Paul and I are not really green. We have friends who are hard core, but we are just really scratching the surface. The main things we do are:
- cloth diapers
- recycle paper, glass and plastics
- reuse items
If we had land we would grow things, but since my summer tomato plant was an abysmal failure, lets stick to the options above.
Cloth Diapers
What is it: I use bum genius one size diapers, washing them in our washing machine. We use rice paper liners to capture the poo, which we flush. We do this load usually every 3 days.
Whose to blame: Oh, I think there is an even level of blame on Tara J and on Wendy W.
Why I do it: The main reason I use cloth diapers is the idea of 18 billion disposable diapers a year breaking down over 450 years into our ground water is unnerving. It means that your kids diapers will be around longer than your kids' kids. It's not a legacy I want to leave. Leave literature, not plastic wrapped poo for archaeologists to pick over.
Price-wise, it is about the same as doing disposables, at least for the first kid. You start saving money as your family grows.
What I could change: Frankly, I'm willing to pay for pocket diapers instead of doing prefolds. Prefolds are so much cheaper but its worth it to me to not have to think about how to get wiggly boy into a prefold with a snappis and cover.
Recycling
What is it:Separating glass, cans, and paper out from our trash and placing it in the recycling bin instead of the trash compactor.
Whose to blame: Emily S got me started when we were roommates in college. I recently got a shot in the arm about it by Robin K and Peter Sh when we were visiting this summer. Good examples people!
Why I do it:It's so blinking easy. When you throw things away they either go in A bin or B bin. I like the idea that some of this stuff can be made into other things. I think about how families use to store things in tins and wood boxes (and tupperware and plastic.) the idea of disposable wrappers is fairly new.
What I could change: I have a confession to make: I don't reuse zip lock bags. And anything that involves a drive to a recycling center is pretty much off my radar. We are guilty of hoarding computers in particular because we know of no good place to recycle them.
Reused items (new to us)
What is it: We don't buy new if we can find it used.
Whose to blame: Oh, this completely falls on Wendy's plate again.
Why I do it: A, its cheaper. B. Most items on craiglist and ebay and even at goodwill are hardly used at all. The community I live in is a consumer community which means a lot of this stuff gets used once and then is passed on. It I buy/get it used, that means one less thing needed to be created out of the limited amount of resources. We only have used cars, used couch, used plates, used toys, used books, etc. I have been liberated of the "ick factor" by using cloth diapers. I now know what it takes to really clean something, so I'm not worried about getting used stuff. We just wash it before we use it.
What I could change:There are still a number of things we buy new for safety and hygene. Occasionally we can't find it used, so I break down and buy it new.
Showing posts with label diapers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label diapers. Show all posts
10.15.2008
return of the pockets (diaper saga part xxxi)
So a while ago a friend encouraged me to not give up on cloth pocket diapers but try again. I took his advice and went and posted ondiaperpin.com and admited that I had a problem. The answer was yes, hard water did play a part in my diapers sealing up - but the washing soda I was using did so even more. So, if you've checked out the advice on sunshinediapers DON'T use the washing soda/simple green option if you have hard water. The smart people over at the pin even suggested a cure, many many baths of mildly diluted vinegar. Not a solution for the faint of heart, but it has brought back all of the diapers that were having problems. More importantly, I found out it wasn't my washer or dryer that was the problem. The problem was between user and washing machine, so to speak. Once I got this worked out, I felt comfortable investing in pocket diapers for good. So, before I left for florida I purchased a bunch of bumgenius 3.0's one size and than waited with baited breath for them to arrive. They came at 5pm the day before I left town. So, my folks got to learn all about how cloth diapering has changed since I was a wee lass. I actually traveled in cloth on the return because of the incident on the way down there.
