Posey — 6 months old

May 19, 2013 By 2 Comments

Posey at 6 months

Little flower,

You’ve reached the middle mark of your first year of life. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it was winter almost that entire time. But seemingly out of nowhere spring arrived, and with it, it seems you’ve grown overnight. You’re filling out, sitting up, and watching us when we eat, with a look in your eye not unlike the one Eller has when Harry eats.

You’ve hit two big milestones in just the past day. You’re now sitting unassisted for a few seconds at a time (at least long enough for me to snap some frames!) and last night you slept all the way till 7 am this morning! Thank you for that.

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It might be because you now are rolling onto your stomach in the night. This makes me nervous, of course, but if it results in sleeping all night, I’ll get over it.

You are the smiliest, happiest baby. I went out of town this month (twice!), and when I got back home you just beamed at me. It was a pretty great feeling.

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Goodness gracious girl, we just love you so much.

We had dinner with your extended birth family earlier this month, and as they passed you around the table, fighting over whose turn it was to hold you next, I couldn’t get over the wonderful reality of how many people love you so. I hope it settles into your bones so that you walk with it every day of your life.

Forever,

Mama

 
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Posey — Five Months Old

April 19, 2013 By 3 Comments

IMG_3471blogPosey Girl, You are five months old today!

Oh, what a joy you are.

You are a talkative little thing. I can see you now as a tween, up in your room hologramming with your friends (or whatever crazy communication thing we’ll have a decade from now).

This morning at about 3 am, you awoke in the cosleeper next to me and started jabbering away. I fixed a bottle and pulled you in next to me. You love to hold hands as you eat, so you reached up for my fingers and grabbed on tight.

About two weeks ago I went out jean shopping with some girlfriends, and your daddy took that as his opportunity to put you down for the night in your crib. I was stunned when he texted me a picture of you snoozing away in there. Previously, I’d either worn you or held you until it was grown-up bedtime, and I have to admit I have mixed feelings about this new development. Such is motherhood.

When it’s my night (your daddy and I take turns), I’ll bring you into our room after your first wake up. Despite the fact that you’d sleep 8-9 straight hours in the first few months of your life, these days you wake up at least two times a night. Oh honey, we’re tired.

You’re rolling every which way these days and scooting on your back too. If I put you on the floor, you’ll end up in a totally new spot facing a new direction within minutes. When you roll back to tummy, you still usually trap an arm underneath you, but you are all the way over. So it counts.

If you’re laying on the floor and your brother is around, you will crane your neck and move every which way to get him in your sights. You greet all of us with smiles and bright eyes, but especially for him. You’re also endlessly patient when he pats your head and pokes you and “kisses” you by pressing his forehead to yours.

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I’m much more laid back about things with you than I was when Harry was your age. If you miss a nap, eh. If the TV is on and you can see it? Meh. If you’re in disposables sometimes, oh well.

It’s basically been winter for your entire life, which is to say, it’s been a long winter. A long, long winter.

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Some scary stuff happened in the world this week.  Sometimes I wish I could put you and Harry in a bunker and keep you safe forever, but there’s no such thing. So instead I pray that you will seek Jesus as your strongtower; that an unshakable faith will take root in you that nothing will ever be able to loosen.

May your life be a light that drives out darkness; a life lit from the inside by the Light who saves.

Love always,

Mama

 
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Posey at 4 Months Old

March 19, 2013 By 3 Comments

Posey girl,

Somehow I blinked and you’re 4 months old. Now that I’ve done this once before, I know just how very soon you’re going to be sitting on your own, then crawling, then walking, then talking. Babyhood is a blip.

I went back to work this month, and you started at the same daycare center as your brother. Every morning we drop you off, and then I take him to his room. In the evenings we reverse our route, and the first thing he says after I walk into his room (after “hi mama!”), is “Baby?”

All the teachers talk about how smiley and happy you are; one of the other mothers even stopped me one day to remark on your gummy grins. You are a happy happy happy baby.

You are using your voice often lately, cooing and talking and blowing bubbles. (Sometimes even, unfortunately, at 3 am.) My favorite development this month, however, is that you found your laugh. I can really get you giggling sometimes, (usually by tickling your cheek or under your chin), and it’s the best sound. Oh, I love it.

One of my favorite times of day is when we wind down for the night. After Harry eats dinner, we all go upstairs. I lay you on a blanket on the floor in his room and after his bath he comes in to lay next to you. He loves to pat your head and hold your hand and sing “Ring Around the Rosie.” This is usually about the time your daddy gets home, so we hang out in Harry’s room as a family. We read books and talk and say prayers. Once we say goodnight to him, I wrap you and you sleep on me till it’s time for your daddy and me to go to bed too. I lay you down next to me in the cosleeper, and you’re out.

We talk every once in awhile about putting you in your crib, but we’re not super motivated. I’m trying to treasure this time when you’ll sleep on me and you’re still small enough to wrap up tight.

I’m much more laid back about your sleep than I was when your brother was this age. (There are benefits to being the second baby!) You nap terribly at daycare; it would really be more accurate to call them “naps.” But you’re sleeping well at night, and you take long naps on the days we’re together, so I figure you’ll sort it out eventually.

