Matthew @ 6 months

Getting into trouble

I thought I would be writing one of these things every month, but obviously, I haven't. I still mostly feel as though I'm on survival mode, and just when I think I'm getting the hang of it, he goes and switches things up on me. So maybe sometime in the next 5 years I'll get the hang of it. IF I don't go and get knocked up again (topic for another day).

Anywho... my Bubba is 6 months old! It's hard to believe, as it's gone by super quick. I know that's cliched and everything, but it's true.

And he is such a good, sweet baby. Of course he's difficult sometimes, too, but mostly not. I count myself lucky that he hasn't had any health problems, reflux, colic, milk intolerance, etc. Just a normal little boy.

For his 6 month birthday, we started him on solid foods. At this point it's just to get him used to eating non-liquids, and not for nutrition. And that's a good thing, because it appears he's not too fond of bananas. Then he had some oat cereal & pureed sweet potatoes, separately of course, neither of which he likes. So wanting him to like something, anything, I sucked it up and bought baby food. But I bought the ones that I know are good... like apricots (yummy). And apricots are a success! I even mixed a baby spoonful of it into the oat cereal, and he tolerated that better. DH also gave him a stalk of celery to nom on, and he likes that as well, but I'm not sure if it's the flavor he likes, or the fact that it feels good on his gums.

He's not crawling yet, but I think it'll be soon. He's trying to get up on his knees, but hasn't yet figured out that it works better if he doesn't mash his face on the floor. :)

He LOVES to walk around with us holding him up, which is super cute, but uncomfortable for us, as he's still small and we have to bend over. We'll walk around the living room, down the hall and into different rooms. It takes a while, as he's still a little unsure about his feet and balance. But he's 6 months old, so for where he is right now, I think he's actually ahead of the game. Do I think he'll walk before 1? Probably. But I don't think he'll be a super early walker either. Maybe 9 months. Maybe.

He also graduated to the bath tub for baths. Up until that point, we'd been bathing him in the kitchen sink. But he learned how to splash and he was getting grabby. He LOVES it! Well, he loved it until he turned over onto his tummy and swallowed some water. Now he's kind of over water.

And lastly, he's started to reach out for me, which makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. :D He's my favoritest person in the world. And today I get to subject my favoritest person to pain in the form of more shots. Sorry dude. You'll thank me when you don't get polio or diphtheria.

Cloth diaper review: Swaddlebees OS AIO

Swaddlebees Simplex OS AIO
Monster print

When buying more diapers this year, I wanted to include a couple AIO's (all-in-ones). About 85% of my current stash is made up of pockets, and once he grew out of his Ragababe AIO, he didn't have any AIO's that fit. So after going over reviews, I decided upon 2 different AIO's... Peachy Green and Swaddlebees. I'll review the Peachy Green in another post.

Most of the reviews given loved the fact that the soaker part wasn't completely sewn in and that it had a stay-dry side to it, as well as just a regular cotton side, which is the same cotton the inner fabric is made of. I was drawn to the cotton inner, because I really believe that when babies can't feel when they're wet, it takes longer to potty train later on. And all of my pocket diapers have stay-dry inners, much to my dismay. So while I won't be replacing all my pocket diapers, I at least wanted to add a few diapers that don't have a stay-dry inner.

Anyway, the soaker. I had wondered how one would take out this soaker to be washed, and saw that there was no need to fish it out... that it would agitate out in the wash cycle. Score. Anyway, these diapers got great reviews on function as well.

I loved the prints, too. My favorite was the Dino, as we have a burp cloth made from the same print, but in flannel. I wanted to match. Alas, on Black Friday, that print sold out pretty quickly. I settled on a new print, Monsters, which is cute, too.

So once it arrived, I quickly prepped it (as quick as diaper prepping can go, anyway). The feel of it is a little different than I expected. The inner cotton is thick and kinda stiff. The outer layer is more plastic-y than fabric-y. It feels cheap. But at the same time, it feels substantial... if that makes sense? Anyway, point being, it doesn't feel like any of my other diapers.

Once it was done prepping, I noticed something... the soaker didn't agitate out. I'd intentionally left it in on a clean load, just in case it didn't come out (then I wouldn't worry that it didn't get clean). I figure it would agitate out in a top loader with lots of water, but not a front loader with far less water per load. So I'm a little disappointed that I have yet another thing to fish out of a dirty diaper. Yeah, I could leave the soaker out and have the stay-dry side facing up, but I like the fact that he feels wet, and I like the fact that he doesn't like feeling wet. And I can live with it seeing as though I have to fish inserts out of the pocket diapers all the time anyway.

As far as functionality, it works just fine. He's worn it a handful of times and pooped in it a few times as well. No leaks or blowouts. Due to the nature of a OS diaper, it's kinda bulky on the small setting for the rise, which is where it is on Bubba. We'll see how it holds up the older and bigger he gets.

Hmmmm... I dunno.
Matthew @ 5.5 months, about 17 pounds

Sorry it's blurry. Wiggly babies make getting clear pictures difficult.

