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Have Cloth, Will Travel

Posted on by Amy

It’s been discussed on this blog at length how much we have traveled with Miss in her short little life so far. She has been in or through 11 different states, though MI probably doesn’t really count because we never left the airport. I am happy to say that I have kept her in cloth diapers through almost all of these travels since beginning my cloth adventure in June. Here’s what I have learned about using cloth while on the road:

1. If we’re driving somewhere, I do diaper laundry as close to the departure time as possible. I pack diapers, cloth wipes, and wipes solution to take and use just like I do at home. I also pack along whatever dirty diapers accumulate while I’m doing the diaper laundry. I use the bag of dirties to put more dirties in while on the road, and then I just wash them as usual at our destination. That way I don’t have a bag of dirty diapers sitting in a diaper pail until we get home. I cannot stand the thought of dirty diapers stinking and festering while we are away.
2. If I’m flying somewhere, I put Miss in disposables right before departure so that I can do diaper laundry and get every one of her diapers clean. This way I am not leaving dirty diapers to fester, but I also am not taking a bag of several dirty diapers on a plane with me (or trying to check them!). Typically I also use disposables while actually in the airport and on the plane. The reason for this is that I am usually packed to the gills and loaded up with so much stuff and disposables just take up less space and weigh less. However, on this last flight I took two carry ons, one my diaper bag and the other full of clean cloth diapers, so it probably wouldn’t have been difficult to use the cloth while in the airport and on the plane.
3. As for washing, one of the easiest ways I’ve found to take along detergent is to use soap nuts. They’re dry and compact. No mess!
4. I make sure to take flushable diaper liners. This is key for easy clean up of poopy diapers when a diaper sprayer isn’t available.
5. The trips we have taken when I have used cloth have either been short enough that I could make it through without doing laundry (i.e. a quick weekend trip for a wedding) or have been to the home of a family member who did not have a problem allowing me to use the laundry facilities. Of course I always try to rotate my dipes in and out of the washer and dryer as quickly as possible and do any hanging or sunning in a place that is out of the way.
6. The trips that I have not been able to use cloth have involved flying somewhere and staying exclusively in a hotel. I have used cloth in a hotel (for short periods) and have used cloth on trips when I flew to my destination. But the two times I did both for one trip, I used disposables. This is because of not having laundry facilities and not being able to take dirty diapers on a plane.
Overall, I have found that traveling with cloth is not all that difficult. It’s only slightly less convenient because of having to pack more stuff. And honestly I probably pack more than I really need, just because I have a hard time leaving any of my dipes at home!

I’m back!

Posted on by Amy

We have been traveling again. We are still not at home, but I have at least arrived in a place where I have my computer and a good WiFi signal, so I’m thrilled to be back online. The start of this trip was a week and a half ago when Miss and I flew to sunny Florida for a family reunion. My hubby joined us the following day. The reunion was fun and I loved seeing so much family. Though the reunion was with my mom’s family, we also got to drive a few hours further south to visit with my dad’s side of the family. My hubby left Florida after the reunion to come to Missouri to hunt for deer, while Miss and I went to Kentucky to spend a week with my parents (who live in the boonies and are technologically challenged, hence the week of no internet). We had a great time in Kentucky. My mom and I had a surprise baby shower for my sister in law, which was so fun. She will be using cloth diapers for my niece, so I had a great time shopping for and giving her some fun cloth diapering stuff. Miss had a big week. She finally truly got the hang of crawling and pulling up, and now thinks she is ready to walk. She tries to push my hands off if I am holding her while she is standing up! She also got three more teeth, doubling the number of little munchers in her little mouth almost overnight.

Last night we were reunited with The Daddy and Miss was thrilled to see him. She was showing off all her new tricks and being extra adorable for him. Of course, I was happy to see him too and now we’re all in Missouri while he continues to sit in a tree and look for deer for the rest of this week. He has already shot a buck, and is now on a mission from me to shoot a doe so we can have some good venison to last us through the year. He will be butchering the deer himself this year, so I’m eager to see what adventures come from this experiment.
Overall it has been a great trip so far. Miss has been an absolute star. I guess traveling with her so much really has gotten her used to it, and she just takes it in stride. I wish I could say the same for the time change, but that’s a different story, and she seems to finally be adjusting. It’s saying something that I was thrilled that she slept until 6 am this morning! We will be heading home on Sunday, where we will be happy to stay for almost a whole month before the holiday travels begin!

Who Needs Toys??

