), I wouldn't care. It's not that big of a deal that it's taking another day to get this package. I don't need anything in it before tomorrow, or even the next day, so who cares? Why lie about it? Just because it's a small company doesn't mean that OnTrac has the right to falsify information to give them an edge over bigger, more established, infinitely superior companies (re: UPS=the best delivery company alive). OnTrac is deceitful and terrible and they always leave my packages baking in the sun instead of knocking on the door (not even the knock and run like FedEx does). A quick knock just to let me know that it's there is not too much to ask. The UPS guy always waits for me to get to the door and then smiles and hands me my package. I like him. He's nice. His substitute is super nice, too. Both of them are some of the most pleasant guys I run into at my apartment. The OnTrac guys? I don't know. I've never seen any one of them more than once, and I usually don't see them at all.

And now he has 40 minutes. And then I am seriously calling. And I won't be pleasant this time.

Cloth Diaper Update

So, we've been using cloth diapers for a couple of weeks now--two or three, I honestly don't remember. And I am, overall, very pleased with them. I'm still working out some little kinks (if the liner peeks out a little at the leg, the diaper will leak--well, the liner gets wet and it seeps all over clothes). I've gotten wet pants from having Rock on my lap, which totally grosses me out. But it's not so bad.
Cleaning up poopy diapers isn't quite as painless as it is with disposables, but it's also not nearly as bad as people seem to think when they think of cloth diapers. A few people asked if I realized that I had to swirl poopy diapers around in the toilet by hand. Gross. I will NEVER do that. I would throw it away before it came to that. I did realize that, if you are using flushable liners, you should also have flushable wipes to go along with them. That has been a lifesaver. Because I don't want to get poop on a reusable wipe that I have to wash. Grody.
The diapers are so cute, and Rock's pants fit so much better with them. I absolutely love them. We are still using disposable diapers at night (Rock pees SO much) and when we go to church (because Michael has to change his diapers there, because I am busy teaching), but nine disposables a week as opposed to the 50+ we were using is so much better.

Aren't they just SO cute? I absolutely love them. They are super bulky, especially with two inserts in them, but they are so cute. And I feel like the snaps will be way harder to get off when Rock starts wanting to take his diaper off and run around naked, as I know he is going to want to do sooner rather than later.
I am slowly switching to hemp inserts. I hate the FuzziBunz ones (which is strange, because I LOVE the FuzziBunz diapers) because they don't fit in the diaper like they should. And they get all stiff and hard to deal with because we don't have a dryer. The Thirsties hemp inserts are amazing. And slightly cheaper than the FuzziBunz, so that is great. [MICHAEL DON'T READ THIS] Getting all hemp inserts is going way over our diaper budget, [MICHAEL MAY CONTINUE READING HERE] but I don't need them all right now, just mostly for naps and if we go out somewhere I don't want to have to change a diaper too frequently.

A great investment, I think. I didn't need much convincing in the first place, but I absolutely love them. I don't think it will be that huge of a deal to completely switch over when we run out of disposables in about a year and a half (I'm hoping to be done with diapers entirely by then, but whatever).

Hi-yah!

Rock is very into karate. Or whatever martial art he is performing now. He just started doing it by himself yesterday. It's so cute.



Just ignore the bad cinematography. Rock wouldn't do it while I was taping and Michael, apparently, sucks at it.

The Rock (Dancing)

Rock has learned to dance. I love it. Everyone should do The Rock.



Oh, no. I deleted the wrong video. This is the second take. He's never as good at the second take. I don't know why I ever try again. The first one, which is now gone forever, was much better. Blah.

Rock is Walking!

Blast off! He's walking around by himself. I was just trying to get a video of him standing up without any help, but I waited a few days, and that was too long, I guess.



I know he's been walking for a whole month now, but it's never too late to watch some of his first steps. It's crazy to think that he used to not walk at all the way he runs around the house now. Bless his heart. He's so cute.