All in all, I can't say it's my favorite diaper, but it serves its purpose. I can't help but feel that this will be resold at some point though.

Happy New Year!

It's been a momentous 2012. Hope 2013 is just as awesome!

Quiet book ideas

Because I totally have more time on my hands than I know what to do with (eye roll), I've recently been thinking of making a quiet book for Bubba. So I've been casually pinning ideas on Pinterest, and it's made me realize that should I make everything I've pinned, Bubba will have numerous quiet books to choose from. Yeah, chances are I won't make all of them, and I'll actually congratulate myself if I even get one done. But if I work on it a little at a time, maybe it'll get done by the time he's ready to use it. Here are the ones that I LOVE:

Needs Dr. Crusher and Troi to be complete, but aren't these adorable?

That's right... a Star Trek quiet book! This is a complete book, and the picture above is just one of the pages. Those are finger puppets, by the way. How awesome of a mom would I be if I made this? But never fear... I will make them with the correct rank pips. Imagine Captain Picard being demoted. As if!

The cloud is the pocket to hold everything

This cute rainbow has snap-in pieces to help kids work on their snapping as well as their color recognition and matching abilities.

It's like Mr. Potato Head, but not.

 Build your own robot. Enough said.

Sand castles!

This double pager lets you make your own sand castle. All the bottom pieces are interchangeable, so he can really have fun with it.

My head just exploded from the awesomeness!

And finally, yes, a Harry Potter quiet book. Made by the same chick who did the Star Trek quiet book, this one is also a complete book instead of just a page or two. Now you can see why I say I will be making quiet books for the rest of my life. :) Oh, and this chick also has a Star Wars one, which is also cool. But of the 3 she has, it comes in last in my list of awesomeness.

But now that I've listed them all out, I realize I better get on it. Bubba is almost 5 months old, and it can take me a long time to get a project done. So I'm not kidding when I say I hope I get one done by the time he's ready to use it. I shall start with the Star Trek book. Wish me luck!

On the "ability" of being a SAHM

Last night, DH had his company Christmas party, where employees from all the branches come to town to have a nice meal, free alcohol, door prizes and free hotel rooms. It's a huge deal, and they go all-out. Anyway, before the party, DH told me that some of his co-workers are jealous that I am able to be a SAHM. And indeed, a handful of them mentioned to me and DH that they wished they could stay home.

The thing is, they CAN.

Now, I've thought this way long before Dave Ramsey entered my life. So I won't turn this into a "take a Dave Ramsey course" plug, although I'll admit that his program has made it a little easier to be a SAHM. But soooo many people don't realize that if they really really wanted to, and both the husband and wife agreed, one of them can stay home and raise children for a living. They just have to realize that they'd have to sacrifice on some of the more creature comforts Americans have grown to "need". And yes, it is hard. But again, if they really wanted to, they'd find a way.

Here's a list of things we've sacrificed a bit on which makes it possible for me to stay home.

1. Our mortgage is modest enough that I don't need to bring in any money to help keep the roof over our heads. And a modest mortgage means that we have a modest house. No McMansions here.

2. Both our vehicles were bought used, were paid for in cash, and are creeping up on 10 years old. We have no plans on getting a new "used" vehicle anytime soon, as we haven't saved up enough to pay in full, and a car payment would take a big chunk of our budget.

3. DH's cell phone is mostly paid for by his employer, and mine is just a simple TracFone. I can make a call and text. That's it. No camera, no WiFi, no games. It's maybe $100 a year. (No, I don't talk on the phone a lot). If DH's employer decided to stop paying for his cell phone, he'd get a TracFone, too. And like the vehicles, we don't get the newest phones that hit the market.

4. We eat out once a week. Sometimes twice, depending on what's going on. But eating out is expensive, and it's sad when you spend more on eating out than what you spend on groceries. We used to eat out a ton, but when we added up everything we spent, it gave us a wake up call that we were wasting money.

5. We no longer have cable. If DH had his way, we wouldn't have internet, either, but a girl's gotta put her foot down sometime. :) Out of everything I've listed so far, this one is by far the hardest. I liked the background noise it offered, and the trashy MTV shows I got addicted to. But when it comes down to it, we really don't need to spend $60 a month on trashy MTV shows that I could watch for free online.

6. We don't do a lot of shopping. And this might be a product of where we live, where Walmart is the best place to get stuff, but really, we take one or two big shopping trips to Fargo a year. But otherwise, there is very minimal amounts spent on clothing, shoes and whatever else other people like to buy.

7. We don't take many vacations. And by vacations, I mean "go somewhere that's more than 1 state away". We'll take an occasional weekend trip to see friends in Minnesota or go see my family in Montana. But besides gas, those are pretty cheap as we don't pay hotel costs. Maybe some day we'll take a big vacation... and of course we'd save up for it.

Anyway, those are the big things that most people don't want to give up. Not saying that everyone does all those things, but just one or two of them alone can make it impossible for someone to stay home with the kids. But if they really worked at it, I bet they'd find that they COULD stay home.