And they came not a moment too soon. Tobo moved up to the second snap (medium size) about two days after we were back in CO. Though I've got a bunch of medium/large prefolds and now a few medium size covers, I don't know how I ever lived on prefolds alone. The pockets last for like 7 hours comfortably since they wick away the wetness from his bum. The prefolds would last maybe 2 hours if we were lucky. And the pockets are just cute as a button. So maybe for bumming around the house, but I feel safer in a cloth pocket in public.
And they came not a moment too soon. Tobo moved up to the second snap (medium size) about two days after we were back in CO. Though I've got a bunch of medium/large prefolds and now a few medium size covers, I don't know how I ever lived on prefolds alone. The pockets last for like 7 hours comfortably since they wick away the wetness from his bum. The prefolds would last maybe 2 hours if we were lucky. And the pockets are just cute as a button. So maybe for bumming around the house, but I feel safer in a cloth pocket in public.
9.07.2008
make a new plan, stan. set yourself free.
So, we just got back from a weekend away at the cabin in lovely lovely evergreen, co. The weather was just beautiful, and though its not as restful as it use to be, we had a good time being away as a family.
Since tobo's routine was blown anyway, we took the weekend to experiment with his sleeping habits. We found out that he is totally not hungry when he's waking up, though he's up at 7pm, 10pm, 1am, 4am, 5am, 6am, 7am, 8am. He just wakes up too far out of his sleep cycle and can't settle again. With this info, we came up with a new plan...a plan that will eventually lead us to another plan, but for now will hopefully cut down on the number of times up at night.
plan B: Tobo eats as much as he'll take (a big feeding for him is 5 oz) at 7pm, 10pm, 3am, and 7am. If he wakes up any other time, we sooth him back to sleep any way we can. (*exception: if he turns manic(!) than feed him something note the time and we'll figure out why he didn't have enough to eat before that). The nice thing about this plan is that I sooth him between 10p and 3a feeding, then its Paul's turn and I can (in theory) sleep for 4 solid hours together!!! Ok, not really likely, but I can always hope. I've just hit a bit of a wall when it comes to sleep. I just can't keep doing 2 hour intervals after 4am and still get up and work the next morning at 8am.
I can hear you over the internet. Many of you are saying, "how is this better than what you're doing now?" Really I just wanted to take time this weekend to work out the guidelines about tobo's night with Paul so we understood them, agreed about them so we can be consistent when applying them, which we haven't been doing so far. Or rather, we've been letting him set the schedule. I've also gotten in the bad habit of letting him settle in our bed for what starts out as 15 minutes, but turns into an hour and half because I fall asleep. (see sleep comment above) So now we're trying to sooth him anyway we can and use coming to our bed as a last resort (because it actually works). The manic! exception is also a last resort, after checking his diaper, getting a dumb, etc. What is ironic is the whole settling in our bed started because he would fall asleep in my arms and then freak out as soon as I put him down so I was holding him for _hours_ at night. I think we're beyond that now, he's got a good history of sleeping in his crib now, but...yeah this new plan may change quickly.
Ideally this will get us positioned to take away a feeding in a little while, start getting him to settle in his crib more readily, and eventually start sleeping through the night in his crib.
He's now eating about 2 meals a day with gusto (about 2 tablespoons a meal) so I tried a breakfast meal this morning. Not really enthusiastic about it. We'll try again in a little bit. He eats about 14 to 16oz of milk a day, and nurses in addition about 15 to 20 minutes at night. (break that into 5 minute intervals) He is still fundamentally refusing the breast. The nursing is happening when he's asleep and not paying attention. :/ I think he's getting enough to eat. As a secondary thing, we're trying to consolidate his feeding into meals and snacks, so he will stop nipping 1oz meals every hour all day. This is kind of working, except when he's teething/growth spurt,etc. (see manic!) I just don't like to let him howl for food.
Other news - our disposables have started leaking like nobody's business, causing me to dig out the pocket diapers again. This time I joined a forum and got a few answers. Pockets can be massively stuffed with liners, making them very absorbent. I think the answer is that in hard water, plan on stripping your pockets every 2 to 4 weeks. And that there will be some beading at all times, but it should last longer than 30 seconds before the liquid soaks through. Tobo will do his first night in one tonight, so we'll see how it goes.