We’re so grateful that you’re a part of our family, Posey. It seems like we were always waiting for you to join us. You round us out and fill in cracks we didn’t even know were there.

We love you little flower,

Your Mama

PS: Yes, I missed two monthly updates. Some day you may have a toddler and an infant at the same time, and you’ll forgive me.

 
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snowed in, a heart condition

March 8, 2013 By 10 Comments

It’s hard being a working mom. You want to know why? Because it’s hard being a mom.

Yesterday on my whole drive home from work, I thought about my kids and how I couldn’t wait to get to them. To see Harry and talk with him and to snuggle Posey.

Then as I was packing up Posey’s stuff (why so much stuff, babies?), Harry snuck into the play area, and threw the fit of all fits when it was time to go. Jelly legs, throwing toys, scream crying. The whole nine.

I had to ask myself: was I really just waxing poetically in my heart about this child? Uff da.

Mothering is high highs and low lows and mundane monotony.

It’s picking up the toys. Again.

It’s running the same load of laundry over and over and over.

It’s making bottles washing bottles making bottles.

It’s doing the best we can, even when our best doesn’t feel nearly good enough.

The older he gets, the more important it all feels. With babies, it maybe isn’t easier, but it’s simpler. For Posey, a bottle and some snuggles and smiles, she’s all set. I wrap her to my chest, feel her warm breath on my neck, and know all her needs are met. She feels my heart beating; knows I love her.

But this toddler, he is growing up faster than I can keep up. Am I teaching him enough? Does he know how much I love him? Is it enough?

When he tells me no; when he throws his toys; when he hits the dogs or screams at poor Eller just for being near him; when he runs away from me in the store; those are the moments I feel wide eyed in fear. Am I doing it right? Will he remember, please Lord don’t let him remember, when I mess it all up terribly? When I lose my patience, when I wrench the toy from his hands, when I am stuck under the baby and can’t correct him properly, will those moments outshine when I do manage to get it right?

Empathy doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m more of a well-you-made-your-bed, pull-yourself-up kind of person. My sense of justice is much stronger than my sense of mercy. God asks us act justly, but to love mercy. To have mercy be the beat of our hearts.

Motherhood is slowly drawing it out of me, but no one ever said sanctification would come quickly. It’s been inch by inch.

“You’re having a hard time,” I say. “I know it’s hard,” I tell him. It’s hard to be 2, son, I know. Because it’s hard to be alive.

This world is scary. It’s dangerous. The way our feelings spring up in us can feel too big and sometimes it seems like the only thing that can satiate our raging hearts is to scream and throw and hit and yell and satisfy our flesh.

But that is the way to a hard heart. That is the way to stop feeling anything at all. That is the way to death.

Keep my heart open, God. Teach me so that I can teach them. Draw me close to You so that I can point them to You by the way I mother them.

Give me a heart like Yours, God, to love them. Help me.

 
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Adventures in Cloth Diapering: Beating the Yeast Beast And Other Updates

March 4, 2013 By 23 Comments

We’ve been cloth diapering for almost 28 months now, and I still love it as much as ever. What works for our family has morphed and changed as Harry grew and as we added a second fluffy bum to our family, but cloth diapers remain the right choice for us.

So here are a few things we’ve learned along the way, from our home to yours …

Fighting a Yeast Rash

Oh, the rash. THE RASH. Last year about this time, Harry got a rash that would not go away. Would not.

Consider yourself lucky I don’t have your number in my phone and know that you don’t squick easily, or you, like my friend Maria, might’ve gotten many a (cropped) picture of a rashy bottom via text message.

At his 15 month appointment, the ped prescribed Poop Goop, which did exactly nothing.

Finally I started putting straight Lotrimin on it and covering that with purple Desitin. (ONLY the purple. The blue tube is worthless and reeks of perfume.)

Of course Desitin is not CD safe, so he was in sposies a lot during this time. I would occasionally use fleece liners, but Desitin is messy and it wasn’t worth the hassle of trying to get it off my covers.

I’d get it mostly cleared up, but every time I put him back in cloth, it came back.

What eventually worked was a combination of things.

For his bottom:

1. Lotrimin + purple Desitin to get rid of the yeast and protect his bottom

2. Lots and lots of diaper free time. (There were many a clean up in this time period.)

3. Baking soda baths.

4. Once the rash was mostly gone, I used CJ’s BUTTer slathered all over him, after I sprayed him with CJ’s Spritz o BUTTer Plus, which is mostly coconut oil and sesame oil. (Coconut oil is naturally anti-fungal, and is a good preventative, but for us was never strong enough to clear up the rash on its own.) This spray is AWESOME, and I always make sure we have some. If either kid starts to look even a BIT rashy, I spray them and it’s gone right away.

For the diapers:

1. I washed all microfiber and our bumGenius covers with bleach. Everything else I used Grapefruit Seed Extract. 20 drops in a rinse cycle and then rinsed rinsed rinsed.