Black Friday damage

I told myself that I wouldn't go overboard, and would just get the necessities... like sizing up the diapers I really like, and most importantly, a diaper sprayer. I will not start Matthew on solids without one, because I refuse to "dunk and swish"... where you literally dunk the dirty diaper in the toilet to get the poop off.

Anyway, DH and I recently received some extra money, and we took a small portion of it for ourselves. We call it "fun money". I decided to use some of mine on cloth diapers. DH doesn't understand how in the world that could be fun, but trust me, I had a ball! He just shrugged his shoulders because I had fun buying things our baby will poop and pee in.

Unfortunately, the diaper sprayer I'd been eyeing sold out super fast, so I'm still sprayerless. I've tried to buy this darn sprayer a few different times, and every single time I go to buy it, it sells out! It's like I'm not meant to have one, and I'm doomed to a life of dunking and swishing. But if I have to pay full price for one, I will. My mistake is that I wait until they go on sale, and it seems as though others are, too. No more. I figure I have 2 months to get one, as that's when Matthew will be 6 months old, and when I want to start him on solids.

On to diapers....

Most of my existing stash is solid colors, and everything I sized up followed in that path. But there were a few new diapers I wanted to try out, and there I picked some fun prints. I'm very excited to try them out!

Rumparooz G2 One-Size Pocket

Swaddlebees One-Size Simplex AIO

Peachy Green Solo Luxe AIO

Fun, huh? DH is especially going to love that last one. He has a thing for dragons. The side snaps might throw him off though. Oh well. That's the price you pay for having an awesome diaper!

And as always, I'll review once I've gotten a good feel for how they work!

Cloth diaper update

Well, seeing as though Black Friday is coming very quickly, I thought I'd give a quick update on how it's going with the cloth.

Truth be told, I'm a little frustrated, as they continually get the stinkies. This is when detergent doesn't get completely washed out, and next time baby wets the diaper, the urine mixes with the trapped detergent and creates a strong ammonia smell. Then next time they'll not only have trapped detergent, they'll have trapped urine, too. Compounding the problem is that we have very hard water.

I've altered my wash routine many times, and I still haven't landed on the one that works. Right now, it's a warm rinse with no detergent, a hot wash with 2.5 Tbsp of powdered Tide and same amount of washing soda (to help with the hard water problem), and a few short, cold washes, as I usually still see suds after the hot wash. I've tried more detergent, less detergent, no soda, Dawn dish soap, different temps in my wash, different settings, different amounts of cycles.

Next thing I'll try is adding water manually. Since I have a front loader, it uses significantly less water, and as I pointed out in one of my previous posts, you want more water with cloth diapers. I should have just started using more water from the beginning, but I'd read many wash routines from women with my same washing machine, and most didn't need to add water. So I trusted it'd be the same for me. Nope, not looking like it.

I've already stripped all my diapers 3 times, and today I noticed "the smell" again, so another strip will be happening soon. My prefolds are the worst culprit, but fortunately, they're the easiest to fix, even if only temporarily. All I have to do is boil them for 15-30 minutes and then run them though a rinse. The first time I did this, I couldn't believe the grossness of the water after I was done. It was cloudy and yellowish. My other diapers are trickier, because you can't (or shouldn't, rather) boil them since they have elastic and/or plastic snaps. I don't want to completely destroy the diapers, so I use RLR. I still haven't figured out what's in it, but needless to say, it didn't really help much. But I did ALL my diapers, so next time, I'll boil the prefolds and do RLR with my covers and pockets... that way the load will be smaller.

And all I could think of is that I might be super lucky that Matthew hasn't developed ammonia burn or diaper rash from this yet. I might have to strip diapers every month, but if it means he's rash-free, then I'll gladly do it.

Anyway, I've been making a list of new diapers to buy for Black Friday. Won't be a lot, and DH is fighting me over buying more, but some of the diapers we have are sized, and Bubba will soon outgrow them. I have also added a few single diapers of brands I haven't tried yet, but get good reviews. This one I'll have to rein myself in on.

To buy:
6 Thirsties Duo Wrap diaper covers, size 2
4-5 FuzziBunz perfect size diapers, medium
1 swim diaper
2-3 trainers
1 diaper sprayer
RLR
CJ's BUTTer

Looking at:
Rumparooz OS diaper
BumGenius Elemental
BumGenius FreeTime
Kawaii Baby Goodnights
Thirsties fitteds
SoftBums Omni

Yes, you read correctly... I put trainers on the list, even though Matthew isn't even 5 months old yet. And knock on wood, but judging from the fact that he H.A.T.E.S. to be wet, I want to be prepared in the off-chance that he'll potty train early (as in, before Black Friday 2013). I just have to find the right trainers, because if he does PT early, he'll be smaller, and if he doesn't go early, the small sizes won't fit him. So I won't get many, and I'll just sell them off if he doesn't fit them.

Overall, it's going pretty well with the cloth diapering... stinkies aside. Sometimes I just wish I could slap a disposable on him and call it good, but that's not too often. DH even likes cloth, which is surprising. Now if I could only get him excited about buying more of it... :)