Posted on by Amy

I am continuously amazed at the way Miss loves to play with things that are not her toys. In fact, she often seems to prefer these random non-toy things over her well-researched and carefully selected baby toys. What types of things? Oh, her socks, that she repeatedly pulls off her feet in some sort of private lets-see-how crazy-I-can-make-my-mommy game. It’s not a big deal of course, except that it’s cold here, and I don’t want her little tootsies to get cold. So she pulls them off, chews on them for a bit, and then I put them back on. Round and round we go. Why don’t I just give her an extra sock to play with, you ask? Tried it. No good. I think it’s the act of pulling it off her foot that is part of the fun!

Other items Miss loves to play with include the drawstring of my hubby’s old scrub pants that I typically wear when just around the house, her daddy’s feet (ewww!), her nail clippers, plastic bags (no, I don’t let her play with these!), junk mail (catalogs especially, so shiny!), the rug, the floor, and any random bit of grass/leaf/stick that she might find on the floor (I vacuum like mad, but cut me a break, we have two dogs!!). The other day she entertained herself for the longest time with a plastic cup and the metal lid to one of my small saucepans (video of this below, notice how she almost got distracted by the sock). And of course, the best part of anything, including her toys, is the tag.

Now, I know this is not unusual. Miss is not the first baby to love to play with all-things-not-a-toy. I have just thoroughly enjoyed watching her do this. It’s as though the most mundane things that we don’t even notice in every day are so fascinating to her. She can become so focused on something so small. I love watching her and trying to make myself see the world through her eyes. The joy and wonder of looking at things in that way is so simple and pure, as babies are of course. Maybe Santa should bring her the boxes for the toys at Christmas time. I’m sure she’d love that!

The Plague has Descended upon our Home

Posted on by Amy

Okay, obviously not really the Plague. It’s not the dreaded H1N1 either. All right, it’s not even the good old seasonal flu (formerly known as just the plain old flu). Really it’s just your garden variety cold. And it hasn’t really descended upon our whole house. Just me. Well, that’s anticlimactic, eh? I have had the sneezing and stuffy/runny nose. I haven’t been able to sleep because my nose is stuffed up, always at least on one side. And I haven’t taken any cold medications because I’m breast feeding and don’t want 1. Any medications to pass to Miss and 2. My milk supply to decrease (apparently some of the decongestants can cause this). Feeling sorry for me yet??

A couple of days ago I shifted to the coughing mode of the cold. This started to really irritate my throat. Then I was making animal sounds with Miss, and the next thing I knew, my voice was gone. I think it was the lion that did me in. Rrraaaawwrrr! So now I have had laryngitis for two days. Miss seems to think this is funny. She has started making whispering sounds at me in response to my whispers, and she gives me some pretty funny looks when my voice cracks/croaks/squeaks. I have barely been able to get out the reading of “I Love You Stinky Face” and other books before nap time. And the final nap time ritual before I put her down? I sing “You Are My Sunshine.” The past two days I have whispered the song to her, and only the first verse instead of the whole song. There is no way anything resembling a tune is coming out of this mouth right now!
On a positive note, my hubby hasn’t gotten sick and neither has Miss. I attribute this to my heroic hand-washing efforts and the fantastic immunity boost breast milk provides. Um, that last part is just for Miss, of course. So my hands are dry and cracked, my voice is gone, and my supply of tissue and hand sanitizer are out and nearly out, respectively, but life is still good in our humble home. I just can’t wait to smother my Miss with kisses again!!!

My Cloth Story, Part 3

Posted on by Amy

So, I’ve told you how I came to love cloth (see My Cloth Story, Part 1 and My Cloth Story, Part 2). How I overcame my fear of things fluffy and jumped in with both feet to cover my Miss’s cheeks in nothing but snuggly softness. Well, I thought I’d round out the story by telling you where I am now in my cloth journey.

