New Page

I posted Travis’s birth story up there at the top next to About.

It’s late, but…

I made another one of those montage thingys!

Elyse was feeling left out…

Look what I made!

A video montage. It was so fun!

You can view it here.

The song I chose was “At Last” by Etta James. I had originally wanted that song to be played at my reception when Jeff and I got married, but we got married in Vegas (stupid Navy). I’m glad to have found a suitable alternative way to use it because I think it’s a great song!

My baby hates me

I can only deduce this based on the clear evidence.

When I nurse him, his little fingers pinch my skin. I have the bruises to prove it. He waves his hand back and forth slapping me in the process. A few (dozen) times of this in the same spot leaves a red mark after a while. His favorite thing to do when I’m rocking him to sleep is to suck on his fingers like this

then take the slobbery hand and rub it all over my face. He opens his mouth and tries to put my chin in his mouth…or my nose…or my hand. That’s when I get the Full Slobber Effect. Then he grabs my face and pushes his head right into to my face, sort of like he’s trying make his skull part of mine. It might sound fun, but it’s really not. He reaches up with a smile and rips my glasses off of my face. If I happen to be naked, he uses my belly button as a step to climb me (ouch!). This morning he woke up at about 6am. Normally this isn’t a huge deal, but last night he decided he would wake up about 2 hours after I had so carefully put him down to sleep and stay awake for 5 hours. No amount of rocking, nursing, pacing, driving around, or rubbing his back worked to get him back to sleep. I was literally driven to tears from the exhaustion and frustration of it all. This morning when he woke up he was babbling away in what I can only guess is baby speak for “Ha Ha! I kept you up all night AND I made you get up early too! I rock!”

So if someone did all of these things to you, wouldn’t you start to get the impression that they didn’t like you very much after a while?

Happy Fluff Day to me!

Yesterday I received a bunch of packages in the mail bearing the fruits of my online shopping labor. It was a bit like Christmas in September.

Here’s what I got:

Dyed Prefolds

Tie Dye set

I’m going to paint something on these, but I’m not sure what exactly yet.

From Gramma Paula, a M&M shirt in our favorite color!

And today I got the Babylegs that I ordered.

Quite dashing aren’t they?

Hi I’m Janelle and I have a diaper problem

No not that kind of diaper problem…

My problem is I can’t stop buying them. Unless you have cloth diapered, you won’t understand why this would be a problem. It’s not enough to just diaper your baby’s butt. Of course you could, and it would be cheap and work well, but it’s infinitely more FUN to not just diaper your baby, but have very cute diapers and covers to go over them.

We mainly use prefold diapers, which are sort of a rectangle shape with extra material sewn into the center to make them more absorbent. They are one of the cheapest and versatile ways to cloth diaper. And you don’t have to use pins (although I choose to) and plastic pants anymore. Cloth diapering has advanced WAY beyond that.  If you don’t want to use prefolds, you can use fitteds, which are just like a regular disposable diaper, except they close with snaps or velcro. Unlike prefolds, they have elastic legs to keep everything contained. Then just put a wool cover over the top and you’re set.

WOOL? I hear you asking…  Yes! Wool doesn’t have to be itchy and scratchy like the sweater your mom made you wear in cold weather when you were a kid.  There’s tons of different types of wool and wool fabric that takes away the prickliness of wool and is soft enough to use as a pillow (if you really want to use a diaper cover as a pillow…). Wool has a naturally occurring component in it called lanolin that makes it waterproof. That’s how sheep stay dry in the rain!  As you use the wool product, the lanolin gets worn away and you simply wash it and re-lanolize it with lanolin you buy at the store. Also, wool has a sort of “self cleaning” property to it. The fibers trap any moisture and let it evaporate instead of holding it close to the baby’s skin. This makes it very breathable (good for getting rid of diaper rash) and cool.  I generally only wash my wool covers if they get poo on them.

But what if you don’t want to be bothered with all of that? NO problem. You can use an All In One diaper or a Pocket diaper. All In One diapers function exactly the same as a disposable. There’s an absorbent layer (free of the chemical gel stuff used in disposables…yuck) that is sewn onto a waterproof layer that’s usually made of PolyUrethane Laminate (PUL) and the whole thing closes with snaps or velcro. You simply wash it after using it instead of throwing it away. Pockets are similar, but instead of coming with an absorbent layer, they have a pouch or “pocket” that you can put your own absorbent material in. You can use prefold diapers, microfiber towels, or buy special inserts that fit into them. It’s very customizable.

