Cashmere shorties, modeled by Ivey

I love these short, chubby little legs.

I made these shorties (Ivey calls them "pents") out of a funky-colored cashmere sweater in my stash, one I really didn't like that much, because this was a practice run. I wasn't nervous about cutting into this holey cardigan. It wasn't like when I cut into the sweater I used for the owl shorties. Julie gave me that one and it was the perfect thickness and a hard-to-find color. I was kind of scared to cut it, but luckily it ended up a success.

The cashmere was really soft and, even though I had to cut into the shoulder seams on one side to get enough material, and there was a hole in the butt, I think the shorties turned out pretty nice. They were my first try in a totally new size.

I sewed up the hole in the butt and put a heart patch over it. It needed a little something anyway.

I love making these. Next I need to wash and lanolize them so they can be used as water resistant covers. I've never had to care for wool diapers before, but I'm hoping these will be easier than most. They're already felted so that's one less way for me to ruin them, right?

Fancy wool shorties for Robert!

I put off trying to make these for so long. I must have thought it wouldn't work and I'd end up sitting at the sewing machine crying. But today I got up early and made one diaper cover using these instructions from Cloth Diaper Blog, which were ever so helpful. Once I'd done the first cover (not pictured; it is just plain) I altered the leg cuffs a bit and these are what I got. I love making them, but these are both sized for a newborn (or a little bigger) and I have no idea if they'll fit right. I'm thinking of making Ivey some. I am also going to have to get Jenn to remind me how much of what to use for washing and lanolizing. She walked me through the whole thing a few weeks ago and I should have been taking notes.

I can't believe how much we did today. Making diapers. Getting to church almost on time. Going out for Mexican afterwards, and then taking the girls and the dog to the botanical gardens for some fun outdoor time. Then Jordan had a session meeting at church and I stayed home with the tired girls and worked on these diaper covers! It was a big day, and made up for our lazy Saturday yesterday. We both went for eye exams and got contacts and that's about it. I love my new daily lenses.

By the way, I am 37 weeks and 1 day today. If you look closely, the picture above doubles as a belly shot.

A day so wonderful I had to make a list

1) We got our tax refund this morning, a day or so early. Hooray!

2) I ordered my birth tub, Suzi's new car seat, and a couple other things we needed to get before Baby Robert comes.

3) I got haircut appointments for me and Suzi tomorrow, which is the day my parents can keep Ivey, with the person I wanted even though she was really already booked.

4) I had a playdate with two of my favorite mama friends after being stuck at home lonely and sniffly for a long time. My friends are awesome and I missed them.

5) While I was at the playdate I bought some adorable cloth diapers from Jenn and she gave me a great deal. They are so cute and soft I just want to cuddle them and squeal. And Jenn also did a wool wash/lanolizing demonstration for me, and it's not as confusing as I thought.

Size zero Kissaluvs with a special snap to stay off the umbilical cord. 25 of em. 100 times better than what we had when Ivey was born.

This one is so sweet. We won't be needing any pants for Robert, just t-shirts. Don't want to cover up his awesome diapers.

6) And then Jenn agreed to come to our homebirth and take pictures for us, which is exciting.

7) Megan and Jenn and I discussed belly image and now I am feeling better about how mine looks, even though it is not stretch-mark-free or "perfect." I've been wanting to post a picture of it since this post by Hobo Mama, but I kind of want to ease into it. So here. This is Robert popping out to help me during a crafting session.

8) The kids all played pretty happily together, and it wore Ivey out so well that I brought her in from the van asleep and she stayed asleep until a few minutes after Jordan came home. Suzi watched a movie, so I had a little time to myself!

9) Jordan and I finished up a big project--a timeline of the events in his grandparents' lives, which will be displayed at the party we are attending this weekend. I think we did a good job.

10) A friend is getting rid of some clothes and offered me some wool sweaters for craft projects. Yay!

11) Jordan told me a few weeks ago that he thought we should get a little netbook for me to use after the birth when I will be upstairs in bed, and to have something we can take with us on trips. We went tonight and found one we liked and came in well under budget. Because Jordan is a geek, it was easy to pick one out, and he is setting it up for me now. It's really for both of us but I'm going to sew a girly, flowery case for it. That will mark it as my territory.

12) It was so warm outside, even after it got dark. What a welcome change!

This has been such a good day I don't want to go to bed. I don't see how tomorrow can possibly top it. I don't. But I'll be getting a desperately needed haircut and enjoying some Suzi-Mommy time so it'll probably come pretty close.