I currently love my “stash”. For those of you not familiar with cloth diapering lingo, this is what we cloth-diapering-mommas call our stock of diapers. It sounds illicit and edgy. It’s just diapers. In my stash, I have mostly pocket diapers, including HuggaBuns, FuzziBuns perfect fit, Bum Genius, Green Acres Designs, Blueberry (minky and non-minky), Diaper Change, Tiny Tush, Rump-a-Rooz, and Tweedlebugs. I also have three sets of SoftBums All-in-twos and two All-in-ones (a Drybees and a Monkeez, which is locally made by a WAHM). I have recently acquired, but not yet tried a FuzziBuns One-Size, a Rocky Mountain Diaper, and two Wild Child for Babies custom diapers in the most adorable prints. I actually have a diaper for Miss with “Chillin’ with my Gnomies” fabric!! I love it. I have a few fitteds that I use occasionally, BumGenius bamboo and GoodMamas. I don’t use prefolds at all anymore, but I’m keeping them for potential use later.
My latest thing is getting pocket diapers with cute prints on them. I have gotten rid of or am getting rid of some of my solid-color diapers that weren’t favorites. I am also moving more and more toward natural-fiber diapers with cotton, hemp, and bamboo, rather than microfiber and other synthetic fabrics. I have also really started to get into looking for more obscure diaper brands. Many of these are found on Etsy and/or are made by WAHMs, like the Wild Child for Babies diapers that I bought recently. Some are larger companies, but just not ones that are really prominent in the CD world as BumGenius, Happy Heinys, and FuzziBunz are for example. Some other brands I’ve become interested in but have not yet purchased are Prairie Tales, Blue Penguin, and Nifty Nappy. I have actually found out about these diaper brands by reading the blog Happily Domestic and entering giveaways on the blog for each of these items (the giveaways are still gong on so I’m hoping I’ll win!!).
The other way in which my cloth diapering has evolved is in the way I do my laundry. I started doing just a cold rinse/full hot wash cycle/cold rinse. I used Seventh Generation Free and Clear at first, but quickly switched to Allen’s Naturally. I learned that I need to use Calgon water softener because we have hard water. Then I experimented with a mixture of washing soda and OxyClean that I read some moms said worked wonders for their stink issues. I didn’t really care for that though and decided to try Rockin’ Green instead. This is a laundry detergent specially made for use with cloth diapers that comes in several amazing scents. So I tried some of that, and it’s what I’m currently using, occasionally using the soap nuts I just got instead. I’ve also been experimenting with different wash cycles also. Right now I’m doing a short cycle cold wash with detergent/long cycle hot wash with detergent/extra cold rinse. I’m having lots of success with my current wash routine. I have always enjoyed washing my cloth diapers. Now that there are different detergents to experiment with, it’s even more fun. And I know I’m not crazy, because I’m not the only momma who enjoys washing cloth diapers. I’m friends with a mom who raised her kids back when cloth diapers were the only option and weren’t nearly as cute and fun as they are today, and she confessed that she used to love washing her kids’ cloth diapers too! There’s just something satisfying about getting them clean, stuffed, folded, and back in the stash for the next use. I will post some photos of Miss in her newest diaper couture as soon as I get them dried, stuffed, and into the rotation!

Diaper Swap

Posted on by Amy
Recently, I participated in a diaper swap. Megan, who has the blog Newly Wed, Newly Bred, came up with the fun idea to get some cloth diapering mommas together to do a diaper swap. Mommas who signed up were assigned someone to buy for, with a spending limit, and got to shop and pick fluff for her and her baby. The momma you bought diapers for and the momma you received diapers from were not the same person, and the swap partners were kept secret. So, not only would we get to shop for a fun gift for another mom, but we got to receive surprise fluff mail. I love fluff mail, and I love surprises, so what could be better?? I received my swap fluff about a week ago. The momma who bought for me in the swap is Kelli. Her blog is called Betters Days Ahead. She has a sweet little baby named Landyn and is expecting baby #2 (jealous!!), which is a baby girl! She sent me such a fun package. It came from RG Natural Babies. including a One-size Tweedle Bugs Diaper in yellow, some matching Leg Huggers baby leg warmers in the Butterfly Dance pattern, some soap nuts, and a cube of wipes solution. I was really hoping to receive some items I had never tried before, since that seems to be part of the fun of doing a swap (to me anyway). It turns out all the things Kelli sent me are new to me! I immediately got to washing the diaper and the leg warmers so Miss could try them out. Below is a picture of her in them. I love how they match!!


