Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Cloth Diapering Carrie's Way


Holy cow - I am such a mom.  Using words like "poop" in every day conversations.  Reader beware: this is long, probably boring, and discusses poop.

Okay, there's really nothing special about the way I use cloth diapers.  I'm sure it's not much different than other moms out there.  I mean, most of what I do is from things I learned from other moms on the Internet.  But I guess I just want to share how much I love cloth diapering and write down our routines, which will help me know what information to give my little sister when I pass the diapers down to her someday (if she wants them, of course).

First off, we use Bumgenius diapers.  I used 3.0's with the boys, and now I have Becca in both 3.0's and 4.0's one-size.  I was perfectly happy with the 3.0's for the boys, but now I'm finding that I actually prefer the 4.0's.  I like how the stuffing comes out so they dry faster and fluffier.  I also like how they come with snaps instead of Velcro.  (I removed the Velcro and added my own snaps on the boys' diapers. which was a lot of work.)  Once the boys were old enough, it was really easy for them to figure out how to take the Velcro diapers off, plus the Velcro started to fray in the wash after a while.

For newborns, you're supposed to fold a flannel wipe in half to help liquids absorb faster so they don't leak.  We did that for a while, but for some reason we stopped.  I think it might have been that I didn't make enough wipes to last until wash day, so I would run out too soon.  So I haven't found the time to make more wipes, plus I'd like to have a better coverage now that she'll be starting solids in a month or two, so I went ahead and ordered some of the Bumgenius liners, and they're on their way to us now.  Liners are also good for collecting poop when the baby is on solids.  See, you can put breastfed poop straight in the wash machine without rinsing the diaper, but once you have "real" poop, you need to rinse it in the toilet before putting the diaper in the laundry.  When you have a liner, you only need to rinse it instead of the whole diaper, which is much easier.

I never used special laundry detergent on the boys when they were in diapers, which is probably why I had problems.  I did look up which "normal" detergents you can use on cloth diapers, but the boys kept getting rashes with whatever I tried, so I ended up just using bleach on them, which, broke down the waterproof layer on the diapers.  I had to throw them away and buy a whole new set after about a year of using them.  Not the cheapest way to diaper, I can tell you that.  So this time I did a little bit smarter research, and we now use Nellie's All Natural Laundry Soda for both our diapers and our normal laundry.  I buy it from cottonbabies.com, because they ship laundry detergent for free.  I love how Nellie's gets things clean, and it doesn't leave a detergent smell on our clothes.  Plus, Rebecca doesn't get any rashes from it, and I don't have to use bleach.  I do, though, use 1/4 cup of bleach once a month to rinse away any ammonia build-up, which is recommended by Bumgenius.

I wash a load of diapers every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, doing the 1/4 cup of bleach on the first Monday of every month, because there's a bigger build-up of dirty diapers over the weekend.  Speaking of which, I really don't know how many diapers I do each load.  We have 12 of the 4.0's (bought during a buy 5, get one free sale) and about 10 3.0's, and we always have some left on Mondays.  I do a hot/cold rinse on the diapers, then add the detergent and do a regular hot/cold cycle.  A lot of moms do a rinse cycle after that, but I've found that we're doing just fine without it, so then I put them in the dryer, and then when they're done I turn the 3.0's inside out and hang them to finish drying, and fold the 4.0's and put them away.  Okay, to be honest, about 40% of the time the diapers just stay in the laundry basket until they're needed, but I do try to get them hung up or put away most of the time.

Oh, back to the wipes.  When we started cloth diapering the boys, I bought all sorts of wipes, trying to get the best and the softest.  We tried bamboo wipes, velour wipes, and flannel wipes, and I can honestly say that I like flannel the best.  I also  prefer to make my own, not just because it's cheaper, but I like to make them nice and big.

And last topic: stuffing.  Bumgenius 3.0's are designed extremely similar to a disposable diaper.  It has its stuffing sewn in, so you can use it just like a disposable, but it also has a pocket that you can add extra stuffing to for more protection.  The 4.0's are just a pocket diaper - basically a shell with a pocket that you stuff the fluff into, which is one of the reasons they dry faster. You pull the fluff out of the diaper before putting it into the wash.  Right now for normal diapers, I put in just one stuffing, but for overnight, I add in a newborn insert along with the stuffing.

So there you go.  A very long post on cloth diapering stuff you never thought you wanted to know.  Congratulations if you made it this far - I know I wouldn't have before I started to use cloth.  You know, I never thought I would use cloth, but now that I do, I absolutely love it.  I love not having to run to the store when we're getting low on diapers, and I really do love the feel of cloth on my babies.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Please Excuse Me While I Get Caught Up

Okay, now I need to remember all those things I wanted to blog about.  We left off with Halloween...

After Halloween we had a Do Nothing Day on Saturday.  With Alyssa in ballet and soccer, and Brian making Elder's Quorum visits on Tuesdays, we had no evenings or Saturdays that weren't completely busy.  So back in the beginning of October I looked ahead on our calendar and booked November 5th to be a Do Nothing Day.  We promised not to schedule anything on this day, and we didn't, but I had to stop myself sometimes from planning things to do at home.  I kept thinking, "Oh, it would be so fun to make this on Do Nothing Day," or "We could starting painting this room on Do Nothing Day," or "The kids would love to do this craft  on Do Nothing Day."  And then I would have to stop and think about what those three sentences had in common: Do Nothing Day.  And that means do nothing.  And we did. It was so great!  The kids watched Netflix all day.  Brian lay in bed and played games on his laptop.  I tried to take a nap with Rebecca, but I couldn't fall asleep, so instead I started to tell myself a story.

