Motherhood: more than clean bottoms, although those are nice too.

It was the night before I was to host a baby shower for my sister-in-law.

Superman had scheduled our tax appointment for that evening. Half an hour before he was supposed to leave he realized that he had misplaced the W2. We tore up the office and file cabinet looking for it. No luck. He called the tax guy and found we could still get our taxes done using the year's worth of pay stubs we had, but couldn't get the money until he had a W2 in his hands. (By the way, did you know it costs $8.50 to get a duplicate W2.)

Anyhow. Superman had just left and I began to change Elaine's diaper. I took it off and then realized the wipes were on the bathroom counter. I dashed to the bathroom, hoping I wouldn't regret leaving a naked baby on the floor. Upon entering the bathroom I saw Val standing on the counter, saying urgently, "Moooom. I pooooooped." Hoping that she meant "I need to poop" instead of "I have already pooped" I swooped her off the counter and landed her in front of the toilet. Too late. She had pooped. Then, as we tried to remove her underwear in the least-messy way possible, the poop fell out and got on her new white sandals.

Cue the bare-bottomed baby, who by this point had probably assumed I had forgotten about her need for a diaper. Elaine toddled in to join us and "help" with the poop situation. Of course this was such an exciting prospect that she peed, which collected in a puddle at her feet, and who doesn't like stomping around in a good puddle? So that's what she did.

So, to recap. My life at approximately 6:50 pm on March 26:

Val (3 years) - squirming on the toilet with poop on her bottom and legs, smearing poop on the seat each time she moved, trying to "help" with vast wads of toilet paper, highly concerned over the unfortunate state of her once-white sandals.

Elaine (1 year) - naked from the waist down, dancing in a puddle of her own pee, delighted to help her big sister with the Putting of Things into the toilet bowl, not particularly concerned about getting poop on her or anywhere else, for that matter.

Me (27 years) - seriously wishing I could take a snapshot of the entire situation and wrap it up with a cute little pink bow and give it to the mother-to-be at tomorrow's baby shower.

Because THAT right THERE is what no one tells you about motherhood. That is, until you experience it yourself and then moms everywhere come out of the woodwork to chuckle and pat you on the back while saying, "Oh me too, honey. Me TOO."

Guinea pig

I love volunteering my kids to be used for science. I would volunteer myself too! I regularly participated in all kinds of studies while I was in college and I'm currently part of a long term study with Kaiser.

Elaine and I made the drive to a university about an hour away (much closer to our old house!) and she participated in a language study. I loved it. Elaine didn't care one way or the other, as long as there were fun new toys to play with. I now have a certificate of participation to put in her baby book if she HAD a baby book.

After that we stopped in at a baby store nearby and I tried on an Ergo again. I think I'm going to go with it. I've wondered if perhaps it's too bulky (but that's mostly why it's so great for long carries) and if I should go with a mei tai instead... but Ergo it is. I can always sew myself a mei tai if I really feel the need for one.

Superman thinks I'm a little crazy to be so into baby carriers and cloth diapers (he gets the cloth diaper thing, but only to a certain point) but I say he should consider himself lucky as I am *not* into expensive jewlery. At least this hobby is practical! Besides, I think he's a little crazy to be so into health/protein/powder/shake stuff. And that stuff is consumable! So we're even. Or, I'm ahead, because at least my stuff has re-sale value! =)

The thing with cloth diapers and baby carriers is you don't know what works best for you until you try several kinds. He's highly doubtful when I say that after this Ergo I won't need a single other baby carrier, but I'm pretty sure it's true. You don't know what you don't know until you do know, and now I do know all I need to know. =)

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Foster care is still very much on my mind, but we're still waiting to proceed. There are things to work out. I sometimes just ache to meet that first child though, wondering what he/she will look like, what his/her personality will be, anxious to learn what his/her specific needs are, if it will BE a boy or girl, how our family will adapt, etc.. Kind of like I would feel if I were pregnant with a third child. The time for foster care is not right now, but I hope it will be sooner than later.

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I am a sucker for journals. Anyone who knows me knows this. I made the unfortunate mistake of buying a ridiculously large (as in, many pages) journal for myself. I'm currently barely half-way through it and my entries begin in 2006. It's slow going.