Ivey's diapers

Cloth diapering a newborn... Not everything has worked the way we thought it would. Our plan was to go the cheap route until Ivey was big enough to wear the Bumgenius and Bumkins diapers we already had from Suzi's diaper days. We went here and got two Bummis Super Brites and a Prorap, along with a bunch of Indian prefolds and a two-pack of Snappis.

But...

1) Ivey kicked her little legs and screamed so much during changes that it was unpleasant to get a prefold situated with a Snappi and then put the cover on. Not to mention nearly impossible, especially in the dark at 3 am.

2) The prefolds were big and bulky. We had to fold them up in the back so they'd fit in the cover. The first time we got one on her, it looked so funny. I started to nurse her and as I held her on her side, her little legs stuck straight out, unable to touch due to the incredible bulk between them. It obviously wasn't comfortable, and before the cord stump fell off it was the worst!

3) It was a pain to get the cloth diaper all stuffed inside the cover. If you have any cloth hanging out of the cover you can have leaks.

4) Ivey pees. It's shocking sometimes to hold one of her wet diapers and feel how heavy it is! Suzi never peed so much! Unlike disposables with a gel core, cloth diapers have a limit of how much pee they can hold. When this limit is exceeded, even the best cloth diaper will leak. And our cloth diapers were not the best. We were changing them way more often than we wanted to, especially at night.

5) We sometimes placed pocket diaper inserts into the cover, and this worked, but we only had a few inserts that were small enough. When we ran out we were left with those too-bulky prefolds again.

6) I suspect we simply should have bought more. In those first few days, Ivey required so many changes during a time when we were least able to focus on laundry. I think it's a good idea to either buy one pack of disposables to tide you over between loads of laundry, have a friend or two over to help with chores, or buy enough newborn-appropriate cloth to last a day or so longer than you'd normally need.

This is how we succumbed to temptation so many times and put disposables on Ivey. The prefolds were clearly not for us, and I wished I'd invested in some fitted diapers like these or at least these. We just hadn't been prepared to spend so much. After a couple of weeks, I was sick of paying $10 for diapers again and again. I was even more sick of seeing dozens of disposable diapers being piled into our trash! What a waste!

1) I asked myself, what is the difference between my two-dollar prefold and the fitted I need? (A bunch of extra fabric.) I searched for ideas and found diapersewing.com. I decided to make a variation of the quick and easy fitted and the prefold to fitted. My mom helped me, and we started by using a newborn disposable to figure out where to trim the prefold. We cut it in on the sides and also took a couple of inches off the top. Instead of serging the edges, we used binding; I once made a quilt for Suzi and we had some left over. We put elastic inside the binding on the curves for the legs. In the end, we had one plain fitted diaper and one with tabs. We didn't bother with velcro because we had a Snappi. The altered diapers worked much, much better. The prefolds only cost us about $2 each, and even if we'd had to buy supplies they probably wouldn't have cost more than $10.

2) Now that Ivey has gotten a little bigger we have more options. When I was still pregnant I bought some gorgeous, soft bamboo diapers from Ellen, a mom I know from babywearing group. Her business is called Bleu River Bootie. They come in vivid colors and adjust to fit with snaps. My favorite thing about them is the sheer amount of pee they can hold. Ivey is a super soaker, and these haven't leaked on us yet--even without the extra soaker that snaps in when you need it. They are our favorite for nighttime and for daytime outings--anytime when we really, really don't want to deal with a leak.

Since these diapers from Bleu River Bootie (we call them our "Ellen diapers") are not waterproof, we have to use a cover with them. We started with Green Earth covers, Proraps and Bummis Super Brites. I really wanted to love those pretty Bummis covers, but I was a little underwhelmed. The Green Earth covers, which came with the diapers from Ellen, were my favorite and the Proraps came in second--and both were much cheaper. We only had newborn-sized covers, so we recently had to order something bigger.

3) I did some shopping around and finally chose Thirsties Duo Wraps. These only come in two sizes to fit from newborn to toddler, and they snap to adjust. They also come in pretty colors, and they work! A problem we'd had previously was that the covers would leave marks on Ivey's thighs, but these covers are softer and stretchier and we haven't had an issue with it. We ordered two covers in size one, and they worked so well that I've already ordered our size twos. You don't need many because, assuming a blowout hasn't occurred, covers can be used several times before needing to be washed; you just need a fresh fitted diaper or insert.