Here’s what I love about the stuff I got: The Tweedle Bugs is an OS diaper, so it will grow with Miss. I love the color and that it matches her new Leg Huggers. And, as you know if you’ve read any of my CD posts on here, I love pocket diapers!! They are absolutely my favorite. Miss seemed to like the diaper too. She at least felt comfortable in it. After she posed for the cute pic, she promptly proceeded to poo in it 🙂 So she didn’t get to wear it for long, but for the time she did have it on it fit great and didn’t leak. It is now clean again and waiting it’s turn in my stash to be worn again. The Leg Huggers are wonderful for several reasons. First of all, take a look at the photo, and you’ll see that they come all the way up to the bottom of the diaper. My Miss has super chunky thighs, and some other brands of baby leg warmers are too tight to fit all the way up her leg. That’s not a big deal during the summer, but it’s getting quite cold here, so I don’t want her to have half of her thigh hanging out when I put her in warmers. Plus I love the warmers because I’m getting more and more cute printed diapers, and I like to be able to show them off. And finally, the Leg Huggers are made from bamboo!! As I have mentioned on here before, I love me some bamboo. I haven’t yet tried the soap nuts (I got a bag of Rockin’ Green that I ordered right at the same time that this package came), but I’m quite intrigued by them and will be trying them with the next load of diaper wash (going in tonight). Also haven’t yet mixed up the wipes solution. Kelli sent me enough for two batches, but I still have some that I need to finish up before I mix more. Overall, I love the package. Thanks Kelli! Also thanks to Megan for organizing the whole thing. It was fun!

“Miss”-cellany

Posted on by Amy

Miss is nearly 8 months old now. She gets funnier every day. She is able to sit up by herself now, and does this over and over and over. She seems so pleased with herself! She isn’t crawling yet, but she sure is trying hard. She can’t seem to decide if she wants to crawl on hands and knees or in more of a bear-crawl position on her feet instead of her knees. She goes back and forth between these two positions, rocking back and forth, and balancing with one arm forward and the opposite leg sticking out behind her. This inevitably ends in a face plant, and then she just pushes herself up onto her little butt and plays for a few seconds before starting the whole process over again. She is also working on pulling herself up to standing, and will walk if we hold her hands. She loves to bob up and down if we hold her upright, and jumps like crazy when we put her in her Jumperoo.

She has three teeth. The two middle bottom teeth and the top tooth just to the left of the middle. She looks a bit snaggle-toothed, but in an adorable kind of way. She loves to eat solid foods and eats three meals a day now. Her favorites are squash (winter and summer varieties) and sweet potatoes. She also likes apples, pears, and prunes. She doesn’t really like peas or carrots, though I did get her to eat peas for lunch today by mixing them with prunes. I know, gross, right? But she liked it! She loves to eat Cheerios and her pincer grasp is rapidly improving. I have started trying to teach her sign language. In particular we’re working on words/signs like “more,” “eat,” “drink,” “water,” and “milk.” Of course she’s not signing yet, but she at least looks at me now when I do it.

She is also developing quite a fun little personality. She makes the funniest faces and has very expressive eyebrows. She has also learned that if she makes a grunt-yell noise she can get her dad and me to respond to her in some way that she seems to find enjoyable. Last night I listened to her making this noise and her daddy tickling her in response, back and forth, for almost 10 minutes. She laughs a lot and has learned to wave. She is quite entertaining on flights, as she loves to flirt with strangers. Occasionally we can get her to give a kiss. She is also experimenting with tantrums and various other ways of expressing her displeasure about things. It is really quite adorable and kind of hard not to laugh at her.
Overall, I am having an absolute blast being her mom. She makes me laugh multiple times every day. I have never had a harder, more rewarding, or better job than this one.

Mommy Brain

Posted on by Amy

Sometimes I just have one of those days when the sleep deprivation and seemingly endless list of things to do just makes me feel a little, um, stupid. Well, okay realistically I probably have those days most of the time. Or maybe every day. But today I have been especially moronic I think. I am amazed by how forgetful I can be now. This started when I was pregnant. The psychological research has actually identified “Pregnancy Brain” as a real phenomenon where pregnant women get more dumb. Their brains actually shrink a bit (listen to me saying “they” as if this didn’t happen to me too). However, the research also showed that this dummy phase is supposed to be just that, a phase, lasting only until shortly after the pregnancy is over. Evolutionarily speaking, it wouldn’t make sense to have a bunch of stupid chicks running around trying to raise babies, right? So, the Pregnancy Brain is supposed to resolve after the baby is born, and women have actually been shown to perform better on certain tasks after “recovering” from it. So, even though being pregnant makes us gals temporarily ditsy, we are supposed to come out of the deal even smarter and sharper than we were before. So how come I nearly walked out of the house with mismatched shoes on today? I was very close to going to a meeting with one brown and one black shoe on. It is only the fact that these shoes, though similar in style, have a slightly different shape and heel height on them such that I looked down to see what the problem was when my feet felt different, that saved me from this error. And though my daughter was dressed impeccably in an adorable outfit, with everything she could ever possibly need carefully packed in her beautiful diaper bag and enough warmth on her body to protect her in an arctic blizzard, I proceeded to leave the house without a coat on. Not even a sweater or fully long-sleeved shirt. I live in Wisconsin and it’s getting cold here!