So! I went out and bought four more! Smaller ones. I intend to use them for me, Superman and each of my girls. I hope to fill them with thoughts, prayers, hopes, struggles and dreams that specifically apply to each of them as I share in their lives. I envision giving them to my girls one day, as evidence of their uniqueness and how I tried over the years to cultivate who they are. It'll be a kind of timeline over which I can point to joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats...

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I really don't want to post this entry. I highly doubt it's interesting or compelling.

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Oh yeah and since my sister said I need more pictures (I tend to agree) here you go. It fits in with all the talk about baby carriers.

I had forgotten how absolutely essential this wrap was for us in those early weeks and months. Elaine had such a rough time (as did I!) and was always happiest when I was holding or wearing her. She's very tuned in to me - even still. I'm pretty sure that she could sense my stress and anxiety and reacted to that, although it never occurred to me at the time. Funny though, she got happier and more easy-going as I got help for depression and in turn became happier and more relaxed.

I feel that Elaine will be a complex, intense, discerning and highly sensitive little girl, woman and lady. Where Val takes after her daddy with her fun, easy-going, laid-back (but OH SO STUBBORN at times) and laughing personality, I'm afraid Elaine is ALL me. And I really do mean "afraid." How do I know how to parent her if I haven't even figured myself out yet?! Better get on that.

Speeding

Why is the speed of toddler so FAST in the unhelpful directions and so s...l...o...w... in the helpful ones?

We stopped cloth diapering for so long I don't think we have anything that will work for Val's booty. Potty training it is, then. Can someone come potty train for me? I don't know why I'm putting it off. She'll probably amaze me and be done in a week or something. Even though most of our house is cold we'll be going back to cloth diapers soon. Diapers are just so dang expensive. Especially with two kids.

I've been looking at gDiapers. The liners are expensive but some friends use prefolds unless they're out on errands or church or something. I've always wondered what you CDing people do for church childcare. I go to church three times a week (wow, how pious am I?) and have always put her in disposables for that, but I wish I didn't have to. Are gDiapers the answer? I'm drawn to the adjustable sizing. There are just three sizes that will fit everything. I'm also a cloth diapering junkie.

In other news, I am sitting down eating Love Potion 31. All is right with the world.

I think I finally figured out how to feed my baby in a way that keeps her tummy happy and gas-free. Good thing, too, since she's two and a half weeks old. She remains the cutest baby EVER. I'll have to post pictures later because she's calling me.

Green water

See that? That's about 20 gallons of water that was used to wash a large load of laundry in my high efficiency washer. There were a few more gallons that belonged to this load but I had to scoop them out to prevent the tub from overflowing. If 20+ gallons is high efficiency what on earth would be the water consumption on a regular washing machine? Just look at all the water that can be used again! Water is precious out here in the land of 106 degree weather, especially now that our state is in a drought and we're being urged to reduce the ammount of water we use.

I've been washing my laundry like this for a while now; I use the gray water to water my back lawn (if you can call it a lawn.) We don't have an elaborate system set up. Our system involves me carting buckets back and forth to the more dead-looking spots on the lawn. I have a hunch that as my pregnancy progresses the lawn will be greener closer to the back door. =)

So far, the grass hasn't seemed to mind this slightly-used water. I think it's happy to get whatever is offered - anything to water down the heavy doses of dog pee. We don't have a vegtable garden (I don't count the two tomato plans which are currently doing their best to convert dog pee into something useful) but if we did I wouldn't use it to water anything I later plan to eat. I do use it on my roses and they are appreciative (do you see a theme here regarding the desparate gratitude of all my plants??)

My laundry soap is biodegradable and environmentally friendly so there's no worries there, except for the possiblity of it altering the pH of my soil over time. To avoid that all I have to do is water with regular water every so often.