4) The other main thing we are using is Bumgenius one-sizes. An extraordinarily generous friend gave us a big bag of practically brand new diapers (most of which will be wonderful for when Ivey's a little bigger), and there were two of these in there. The elastic is shot in most of the older ones we had already, but the new ones are great. I am going to try to fix the elastic in the old ones, because they are in okay condition otherwise. These are wonderful but expensive, so unless there's an unbelievable sale, we won't be getting any more.

5) My favorite way to diaper right now for daytime (I think we got the idea from Julie at her cloth diapering Blessingway) is to use a Bumgenius one-size insert inside one of our Thirsties Duo Wraps. This is a lot easier to put on the baby than a prefold or a fitted that snaps. It still allows us to use the cover again most of the time, too. This is a cheap way to diaper! You can buy inserts brand new for about $3.50. If you're diapering a newborn, you could use one or two newborn inserts, which cost only $6 for a three-pack. This is probably what I'll stock up on whenever we have baby #3! (It'd also be nice to try inserts that are cut in ever so slightly between the legs, like these Kissaluvs Super-Soakers, but also short enough for a newborn without needing to be folded. Anyone know of some that fit that description?)

6) About our wipes... We don't have fancy ones like some people, as the store-bought kind are too expensive to tempt me and I haven't had time to make any. But I did learn how to layer our cut up scrap wipes in the container so they pop out conveniently like the store-bought disposable ones. We've been putting our wipes in a water/teeny bit of natural bar soap/couple drops of tea tree oil/squirt of olive oil solution. There's nothing wrong with plain old water, though, and that is what we use sometimes. I do want to make some pretty wipes for when we go out. I have a feeling it would be a simple and satisfying project.

So we've finally found our cloth diapering groove. I had big plans for using elimination communication, but we haven't gotten started with it yet. If you have, please tell me what your first step was and how it worked for you! Also, please share if you have any other ideas to make cloth diapering cheaper or easier (or preferably both).

What Monk-Mee and Frosty talk about

I don't know, but Suzi was facilitating a serious conversation between them on our way back from Asheville Sunday.



Once we left the nurse-in discussion we had just enough time to drop by this awesome shop called The Littlest Birds. I think that is where Beth got her cloth diapers, so knowing it was there I looked it up. I was like a kid in a candy shop, so you can imagine how Suzi was. They had stacks of gorgeous wooden toys that were calling both our names. They had carriers, Plan Toys, a ton of cloth diapers... And we had less than 30 minutes to look, because they were closing at 4:00!

Suzi and Jordan looked around while I asked the lady working there a bunch of questions about CDing a newborn (I've never done it; we started Suzi when she was eight months old). She recommended Kissaluvs, which I liked but couldn't justify buying new. I ended up with Snappis, some newborn prefolds, a couple of Bummis covers (below) and a ProRap. We will see how they handle newborn blowouts and then look into buying more of whichever diaper cover emerges victorious. They're pretty though, huh?




Suzi fell in love with a Plan Toy drum, but it was $20 and we decided to wait on that. It may make a nice Easter or birthday gift. We will definitely be returning to The Littlest Birds at least once before August. She was sad she wasn't getting her drum, but I spotted a cute little snowman I knew she would love (on clearance, too) and that cheered her up. She'd been such a sweet girl all day and deserved a little something.


Especially when you consider what I got. In a pile on the bottom of the clearance shelf I spotted a beautiful fire-toned Storchenwiege wrap. I'd admired Julie's at babywearing, but never thought I'd get one because they retail for over $100! Well, this one had been marked down three times and the final price was $52! You can scarcely find a used one for that. My collection shrunk a little recently when I sold two hotslings to a new mom, so if you think about it I'm just trading up and diversifying. Just to be sure I'd gotten a good deal, I searched for one on eBay when I got home and found this. It's the same wrap I got and sold for about $46.50 (it was already sold, so I couldn't have gotten it for that). The listing was in German so I couldn't tell what the seller had said about it. It was used though, and they charged the winner 19 Euros to ship it from Hamburg to the UK--and that wouldn't have been a good deal for me. Therefore, this is one impulse buy I don't regret! The colors are perfect for a summer baby. I tried it out once with Suzi, but I'll need some help later figuring it out with a newborn.

A day of learning and changes

We had babywearing group today. Suzi was the littlest and kept chewing on everyone else's toys. Still working on a tooth, I think. Julie gave me a copy of Mothering magazine, which I love. I've read most of it already and will definitely be subscribing. In one issue they discuss cloth diapering, vaccines, and several other issues I've been curious about. The coolest part is all the ads are for useful things like cloth diapers and babywearing items--many of which I haven't heard of before and would consider buying.