See, I'm one of those people who hit the pillow at night and is asleep within seconds, but the times I can't go to sleep I start telling myself a story and by the time I have the setting figured out, I'm snoring.  But on our do nothing Saturday I could just not get to sleep.  So instead I kept going with my story, and then because Rebecca was laying on my chest, I started dictating ideas to Brian so I wouldn't forget them.  I'm saving those papers, by the way, because they are hilarious.

example:  (Brian's notes)
1. Bad Guy -we'll call him "George" - not a monkey
 2. Small Kingdom A. "Special" princess - "great personality"
5. Large Kingdom A. Land dying - needs Captain Planet!

Those are just a couple of little examples.  A lot of it is not politically correct, so I'm leaving it out.  So anyway.  Long story, short - I am now writing a book.  I've thought about it many times through the years, but never got serious about it.  Now that I have an idea, I'm going with it.  And I'm going to be serious about it.  My goal is to have it ready to turn in to publishers by 2013.  I've got the story line all mapped out, and now I'm just ready to start drafting.  Oh, and Alyssa was there when I was telling the story to Brian, and on the next Monday she came home from school with a note card that she had written the "5 Steps to Writing" on to help me out.  I'm keeping that, too.

Next thing to talk about:  Marcus' birthday.  Marcus was excited to have a birthday.  He was excited for his birthday, but he didn't want to be four.  He wanted to stay three.  I don't know why.  Now that he is four, he's fine with it, but he did not want it to happen before it happened.

I just put this picture up and asked Marcus, "Who's that?" With no hesitation he answered, "Batman."
His birthday was on a Sunday, which made it perfect to have all the family over for his party.  We had a Batman party for him, because he loves everything Batman.  He's never seen a movie or an episode, but this boy loves Batman.  We had chocolate waffles with ice cream and chocolate syrup, and we had a coloring contest to keep all the cousins busy.  We had a picture of Regular Batman for them to color, a picture of Lego Batman, and a picture of Simba from the Lion King, because it went by on Google Search and Marcus liked it.  Then we had Marcus judge them and the winners got a piece of Halloween candy from our stash.  We were going to have my brother come in his super cool Batman Halloween costume (pictured below) but he said it's coming apart in a couple of places and needs some work before he wears it again.  Luckily, Marcus forgot that Batman was invited to his party, and he had a great time.

After Marcus' birthday, we took a short vacation to Great Wolf Lodge Waterpark in Grand Mound, Washington.  Brian needed to take some time off, so we used our credit card reward points to get some extra family time together.  We headed over on a Wednesday.  It was a beautiful drive - about 5 hours.  Rebecca slept almost the whole way, Alyssa read and listened to music, the boys also slept, Brian drove, and I worked on my book.  (That's when I finished mapping out the story line.)

As close as I could get to a picture with all the kids together. 

This is what Rebecca did most of the time.  That's Brian's chest hair - not mine.

Sorry it's sideways.  Blogger has a mind of it's own.

The Jacks version of Where's Waldo.  Find Brian and the boys.
Alyssa and her friend Elizabeth.
We had a great time.  Even Rebecca was happy, because at first we put her in a life jacket and she spent a few hours with something constantly by her mouth to chew on.  The boys weren't big enough to go on the big slides, but Brian and I took turns going on them with Alyssa.  Alyssa made friends with a couple of girls, the boys loved the wave pool and the slides for their size, and I enjoyed my favorite thing about family vacations: watching my kids have fun.

Does everyone else take this many pictures of their babies sleeping?  I just think she's so precious!  And look at those eye lashes - one of the many reasons I'm glad I married Brian.  All of our kids have his beautiful long eyelashes.
 Next we headed up Seattle way to visit the Sumsions.  While there we went to Fort Worden to walk through an old (built in the 1800's) battle artillery, watched Dual Survival (we're now hooked), ate aebleskivers (guess what kind of pan we're getting for Christmas) and yummy German food at a Europub, and bought Brian a couple of suits at a Veteran's Day sale.  We love hanging out with the Sumsions, and we're so glad they let us join them for a couple of days.

Marcus and I enjoyed the echoes.

braving the rain

Oh, Marcus scared Nelsa and  I when he climbed up here.  It was wet and slippery, and he ran down the slope when we asked him to get down.  What you don't see in this picture is just at the bottom of the slope, on the left, it drops off completely.  We were sure he'd fall right off.

So far November has been pretty fun.  Right now Ethan is home from school, because Kindergartners don't have school during parent-teacher conference week.   My mom is over playing Monopoly Junior with the boys as I type.  We're going to an Eric Herman concert on Friday with all of the cousins.  Then, of course, we have Thanksgiving vacation.  I'm looking forward to that! 


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Becca's Motto: I Can Eat That

 Every time something comes within eight inches of Rebecca's face, she lunges for it with her mouth wide open as if to say, "I can eat that!"  And she does.  She chews on everything!

See?  She came this close to eating the camera.