Let the Fun Begin!

My diapers finally arrived! Some came on Saturday and the rest yesterday, so I spent last night washing (and washing, and washing!). The new unbleached Indian prefolds need to be washed 3-5 times on hot to "fluff" them and pull out the natural waxes to make them absorbent. On top of that, I am watching each rinse cycle for bubbles to make sure I am not using too much detergent (I am!). Its going to take a little while to get the washing part right, but I am super excited about the cute cloth on Charlotte's bum in the picture above! She hasn't had a chance to soil that one yet...ha, so I'll let you know how the changing part goes.

YAY for Diapers!

The first package arrived on my doorstep yesterday and the second package looks like it will arrive tomorrow. I am holding off trying the first two that arrived - the Bumkins and the bumGenius - until I can wash them with the prefolds and additional bumGenius that should arrive tomorrow. The outer material of the Bumkins is kinda plastic-ish, but still very cute. I like the way the material on the inside feels; it's very soft. The bumGenius looks a little trimmer; the inserts are soft but the material that goes against baby bum looks not quite as soft. I think the design to adjust sizing seems a little, well, genius, so I'm looking forward to trying them.

Enough excitement for today :-). Now to the dishes.

Waiting

Is it insane that I keep looking up the tracking details for my cloth diaper packages? Since I finally ordered something, I can hardly wait for it to get here!

Really, who knew I could be so excited about something that contains poop?! I've heard people say that cloth diapering can be addictive...oh dear.

Also, I wrote this draft a little while ago, but never posted: catching-up-at-long-last

Enjoy your weekends!

New Photos from the Slacker

Okay, I can't really say that I've been a slacker, since we've been ultra busy around here the past several weeks, but I haven't been a great photo poster, so I thought I'd put these up. Charlotte turns 8 months old in just two days! People say babies grow so fast; if only I'd known how fast. She's such a big girl!

Charlotte is a pro at scooting backwards and can even go down onto all fours and back into a sitting position again, but nothing in a forward motion. She's SO CLOSE to crawling, rocking back and forth; I keep expecting her to move across the floor at any second! At the same time, I am pretty happy with her not getting around very well, because we are no where near babyproofed enough for Charlotte in full motion!

With Aunt Michele and her friend Emmy:

Happy that Aunt Michele came to visit:

Goofy Girl:

With Miss Jill:

Happy even as Mommy drags her all over town for work stuff:

Playtime! I fill the big green bin with her toys, she empties it, I fill it back up, she empties it again. Who knew such simplicity could be so entertaining?

Standing with Aunt Michele:

The Great Diaper Experiment

As I grow older, I suddenly find that the traits of my parents often also belong to me. From a young age, I learned that my father makes decisions slowly, a habit that now appears to be hereditary!

After much research, waiting, more research, and more thinking, I finally purchased some cloth diapers for trial purposes. I visited two websites, one of which belongs to one of my coworkers' sister: http://www.diapersetc.com/. The other site I used is http://www.cottonbabies.com/. Between the two sites I put together my own sampling of cloth diaper "trial" options.

Here is what I purchased (photos of the actual colors/patterns!):

(1) bumGenius 3.0 -This is a "One Size" pocket diaper. It comes with an insert that comes in and out of a pocket inside the diaper. The diaper is fully adjustable to fit a newborn and a toddler. The insert must be removed for washing, but the size flexibility creates an opportunity to save money as Charlotte grows. (yes, I bought pink!)

(1) bumGenius 2.0 - This is an "All in One" diaper (AIO). They come in sizes (xs, s, m, l) and are simply use and wash. No pins, no pockets to stuff, AIOs offer the simplicity of "sposie" diapers. I am only concerned about amount of dryer time I will have to use with these to get them completely dry.



(1) Bumkins AIO - same idea as the bumGenius, just a different brand and a super cute pattern. Just like sposies, all cloth diaper makes fit differently on different babies, so I'm giving these a try too. Perhaps I may also find a difference in absorbency, so we'll test that too.



Bravely armed with my new knowledge, I also purchased (6) prefolds (your basic burp-cloth material of choice!) that I will try with these (2) wrap covers by Bummis. I purchased some "snappi" closers to use instead of pins (no risk of poking Charlee as she flips over on the changing table), although my understanding is that since these are wraps and not plain pull on covers, they should hold the cloth prefolds in place without the use of pins or a snappi.