Later Jordan and I took Suzi to meet Dr. Bailey-Dorton, our new family doctor. We are thrilled to have found her, thanks to Carey. She and Dr. Cayelli, who will be Suzi's doctor, accept unvaccinated children and are supportive of parents making their own decisions for their kids. Suzi will be getting the three most urgent vaccinations, but one at a time. We will be waiting on varicella in particular, as I'm not convinced this vaccination will last into adulthood and I don't want her getting shingles later. It's so nice to have a doctor, and right around the corner, who isn't going to give us any crap about it.

We are having sleeping issues, and I've suggested cosleeping to Jordan. I would have done it already, but here were my problems:

1) I can't really sleep with Suzi for fear of rolling over on her/smothering her
2) I can't roll over when she's in bed with us because it'll wake her up
3) She's crawling; won't she fall out of bed?
4) How are we supposed to get any, you know, alone time?
5) I have no idea what I'd need to purchase or set up to make this happen. Is it expensive? Will we have to completely rearrange our bedroom?

If you have the answers to these questions, please let me know. She had been sleeping in her crib without complaint, but recently she's been throwing a huge fit. She is truly upset and I can't let her cry like that.

Speaking of changes, we are painting our walls this color:

What do you think? We like it and I think it'll totally change the atmosphere of our blank-walled house.

Last but not least, my smart Jordy got an A in his computer science class!!! I am so happy for him. It won't be long before he graduates, but I won't jinx it by giving a projected date.

Please go vote, cloth diaperers!

This blogging daddy doesn't understand why cloth diapering is worth the time. If you cloth diaper, please take the time to go vote and explain it to him.

Thanks!

Parents magazine's cloth diaper slip-up

Has anyone read this? It was rated by 422 people so far and only got one star out of five, plus dozens of negative comments. I first read it when I got my copy of Parents the other day. It was written by a dad who was conducting an "experiment" in switching from disposables to cloth diapers. The article was funny, but presented no helpful information and in the end he said cloth diapers were too much trouble and wasted time he could be spending with his son. And besides, the water and electricity it takes to launder cloth diapers makes them as bad as (or worse than) the disposables!

(I'm not saying people who use disposables are bad--I used them for a long time with Suzi, and when I started with cloth it was mostly because I knew we'd save money. But it's almost like this guy made them the butt of his joke.)

His first two reasons were not true for me, but I haven't read many details on the last one. One thing I learned as a psych major is that you can't take someone's word when they say "we did a study and found that ____ is better." I want to know the details. Exactly what are they counting here? Because it looks like people imagine diapers just magically appear on the shelf in the store, and are only bad for the environment because they end up in landfills and will not decompose for hundreds of years. You have to factor in how they are manufactured, packaged, and shipped. My favorite rebuttal to this issue, which I found in the comments of the article, was that if washing cloth diapers is bad for the environment it must be bad for us to wash our clothing too. Why don't we start wearing paper clothes and throw them away every night?

I did find this from a comment on the article and I think it puts things more in perspective. Do any of you have good info on the environmental differences? I wasn't able to look at the study in question because I'd have to buy a book to see it. I'm already sold on cloth, but I want to know what to say next time I get asked the environment question.

Also, does anyone get a parenting magazine that has more helpful, constructive information rather than a bunch of common stuff? Parents has a few interesting articles each time, but I know its main moneymaker is advertising, not subscription fees. Besides, I don't agree with everything it says and I don't appreciate seeing mainstream ideas (about vaccinations, for instance) presented as gospel truth. (As a sidenote, I do sometimes look at websites for ideas and tips, but I can read magazines while I breastfeed Suzi.)

"Excuse me... I asked for a Mei Tai?"

And that's what Grandma made. (The quote is from the movie Office Space, which you should see.) Today Suzi and I went to the babywearing meeting at the library and (unlike last month) she was crawling all over the place! I borrowed a handmade Mei Tai carrier from Julie and my mom and I made one like it. I spent a lot of money on all my slings and this was free but I like it better! I think Suzi does too. It's our color (lavender) and the straps are made of vintage fabric that belonged to my great-grandmother! (I come from a long line of fabric hoarders.) This carrier distributes baby's weight evenly over both shoulders and since it goes around your waist it puts less strain on your back. Not quite as easy to maneuver as my slings, but I'm still learning. Right now I need help getting Suzi into it.

