UPDATES: Chapstick addiction, potty-training, and homemade laundry detergent

My poor chapped lips. I'm not kidding. I accidentally licked my lips on and off one day last weekend (I don't even know why...perhaps it was particularly dry - ?); this sent me into a downward spiral a cracked lower lip for an entire week. My lower lip is STILL cracked and has been extremely painful if/when it gets bumped. My predictions of being back to normal by this week completely plummeted from the sky, like I dying swan. But not that gracefully. I have no predictions now; maybe I'll never return to normal. My lips probably don't even know what normal is. I've been a compulsive chapstick user for 10-15 years now. Accursed Bonnie Bell got me started as a teen and that was even before the glamour of sparkles came on the market.

[Crap. I can't believe I'm old enough to say that. I'll be 30 years old this next Saturday, BTW.]

Starbeans has new underwear! He is so excited about them that the last thing he said as he drifted off to sleep last night was, "New underwear..." Unfortunately, he doesn't understand the concept and 1) pooped in his first pair, and 2) peed in the second pair. There is a third pair in the pack, but by then I'd given up for the day and let him run around bare again. At least then he remembers to use his potty chair, and he did: both pooping and peeing in it this evening. My grandparents are here visiting for the weekend and I didn't have the time or ability to focus on him to the extent he needed for his first day in big boy underpants. But still...we're getting somewhere. He sits down and uses his potty chair for almost every BM and potty, whether anyone is in the room or not. And he is excited about his new underwear, so much so that he has an extended dance session every time he has had a pair on. It's so cute.

The homemade laundry detergent works like a charm. Squeeze washed two loads today, both smelling fresh and clean; only a tablespoon was used each time, mind you. I am very pleased. I wish I would have gotten on the ball earlier! I need to Hark the Herald Angels and get the word out to my cronies: it is just that easy. If not for the sake of going green, maybe this will entice you: the blog I got the recipe from estimated that with the homemade laundry detergent, she is spending .12 cents a load. With a conventional detergent, it was .43 cents a load. That is a considerable difference for 10-15 minutes of labor, what...once a month? A couple times a month? Not to mention the ease on our natural surroundings. Phosphate free!