Obviously when I wash a load of diapers we hook the water back up to drain down the pipes. That can get to be a bit of a drag. I usually wash diapers every other day and it means that twice per load Superman has to lean the washer forward while I wiggle the drain hose into place. Since our washer backs up to the outside wall I think it would be super nifty for my super husband to install a valve in the ABS pipe drain and connect the drain to a hose bib that I can selectively use to water the lawn with "clean" water. Yeah that would be awesome. Are you listening, super husband? =)

lmno PEE

I'm somewhat irritated at my inability to find a successful nighttime cloth diapering solution for Kem. Each time I try I end up putting her back in a disposable because nothing and I do mean NOTHING can contain that girl's pee. I think if her whole mattress was one big cloth diaper she still might be able to out-pee it's absorbency. She is, without doubt, a 'heavy wetter' as they say in the CD world.

My latest attempt included the famed Aristocrat wool soaker. I've heard nothing but fantastic things about it and so I snatched one up when I had the opportunity to buy it at a 30% discount. It came in the mail the other day (along with my new Kissaluvs and doublers) and so I was excited to give it a try. Here's what she wore to bed last night: Kissaluv fitted with TWO doublers and the Aristocrat soaker over everything. Here's what I woke up to this morning: a tummy-side-down baby completely drenched with pee, through the diaper, the cover, her pajamas, and even the crib sheet and mattress pad. UUUUUGH.

I wouldn't have spent so much on the wool cover if I didn't believe it would be my nighttime savior! Now it'll have to be just another cover in my stash, but during the day it isn't as critical for the cover to have to last as long. Should I just resign myself to the fate of changing a diaper once a night? Stick with disposables? I think our situation is made slightly worse by the fact that she likes to sleep on her tummy, regardless of her position when I put her down. If she were on her back I think the pee would be more efficiently absorbed by more of the bulk of the doublers and diaper.

I think tonight I'll try double or triple prefolds, if such a thing is possible. Hey, on the bright side, if her diaper is so big she can't walk or climb easily then it'll take her longer to climb out of the crib! (I've already caught her trying to sling a leg over the crib rail, the sneak.)

Week one done

Well. My cadet has returned home for the weekend and, oh my lands, he lost roughly ten pounds in the first week. With only two days of PT. He is sore all over, his upper body in particular (I always did say he has legs of steel) and so the lovely aroma of BenGay now permeates throughout the house. I had a stack of things to put up in the attic that I needed his help with but I fear even that would cause his arms to fall off. When we haven't been running errands to pick up various odds and ends he needs for the academy he's been studying. I've made more flashcards. He has two tests on Monday. I am so glad I don't have to know all the info he does before Monday. If they keep up this pace with the tests it'll be like a continuous finals week, except each day you run for miles in the freezing cold dark and do fifty billion push-ups and sit-ups. I shall never become a CHP officer. That is for sure. He showed me how to do all the PT exercises and I think the only one I could complete with proper form was a jumping jack. Sad sad sad.

Kate's new nickname is Super Soaker. After about a month-long hiatus from cloth diapering I've returned to them today. She's completely outgrown the Blue Dogs (they still fit around her but the fit is very poor) and I believe it would take 3 pre-folds to keep her comfortable. I remember thinking that the pre-folds were so thick and absorbent. HA! They look so puny now. Gone are the days of a single pre-fold with a cover! She pees! Where does all the pee come from?! (Don't answer that - I know.) I checked her diaper roughly every hour and have found it wet every time without exception. She took a two-hour nap this afternoon (her only nap today) during which I gave our nighttime diapering system a test drive. She woke up and the diaper was nearly wet to capacity. After two hours! (Looove the Happy Hempy's though.) In my opinion the Thirsties Fab Fitted are pretty fabulous. I have some older Thirsties too, with snap closures and I think I still do prefer snap closures to the velcro. Gotta save my money though, or look for sales. Those things aren't cheap.

I'm interested to see how all this will hold up and work for our future babies. It would be pretty darn rotten indeed if I had some super-skinny kid next, because all my diapers fit best on chubby-thighed and waisted babies. Kate got all Superman's size genes though so I guess it makes sense that the skinny kid with my genes would be next. Naturally.

Got to keep the laundry going and make some attempt at tidying (I hate that word) up the house before I go to bed.

Parenting post

Kate's changing and growing so quickly there's no way I can keep track of all the new things she does. But I'll try.

Until now she's been an anti-snuggler. If she has any strength left in her she will use it to make sure her head is up off my shoulder and she will physically push Superman away and wail in protest if he tries to hug her tightly. Yesterday at my work's holiday party she would tuck her head down onto my shoulder in shyness (but when has she ever been shy?) for a few moments. I loved it!