Also at the meeting I learned about cloth diapers, and not a moment too soon. I didn't realize I'd put her diaper on slightly wrong (the edges were out) and she peed through onto her outfit. Luckily her buddy Jackson let her borrow some clothes, because I left her spare ones lying on the high chair. Just when you think you have everything, the thing you need most is not in the bag.

We also got some Bumgenius diapers, which we weren't expecting, but Carey was selling hers and we needed some (and we got a good deal I might add). We can't wait to try them! The ones we have now are a little small for Suzi. Ebay has halted sales of used cloth diapers (booooo!) so they are hard to find at a discount. (I mean, come on, eBay. It's not like we don't wash them.) Nope, they don't allow used DIAPERS, but used socks for the purpose of satisfying a fetish is fine. If you find this woman's socks sexy, you're more than welcome to buy them! I'll bet she makes good money pimping out her feet. They also allow used breastpump sales. (Don't get me started.) Evidently eBay is more concerned about what goes on our babies' butts than what goes into their bodies.

Look Ma, I'm standing! (Plus our diaper situation)

That's right, Suzi has learned to pull herself up. Here she is practicing her new skill on her favorite toy, the Learn-Around Playground:

The only problem is the toy is not heavy enough and she will pull it over on herself if we don't stop her. I plan on buying four padded dumbbells and tying one to each leg to make it more stable. (Unless you have a better idea--in which case, please leave a comment.)

She's so excited about standing that it wakes her up in the middle of the night. She'll cry and when Jordan goes to her room she is standing or squatting, holding onto the rails of her crib. She knows how to stand up but hasn't figured out how to sit back down! When this happens we put her in bed with us and I feed her, and a couple of hours later she goes back to her room.

And now for an update on our diaper situation. We are using cloth ones most of the time, but when Suzi goes to Grandma and Grandpa's she wears a disposable because we haven't gotten them set up for cloth ones yet. Here is our diaper laundry:

I want to explain how we are doing this in case anyone might be inspired to try it. It was easy! First, we made some cloth wipes out of t-shirts. Those work great as long as you use them fast enough that they don't start to sour. Then it's time to wash them and start over. We keep ours in a plastic container with enough water to keep them damp. For diapers we are using waterproof velcro covers and Chinese prefolds, which have worked fine. We change the prefold every time and about half the time we can let her continue to wear the same cover. I plan on buying some fancy all-in-ones ASAP, but these require the whole diaper to be washed after every change so we'd need more of them.

What helped us most was having a place to store our dirty diapers before we washed them. I found a perfect little diaper pail at Burlington for about $10. You can open it by stepping on a pedal, and the inside lifts out so I can dump and rinse it. I put a little white vinegar and a few cups of water in the bucket and we throw the dirty diapers in there (we dump any solid poop in the toilet first). Vinegar is one of God's little miracles, because when I went to empty the bucket for the first time it didn't stink, period. I just dumped it in the washer, did a rinse cycle, and then washed them in Dreft. We dried them and now they're ready to go again. To save electricity we may hang them next time.

The take-home message: It is really not that hard or expensive; that's just what Pampers and Huggies want you to think.

Cutting up our t-shirts

I know this looks strange, but it's really not. When I was pregnant with Suzi, I decided I'd definitely be going with cloth diapers. We had cats before, and after all that litterbox-scooping and picking up poop out of the floor, I figured it'd be nothing to wash a few baby diapers... right? Well, at first I procrastinated because at birth Suzi was too small for the diaper covers we'd purchased. Then, to tell the truth, I was just scared to death. I once got up the nerve to put a cloth diaper on her when she was a couple of months old, but as luck would have it she pooped that first one and I was scared to wash it, so I threw the whole thing away. (I'm so ashamed.) Luckily it was only a cheap diaper cover and a Chinese prefold, not one of those fancy $18 all-in-one diapers.

When I went to the babywearing group a couple of weeks ago and saw the other moms using cloth diapers with their babies, it made me want to try harder. I had even noticed some of the moms using washable wipes, so I recently asked Julie what she used for wipes and she said cut up t-shirts work fine! So that was our little arts and crafts project for the evening. We were surprised at how many wipes we could make out of just two shirts. She went to bed wearing a cloth diaper but soaked it so we've changed her already--and it wasn't that bad! The t-shirts make soft, luxurious wipes compared to the disposable ones. We'll gradually buy her some better diapers, but right now we're using what we've got.

I have to go feed her now. It's 10:55 (not sure what the timestamp says) but we've had a hard day and she's not wanting to sleep. Wish us luck!