A tooth at the Halloween party.

October 21, El Cerrito.

A whirlwind of a day, a big milestone and a disturbing discovery, and Dylan falls asleep by himself on the couch next to me at 8:30 PM.
Today I decided to switch back to the cloth diapers I had left behind after Dylan became Mr. Wigglish. I had used them again for a time after Nicolas was born and before I joined the circus, but ended up capitulating, vaguely ashamed of myself; two babies, no washer and dryer and nowhere to hang clothes to dry, water a scarce and precious commodity were too much to handle.
And then today I read a disturbing article on all the chemicals we come in contact with in our every day life and the efforts of the U.S. administration to derail legislation by the European Union to ban most of them and tightly control the others. The article opened with a list of the chemicals used in baby stuff, from bottles to diapers. I think I must have blanched, sitting there in the trendy bookstore cafe sipping my hot chocolate for what I thought would be a peaceful reprieve from the usual hustle of the day. The article, by Mark Shapiro, is in this week's Harper's magazine; it is vastly scarier than the worst Halloween movie Hollywood could ever conjure up.
There was a Halloween party tonight at Playland, so I dressed Peanut up in his pumpkin baby suit, Dylan in his skeleton sweater, put on my flamingo outfit (all thanks to Beverly, but more on that story later) and out we trotted across the parking lot. It was there that I discovered Nicolas' first tooth.