She is so aware of other small children and babies and will try and engage them with everything she's got. She'll crawl to them, 'talk' to them, wave her arms at them, smile at them. The same thing goes for our dogs and cat, or any one else's pets.  Her whole body is communicating hi! hello! interact with me please!

She is strong and has a very developed sense of balance. Though she isn't walking yet (she is cruising and standing unassisted) she can stand up by herself in the middle of the floor without using anything to pull up on. Just her massive thighs to take her up from a squatting position on her knees. We've tried to encourage her to take a few steps but she isn't convinced that walking is better than crawling yet. So she'll just be standing in the middle of the floor sometimes, randomly waving her arms and yelling. Silly baby.

She loves climbing and crawling through tight or difficult places. I'm always finding her under the desk behind the computer chair and she sometimes gets stuck under the table, trying to crawl over the table legs. Tonight she  climbed on top of a box that was only a little bigger than she was and was very proud to have conquered it. She got down (through a bit of a nose dive) all by herself, too. The camera was in the car or I would have gotten pictures. She looks for challenging things to do and she is so proud of herself when she does something she's never done before. She is SO determined.

Kate has such a sense of humor, too. I'll be doing my thing when I'll hear the baby background noise stop (she's always talking to herself) and so I'll look at her and she's sitting there, waiting for me to notice her. When our eyes meet she giggles happily and then keeps going about her business. I talk with her and she just cracks herself (and me) up! So full of personality, that one!

As far as sleeping goes, I've been playing it by ear, literally! I hear her cry and then do whatever I sense to be the thing to do. Sometimes it means letting her cry for five minutes (she's gone back to sleep a few times) and other times I just know I need to go in to check on her. Sometimes I find a dirty diaper and sometimes I just hold her for a while and return her to the crib and that seems to be all she needed. Tonight she rested her head on my shoulder and patted my arm with her hand! Shocking! Definitely worth the trip in to her room! Other times I nurse. I have let her cry and/or fuss for an hour before, too. It's not a very consistent approach but it seems to work for us. I have been consistent about meal times and wake up and sleep times and she's responded very well to that. We're still working on a predictable nap time, though.

The past few days have been rough due to a pretty awful diaper rash that just wasn't going away completely. The poor girl would cry every time she peed and pooped and just seemed miserable no matter what I tried. It seemed to get better and worse and better again so I took her in to the doctor. Unfortunately we didn't get to see our pediatrician but we did get a prescription for some anti-fungal/corticosteroid cream. Her bottom was so red and raw and this morning she screamed when I cleaned her up after a poopy diaper. It was awful. I wish it didn't have the steroids but the cream is helping SO much. Kate's back to her cheerful little self though the rash isn't gone yet. The doctor said she thought it was allergies (why did she prescribe the anti-fungal cream then!?) but I'm pretty sure it's a yeast infection, poor baby. I've searched various online forums and everything we're experiencing seems to match up to some other cloth diapering people's experiences. I believe the yeast was living in the cloth diapers which is why the rash seemed to improve while she was in disposables but eventually it came back even with her in disposables all the time. I've put the cloth diapers through a yeast-killing regime (I haven't boiled them but I will if I have to!) and she'll be back in cloth as soon as the rash is completely gone. If she is allergic to something in the disposable diapers (although why would it suddenly surface now?) there's nothing nicer on a sensitive bottom than plain old soft cloth.

CD

Why are all cloth diaper stores online? I have just about had it with reading reviews and product descriptions while trying to research two or three simple items. I just want to touch, feel and see the thing in person before I buy! It's too much hassle to have it shipped, decide I don't like it and ship it back. I know I'm too lazy to ship something back if I'm not thrilled with it. I just keep it and make it work. I hope that brick-and-mortar cloth diaper stores start making appearances soon.