If you have yeast, you have to get rid of it on the skin and in the diapers, otherwise it’s just a cycle.

It was a brutal battle, but we finally won it, and Harry hasn’t had anywhere close as icky a rash since. WHEW.

Daycare Diapers

Harry wears disposables to daycare now, and has for several months. I noticed they weren’t sitting him on the potty on days he wore cloth, so I stopped sending them. He’s not potty trained, not by any stretch, but he does sit on the potty three to four times a day at daycare now. It’s a worthwhile trade off.

Now that Posey is at daycare, I simply send a clean wetbag + four or five CDs and that’s that.

The only slight annoyance factor with this is that I have to unstuff diapers that have been sitting in a wet bag, and I always have to double check laundry tabs on APLIX dipes. (Another reason I’m moving toward all snaps.)

Storage Update + Nighttime Options

When we moved Harry out of the nursery, all his diapers came with him. I added some 3 Sprouts bins to his bookcase to store them.

I keep all his nighttime diapers in one, and all the other CDs in another. (Which are few now that I’ve handed many of them down to Posey.)

For nighttime, I use a bumGenius 4.0 cover stuffed with a large prefold and two Hemp Babies inserts.

It’s enough to get him through about 12 hours of sleeping. It’s not fail safe (but used to be). But it works more often than not.

Our Laundry Routine

Now that Posey’s in daycare too (Harry was still going two days a week during my leave), I have to make sure I have a clean wet bag each day M-Th. So I’m doing diaper laundry on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. At least that was my plan, but then I forgot the wet bag at daycare on Tuesday, ruining my whole plan. But that’s the goal.

I debated whether or not to wash their diapers together, because Harry’s are on a level all their own, but it seemed like a lot of redundant work to wash them separately.

I hang a wet bag in the kids’ bathroom and put Harry’s diapers in there. This is handy too, as once a baby starts solids, their poopy diapers need to be cleaned off before washing. We have a bumGenius sprayer, and I wouldn’t CD without it. (Diapers from babies who only consume formula or breastmilk can go straight into your washer.)

Posey’s dipes go either in a wet bag I keep downstairs for on-the-fly changes or in the pail in her room.

When it’s time to wash, I dump in Harry’s diapers and rinse them first. Then I add Posey’s.

Our Cloth Diaper Wash Routine:

1. Harry’s diapers on a cold rinse

2. I add Posey’s diapers & do another cold rinse.

3. Delicate* cycle with warm water + extra rinse with 1 Tablespoon of Tide powder

4. Whitest Whites cycle + extra rinse with 1 Tablespoon Rockin’ Green

5. I then pull out all the wet bags plus any covers that are PUL only. I do another rinse. I make sure to check during this rinse cycle to see if there are any bubbles. If there are, I do another rinse.

It’s a lot of rinsing, and I have to wash all our other loads on non-CD days, but it works and if I remember to switch between cycles as soon as they end, I can complete it on a work night.

*In HE front loaders, the Delicate Cycle typically uses the most water. Water is KEY to getting clean diapers. Once I figured this out, stinkies were history.

Wash routines are dependent on a lot of factors: type of washer, type of water, types of diapers. Cotton is easiest to get clean; mircofiber the hardest. We have an HE front loader and hard water, but we have a softener. It’s best to stick to about a dozen diapers in a load, and to not go more than three days between washing, but sometimes life happens and you’re washing a whole bunch and some are four days old. These are the times I just rinse a lot on the front and back ends.

New Diapers We Like

We’re mostly using our existing stash, but I have added a few new fun options. First thing I did was pick up a new GroVia cover & Rumparooz pocket diaper in girly patterns. I also picked up a Flip cover, and really like it. They work great with prefolds.

I also added two of the new bumGenius styles to our stash: their organic Elemental and the Freetime. They’re both one-size All in One diapers, and I really like them.

This is the Freetime:

They’re both huge improvements from their 3.0 AIOs, which are impossible to get clean. We still have a few in our stash, but as soon as she starts solids, I’ll retire them.

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t buy any APLIX diapers. They stick to each other, they lose their stick over time, and there’s nothing worse than having to try to fasten laundry tabs on a poop-covered diaper that’s been in a wet bag all day. My husband hates snaps, so he prefers APLIX.

Cotton Babies are still probably my favorite all-around brand. I love the Flip cover, and I’ve been happy with every type of bumGenius we’ve tried. They make up the bulk of our stash.

2013 Great Cloth Diaper Change

For the second year in a row, we’ll be joining All Things Diapers for the Great Cloth Diaper Change on April 20. If you’re local, join us! (And if you’re not local, find a GCDC in your area. It was really fun last year.)

In Conclusion …

If you’ve plowed through all this, you deserve a treat. And lucky for you, I’ve got one!

My favorite CD shop, All Things Diapers, is offering a $25 gift card to one lucky winner!

Just enter below by liking their Facebook page via the Rafflecopter widget, and you’re all set. [Giveaway ends Friday, March 8, at 12 am.]

They’re also offering 10% off All Things Diapers online store using code thesepricesblog through March 10.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
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