Paul weight him tonight and he's around 15.5 lbs. He feel so different than when he was 5 lbs. :)
Well, off to finish folding laundry and such before we go to bed.
Since tobo's routine was blown anyway, we took the weekend to experiment with his sleeping habits. We found out that he is totally not hungry when he's waking up, though he's up at 7pm, 10pm, 1am, 4am, 5am, 6am, 7am, 8am. He just wakes up too far out of his sleep cycle and can't settle again. With this info, we came up with a new plan...a plan that will eventually lead us to another plan, but for now will hopefully cut down on the number of times up at night.
plan B: Tobo eats as much as he'll take (a big feeding for him is 5 oz) at 7pm, 10pm, 3am, and 7am. If he wakes up any other time, we sooth him back to sleep any way we can. (*exception: if he turns manic(!) than feed him something note the time and we'll figure out why he didn't have enough to eat before that). The nice thing about this plan is that I sooth him between 10p and 3a feeding, then its Paul's turn and I can (in theory) sleep for 4 solid hours together!!! Ok, not really likely, but I can always hope. I've just hit a bit of a wall when it comes to sleep. I just can't keep doing 2 hour intervals after 4am and still get up and work the next morning at 8am.
I can hear you over the internet. Many of you are saying, "how is this better than what you're doing now?" Really I just wanted to take time this weekend to work out the guidelines about tobo's night with Paul so we understood them, agreed about them so we can be consistent when applying them, which we haven't been doing so far. Or rather, we've been letting him set the schedule. I've also gotten in the bad habit of letting him settle in our bed for what starts out as 15 minutes, but turns into an hour and half because I fall asleep. (see sleep comment above) So now we're trying to sooth him anyway we can and use coming to our bed as a last resort (because it actually works). The manic! exception is also a last resort, after checking his diaper, getting a dumb, etc. What is ironic is the whole settling in our bed started because he would fall asleep in my arms and then freak out as soon as I put him down so I was holding him for _hours_ at night. I think we're beyond that now, he's got a good history of sleeping in his crib now, but...yeah this new plan may change quickly.
Ideally this will get us positioned to take away a feeding in a little while, start getting him to settle in his crib more readily, and eventually start sleeping through the night in his crib.
He's now eating about 2 meals a day with gusto (about 2 tablespoons a meal) so I tried a breakfast meal this morning. Not really enthusiastic about it. We'll try again in a little bit. He eats about 14 to 16oz of milk a day, and nurses in addition about 15 to 20 minutes at night. (break that into 5 minute intervals) He is still fundamentally refusing the breast. The nursing is happening when he's asleep and not paying attention. :/ I think he's getting enough to eat. As a secondary thing, we're trying to consolidate his feeding into meals and snacks, so he will stop nipping 1oz meals every hour all day. This is kind of working, except when he's teething/growth spurt,etc. (see manic!) I just don't like to let him howl for food.
Other news - our disposables have started leaking like nobody's business, causing me to dig out the pocket diapers again. This time I joined a forum and got a few answers. Pockets can be massively stuffed with liners, making them very absorbent. I think the answer is that in hard water, plan on stripping your pockets every 2 to 4 weeks. And that there will be some beading at all times, but it should last longer than 30 seconds before the liquid soaks through. Tobo will do his first night in one tonight, so we'll see how it goes.
Paul weight him tonight and he's around 15.5 lbs. He feel so different than when he was 5 lbs. :)
Well, off to finish folding laundry and such before we go to bed.
6.16.2008
that's for babies
We spent Father's Day weekend up at the OMF cabin this weekend, a much needed holiday from everything. Dad (as we now call him) got a chance to hang out with Tobo and *not* be stressed out, which i think the little boy loved (!) to get that time. After watching them play, I began to realize that I've really been keeping tobo to a newborn/infant routine (sleep/eat/sleep/eat) and he's really read for something more challenging. A few exciting developments:
- tobo is actually pretty good at sitting at the moment. He wants to sit up. He wants to look around. No more of this baby laying around stuff.