I am also sick and tired of trying to keep all the many different brands and their nuances straight in my head. Some of the brand names are so ridiculous sounding, too. I'd like to expand my selection of fitted diapers because Kate's little booty isn't so little in the Blue-Dog's any more. I'm thinking of the Thirsties Fab Fitted (fun colors, I know they fit Kate well, a little more than I want to pay), Kissaluvs (homegrown in TX, more reasonable price) or Snug-to-Fit (best price, all cotton, ONE size). We can get by with what we have until she's potty trained but 6 or 12 more fitted diapers would be super cool. I'm also looking for some good-quality doublers that I can line a fitted diaper with for a nighttime diapering solution as I would really like to stop using disposables overnight.

Some of you are like, holy cow $10 for one diaper!?! Keep in mind what I just wrote though - we'll be good until she's potty trained. And I'll be able to use these on my next baby as well! So far I've spent three or four hundred dollars for our diaper collection (starting shortly after birth.) Some people estimate that disposable diapers would cost a couple thousand dollars from birth to potty training. I use cloth diapers partly for price and partly for the environment. It's certainly not for everyone but I enjoy it (yes! enjoy!) =)

Speaking of which. I absolutely love Charlie's Soap. I had no idea how many additives and brighteners and dyes and stuff were in even my Kirkland liquid laundry detergent (Consumer Reports recommended!) I originally got Charlie's Soap for use with my diapers but now I use it for all our laundry. CS rinses completely clean, no residue. I used to think, well yeah, shouldn't all detergents do that!?! But they most certainly do NOT. The diapers were coming through smelling stale and sour and without fabric softener our clothes wouldn't smell so lovely either. (Fabric softener on diapers is bad.) Eventually the residue build-up on the diapers will make them less absorbent, not to mention the icky smell.

Here's a size comparison:

img_8458.jpg

Charlie's Soap is half the size with 32 more loads worth of detergent! It only takes 1/8th of a cup of liquid CS to clean a large load of laundry - it's that effective. My diapers and other laundry come through the wash smelling plain old CLEAN and no fabric softener is necessary any more. Yay! I love great products!

Mama's little heart-attack giver

I unloaded the dishwasher while Kate crawled around on the kitchen floor banging on various things. (Currently her favorite thing to bang on is the side of the oven.) I turned around for just a few seconds to put some bowls and cups away and when I turned back around this is what I saw:

(Extra bulky baby booty brought to you by pre-fold cloth diapers.)

Since when can she do this!?! Where do I sign up to implant eyes in the back of my head? Clearly, that is something I lack. I thought all mothers come by it automatically.

My mother's generation of parents probably would have whisked right over and plopped the baby back down to safety. What do I do? Grab for my camera that is rarely ever more than an arm's reach away, of course. THEN put the baby back on the floor.

So much for NaBloPoMo

I had two three-hour stretches of sleep last night so I feel moderately revived. Yahoo!

I don't resent Kate for her sleeping patterns and I've come to decide that I honestly don't want to change anything. I think I've experimented with enough sleep methods for now, perhaps we'll have another go round later on, but I'm happy with where we're at. The reason she's waking up is because she's teething, not because she's bored or hungry. (A few weeks ago I wasn't so sure, but now I am.) I would never want to let her cry it out when it's obvious she's uncomfortable (sore gums/runny nose.) It just so happens that nursing is comforting and helps get her mind off the sore gums long enough for her to fall back asleep. Five years from now I'll miss getting up and snuggling with her in a sleepy pile on the couch. I know this won't last forever so I'm 'enjoying' it as much as I can. It is kind of cool to be the only one in the whole world with the power to calm her. We'll see how long that lasts.

Today was rough for her. Sleeping on her back is impossible. I think the snot runs down her throat and that combined with a pacifier probably makes her feel like she's suffocating. This morning she rolled onto her tummy right after I put her down and tonight I encouraged her to sleep on her side and that seemed to work well. She's drooling buckets and spends lots of time with her mouth open slightly. I can practically feel her throbbing gums just looking at her. I'm thinking a top tooth is next but it's hard to tell. Any time I try to feel I get chomped by the two bottom teeth. Anything that can be chewed, is. She likes chewing different textures more than she likes chewing on cold teething toys.

I showed this to Superman and he scoffed at the apparent complication of its design. He said he could do that himself for much less money. Bring it, I say! This will be the first step in my campaign to keep the cloth diapers stain free. Not sure of the subsequent steps yet.