Having said all of that, it really seems like you spend a lot of money cloth diapering. You can. You definitely can spend some bank on cloth diapers, but you don’t have to. Our initial stash of diapers cost less than $200 and they lasted for 4 months. I could have stretched it out longer if I would have invested in more doublers (inserts that you stick into the diaper to give it more absorbency…like for overnight or naps).  I’ve spent about that much since then upgrading sizes and replacing a few things that I didn’t like.  Here’s the best part about cloth though…when I go to have another baby I will be able to use everything over again because I won’t have thrown anything away. The things I replaced were sold to other people who wanted them (for about 80% of the price of what they were brand new). There’s just a ton of good things about cloth diapering and I have loved it. It’s about a thousand times easier than I thought it would be. I even love doing the laundry (which for me is saying something)!

Speaking of…going to go fold me some diapers…

Wanna buy me something?

For the benefit of anyone that I know In Real Life that might be wondering what to get me for Christmas (that list is woefully short unfortunately) I will list a few things that I’ve had my eye on.

• A pro subscription to Flickr Thanks Mom!
• A Visa gift card (not sure if you have to be a NFCU member to buy, but I am a member so I can use it)
• Northern Essence gift certificate (I also have a gift registry there…it’s where I buy my wool wash)
• American Airline gift card
• Lord Of The Rings Online game card
• Babylegs technically for Travis…in Spice, Funky Cow, Curry, Mossy, or Olive (use code MOMMIESSTYLE)
• Gypsy Mama Wrap (Isis fabric)
• Fabric shaver (yes really)
• Gift cert. to goodmama.com (got some really nice dipes from here)

So there are a few things to get you started…whoever “you” are. =)

Teething sucks

My baby is not feeling that great lately. He’s got 2 teeth on the bottom already and now the top 2 seem to be trying to make their appearance. It’s gotta be miserable. Last night he woke up a couple of hours after we put him down and wouldn’t go back to sleep for another two hours. Most of that time was spent with him crying in my ear. It might have been aggravated because he didn’t take an afternoon nap…and that’s not because I wasn’t trying. I tried for an hour to get him to go to sleep and he just was fussy fussy. That plus waking up 4 hours later to eat plus waking up 2 hours later equals very tired mommy. I had started drinking coffee to help me wake up a bit in the morning, but of course it makes him more fussy so that’s out.

He’s had ongoing issues with food as well, throwing up an entire meal.  All of this adds up to me not being able to get much of my daily computer fix (selfish, yes but I need my me time). I use the computer more than I watch tv.

I finally broke down and gave him some Tylenol as the cold teething ring wasn’t cutting it anymore.

He seems to be ok now though

Fluffy Pop Tart mail

My daughter went to get the mail the other day and I heard her say “Cool, someone sent us Pop Tarts!”. She brought down this…

I think it’s brilliant! If I bought Pop Tarts, I would definitely start using the box to send things. It beats spending money on those stupid mailing package things that I have to go buy every time I want to send something.

Anyway, inside it was this…

It’s a medium Bummi’s Super Whisper Wrap (I have no idea why it’s called that…it certainly doesn’t make him whisper) that I got from the For Sale Or Trade forum at Diaper Swappers . Yes, it’s USED diaper paraphernalia…I never thought I would do it, but I’ve had very few problems so far. It’s a diaper cover made out of PolyUrethane Laminate (PUL) which is a waterproof material that keeps his diaper from leaking onto his clothes or whatever he might be sitting on (like my lap).  Since we use mostly prefold diapers, this is an absolute necessity…for the most part. Most of you probably have no clue what I’m talking about. I’ll have to make an “all about cloth diapering” post sometime soon. It’s really not as icky as most people think. I know I was surprised by how easy it actually is. People always ask me “But what do you do when he poops”. Duh! What do all mothers do any time their baby poops? They clean it up and get on with life. The only difference here is that people who use disposable diapers throw their baby’s poop into our landfill where it will seep into our ground water, while I  wash our diapers and the poo goes the same places everyone else’s goes…in the sewer.  See, it’s better for everyone!

I <3 the UPS man

Because he brought me this!

It’s cowtastic.

Even the box is funky.

We got it cheap too. This is a Britax Marathon and it usually goes for about $240-270 and we got it for $200 on sale  from the NEX. It’s one of the very few things that I like about Jeff being in the Navy…good sales and no sales tax.