I think the psychological research failed to mention that Pregnancy Brain segues directly into “Mommy Brain”. So, although women may perform better on some tasks after giving birth, a permanent condition of semi-frazzledness persists that will never go away (okay, maybe after putting kids through college, but by then dementia is setting in anyway). This condition leads to increased forgetfulness and selective stupidity. However, there are also the areas where the Mommy Brain is a finely tuned instrument, capable of executing amazing feats, like the above mentioned ability to remember every single thing that needs to be in the diaper bag while simultaneously forgetting my coat. Or having the sixth-sense ability to just know that your child is about to put something in her mouth that you really don’t want her to have in her mouth, and looking just in time to prevent this thing from entering her mouth. Or being able to keep nursing, naps, meals and bedtime perfectly on schedule, but not being able to fit in a shower or remember to call for an oil change (oh, that reminds me!). I could go on and on, but you know what I mean. Now, I really do have to go schedule that oil change before I forget again. . .

Some Random Thoughts for a Tuesday

Posted on by Amy


1. Why can’t someone make baby socks and shoes that actually stay on? I know this is not easy, when the baby wearing them inevitably grabs them and/or bites on them and tries to pull them off. But couldn’t they at least stay on otherwise? Some of Miss’s socks fall off if she just kicks her feet and they happen to hit each other. Oi. The person who could invent the true stay-on baby sock would (and should) be a bajillionaire.

2. I know babies are supposed to be ambidextrous, so I’m probably making something out of nothing. But I think Miss may be a southpaw. She seems to strongly prefer to use her left hand when picking up Cheerios, trying to hold her sippy cup (she hasn’t quite realized she needs both hands for this one yet), etc. Both of her grandmothers are lefties. I know it’s early, but I’m making a prediction anyway.

3. Ah, the dreaded minivan. Before becoming pregnant, my hubby used to tease me that someday I would be a minivan-driving mommy. I swore over and over again that I would never, ever drive such a vehicle. I drove my mom’s minivan in high school quite a bit, and while it was convenient to be able to pile lots of friends in the car, I still kind of felt like a dork driving a minivan, and really had no desire to ever do it again. Plus, I believed that there were many other vehicles out there that are large enough to handle kids, dogs, gear, etc. Some with even more room than a minivan, so why would anyone ever get one of those things?? Fast forward a few years to last fall. I was pregnant and realized that my good old Ford Escape would not be big enough to tote Baby and two dogs. So, we were car shopping. I gave in and actually test drove a minivan. Worse, I even liked it. *gasp* However, I managed to find a vehicle that I liked better, that was big enough for baby and dogs and future babies (so we thought), and would work perfectly all around. I got a Ford Flex, and I love it. It is big enough for Miss and our two pups and all the necessary gear for the many travels we have taken. It’s a tight squeeze, but we can make it all fit. I can even get from the back seat to the front while the car is in motion, which is a great thing on long road trips. Granted, this move entails quite a feat of flexibility as I have to go over the front seat when it is laid fully flat forward, but thanks to a lot of pilates, I am still flexible enough to make it happen. I have been extremely happy with my Flex, and have just tried really hard not to think about how we would fit another baby in it, should we be lucky enough to have one. Fast forward again to this past weekend. We went to New Jersey for the wedding of some of our great friends. We needed to rent a car and Ben said, “Why don’t you get a minivan and we can see how we like it?” I chuckled at this, but secretly loved the idea, so we did it. We got a Kia minivan to drive for one day in New Jersey. Here’s what amazed me about it: I could actually see Miss from the front seat (without the use of a mirror) and there was easily room for me to move back and forth from the front seat to the back seat if necessary without contorting myself. It rode smoothly and didn’t seem overly big but had tons of room. How is all that possible? We loved it, and we didn’t even have the one with all the bells and whistles. It seems I may end up joining the Minivan-Mommy Club after all. At least until my kids are old enough to climb in, get seated and buckle themselves in without needing a carseat. Which I think happens when they’re about ready to start driving themselves.
Okay, that last random thought could have been a long post by itself. It’s amazing how much the idea of a minivan can get me going! I’ll just stop there then.