During my 20 hours of work I listen to all kinds of podcasts and every time I come across something that is blog-worthy and/or something I want to look into later, I jot a quick note onto my sticky pad and deposit it into my pocket. Eventually all the notes make it into my purse. The bottom of my purse is a sea of sticky notes, so I'm behind. For your sakes I hope each of them contains super-interesting blog posting material.

Do not want.

Garrrrrgh. I do not want to be a mommy blogger. Do not want. But, as that seems to be all that goes on in my life that I can blog about...

Kate seemed to enjoy her first taste of rice cereal today. I'm looking forward to introducing her to all kinds of other yummy foods like squash and green beans and apples and pears. I absolutely do not want to feed her peas because I absolutely do not care for peas myself. Biased some? Yes. The thought of feeding her spoonfuls of pureed peas makes me want to gag. Superman loves peas so I shall pass that vegetable off onto him. However, I can say for a fact that my children won't be served peas very often. I wonder if this will result in them not liking peas? My own mother didn't (doesn't?) like pickles and so I never cared for them either. I can't ever remember being served a pickle as a child. I only trained myself to like them when I was in college because the BLT sandwich I was so fond of ordering came with a pickle and I didn't like to waste it. I started by taking just one bite and throwing away the rest until I was able to eat the whole thing and now pickles are ok, I guess. They remind me of BC Caverns.

I don't know why I'm still awake. Kate's sleeping schedule (she doesn't have one) is generally such that when I do go to bed at the same time she does we're both up a few hours later. If I stay up and get some stuff done in anticipation of not being able to go to bed for a few more hours, well then she's sleeping soundly and I'm up late wandering around waiting for her to wake up.

Kate is growing so quickly. It seems like she gets better at communicating every day (the changing table is torture - TORTURE, I tell you!) and better and better at crawling and pulling up on things. She's been getting a good number of bumps and bonks as she figures out just how to do certain things. Superman and I tend not to "rescue" her if she gets herself into a position she doesn't want to be in. Sometimes she'll be on all fours (hands and feet [not knees]) with her butt in the air and start fussing as if to say, "ok now what!? Isn't something supposed to happen??" We let her figure it out.

Now that we're having to actually clothe her (i.e. summer has ended) it's more of a hassle to cloth diaper. They're bulky and she practically has to have two separate lines of clothing. She wears one set of clothes with disposable diapers (to church and childcare while I'm at work) and the other set with cloth diapers. Superman says there should be a cloth diaper (or diaper cover) line that says "does this diaper make my butt look big?" across the back. I think it's a great idea. My blue dog fitteds aren't that bad as far as bulkiness goes, though, and so I've been using them almost exclusively. I say prefolds are for summer. I've also had to start using my dryer again, which is something I've rarely done with the diapers thus far. I feel the sun does a much better job at killing off any yucky bacteria that may be harbored deep in the thick absorbent (fitted) cloth diaper core. Tired of diaper talk yet? Too bad! My blog. I am in the market for flushable (biodegradable) diaper liners. Suggestions? Also, I'd like to start cloth diapering overnight which probably means getting a wool cover. So, Tara, what do you use? (You don't have to answer here... we'll talk soon!) Anyone else out there use cloth?

It's been a long time since Kate has slept "through the night" like she used to. I'm amazed at how productive I can be on no more than 3-4 hours of sleep at a time for weeks on end. One of my friends has a 15 month old and she told me the other day that he slept from 7pm to 9am and that's only slightly longer than usual. Holy cow. If I got that much sleep... I don't know. That pretty much sounds like the jackpot to me right now.

I want to blog about other things. But all you people who know me in real life are watching. And you might look at me funny the next time I see you. How much of my internal struggles do I feel comfortable sharing (and would you feel comfortable reading), anyhow? Where's the line? I've always said to write as if anyone in the whole world would read it so I suppose that's what I'll stick to. Back to the old pen and paper for some things, perhaps, but that way always was too slow.

Don’t know why the thumbnail isn’t working.

Booty

Diapers are so expensive! A package of Huggies (even with a coupon for $2 off) that would last only one week costs about the same as one super duper cloth diaper and quite a bit more than the regular old cloth diapers. I do believe we will be moving towards all-cloth very soon. Especially at the rate she goes through diapers.