By trying these cloth diapers, I hope to see a little greener, both earth-green and dollar-green. I can't say that I hard core believe I need to "save the earth," but I can't quite get rid of the mental image of 4,000 dirty diapers in a landfill for my great-great-great-great(okay so I don't know how many great)-grandchildren to deal with.

Dollar-wise, assuming 6 diapers a day, at roughly 0.25/diaper and 365 days/year, disposable diapers cost roughly $547.50/year. While I see myself investing in the more expensive pocket and AIO diapers, I see myself making an investment of about a year's cost of disposable use. The great news? Charlotte will be in diapers for more than just one year AND since I don't anticipate her being an only child, these diapers will get even more use. If we didn't have any more children? Cloth diapers in good condition are easy to resell at 75% of original cost.

Now I'm off to the store to invest in some cloth diaper friendly detergent and some cheap baby washcloths to use as wipes :-). We'll let you know how it goes when we get everything setup and going!

Sweet Poem

I came across this today and love it:

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, Lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek-peek-a-boo).
The shopping is not done and there's nothing for stew
And out in the yard there is a hullabaloo.
But I'm playing "Kanga" and this is my "Roo."
Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Ruth Hulburt Hamilton, 1958

Catching up! At long last...

Okay, so I know I am WAY late on this post, and posting in general, but things have been more or less chaotic around here the last few weeks. Charlotte has been on 4 airplane rides and in 3 times zones. You may imagine that she was way out of whack after all the travel and lack of routine. In fact, the mayhem had such an effect on both of us that we're shifting to a more regular schedule instead of a general routine.

Every day Charlotte strikes me more like a little person than a baby. I even had this crazy thought this morning about how much fun it would be to have another baby just so I could watch them interact with each other. If I love watching her interact with Miss Maddie, how much more fun would it be to see her with a little brother or sister? We're still holding off on that one, though. After the weekend in Atlanta with Christa, Mike, and 14-month-old Jackson, I realized that two babies would be really hard!

She's working really hard on crawling, managing to hoist herself onto all fours and rock back and forth. Eventually she pushes her nose into the ground, pulls her knees off the ground and squirms her feet and arms around, moving a couple of inches forward with much effort. This method of movement frustrates her, though, as she generally moves backwards about a foot for every few inches forward. Poor thing!

As she babbles quite a bit now, I often wonder how much language she understands. Thursday while waiting for Fred to come home from work I asked her, "Where's your Daddy," - more of a statement, really. She looked around the room and said, "da?" Whoa! Who knew, my baby is a genius! We're looking at a 4-year college scholarship, right? You might chalk it all up to coincidence, but I'm going to keep hoping for a full ride to an Ivy League school.

Charlotte does, certainly, understand, "Are you hungry? Do you want some mimi?" (mimi=milk) She often goes from fussy to happy when I ask that question, and then to furious if I don't immediately proceed to offer her next meal.

Bug cut two more teeth in the past week. The are just barely through her gums, but she now has 4 teeth on top and two on the bottom.

Friday I left Charlotte with Sylvia and went to see Beta and Ernest in the St. Thomas HS Mother's Club Style Show and Luncheon (or at least I think that is the full title!). Over the years my mother has volunteered so much of her time to STH, so it was wonderful to see her get the spotlight and recognition for all of her work! She looked beautiful in the evening gown they picked for her to wear.

Sorry, I'm slackin'!

I know I've been slacking on the blog! There are just so many things to catch up on, and I want to make sure I get it all in there...have enough time to get it all in there, etc. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to BE enough time to sit down and do it all. Go figure.

Anyway, Charlotte has gone mobile, folks!

The brace had been off for a week and a half when she started creeping backwards. In the month since it has come off, she has turned into a proficient roller, although not as a means to get from one side of the room to the other. Mostly she creeps backward, but now also can creep forward - she looks like an inch worm!

We're working on solid foods, although she is just now beginning to get the hang of them. Yummy! She isn't a fan of Gerber, so I usually end up cooking her food for her.

More, with pics, after this week, I promise.