- we mentioned the fist
- he actually got kind of interested in a toy this weekend, kinda. (We call it Martian Puppy) He had a great game of knocking him down with his fist.
- He loves having you play with his feet and Paul started having him play a game called "launch" where we hold his feet and he tries to turn over.
- he turned over on his belly a few times but with help. He's really close to doing it himself.
- the rash of d00m(tm) has finally left his bum. Though I doubt we will go anywhere without a yeast cream until he's potty trained, just in case.
- he went on his longest car ride ever (1 hour!) And complained most of the way because the sun was often in his eyes. We've installed sun screen now in the back window which seems to make it much easier
- he was up as high as he has ever been, at 7,220 ft.
He's also getting a lot bigger. I'll try and get a weigh in tonight, but he's officially too long in the torso for 0-3mths clothing as is his head diameter too big to get comfortable in 0-3's anymore. I just spent the last 30 minutes packing up all the footie pj's and getting out and washing the 6-9mth stuff. It's only a matter of time. It's also getting to be warmer here so we need to get away from fleece things and think about oneies for sleeping. My little boy ain't so little anymore. I'm sad to see the little baby stuff go, but the cool little boy stuff is coming up. Mixed feelings on this one.
I also have a confession to make. While we were at the cabin we tried out disposables again...and Tobo slept through the night. So, unless we can find someone who can trouble shoot or pocket diapers, we're going to start doing disposables at night. We're talking the difference of 1 diaper vs usually 3 diaper changes a night. We all need the sleep more than we need to protect the environment. I'm still doing prefolds in the day, and plan to do so as he gets bigger, but yeah. I make a sad face about having to give up on my latest hobby - stripping mineral deposits from diapers. :(
I also had tobo put himself to sleep at the cabin. We were up in the morning playing and at some point he just laid down. I laid down next to him to do a little face time cuddling and at some point he just looked at me and then turned over and went to sleep as if to say, "You relax mother. Get a cup of coffee. I'm going to nap here for a bit, but I'll play with you in a little while." Such a big kid now. We're also talking about changing our sleeping arrangement this week, so tobo gets ready to not be right next to our bed while we're traveling. (same room though) I'm just too aware of him at night, so I'm jumping up to trouble shoot at every little noise. I just don't believe that he's just making noise in his sleep. So, for our sanity, we're thinking of unhooking the bassinet-side car and just use it as a stand alone. He's still fits in it, but we've probably only got a month or two left before he will be too big for it.
Also started digging around to find out what we need to do to travel with tobo in June. Apparently not much, unless the airline decides to get a bee in its bonnet. This trip we are lucky, we got our tickets before the crazy bag-charging thing. Christmas we won't be as lucky. Talked with the priest-in-charge this afternoon and had a lovely conversation about the baptism. I am looking forward to it. Obviously I need to figure out what the boy's going to wear now that he's grown out of all his most likely outfits.
This week is insane. Lots of stuff at work (being candidate course) a meeting with our church to talk about omf more, friends from out of town coming through on Thursday, possible sighting of our bro-in-law as he passes through town to a funeral, planning meeting with our accountability partner for our partnership development, possibly scheduled meeting with carseat expert to explain our car seat to us with out the base and, um spiders. We had a bunch of spiders move in while we were away. They all showed up at the midnight feeding, which was um...shocking. I ended up waking up Paul to deal with them, tobo in arms because as i said we where in the middle of a feeding when these things came running across the carpet. Ack! hopefully we got them all, but it was just not a cool way to end the evening.
I'll try to post pictures soon.
- tobo is actually pretty good at sitting at the moment. He wants to sit up. He wants to look around. No more of this baby laying around stuff.
- we mentioned the fist
- he actually got kind of interested in a toy this weekend, kinda. (We call it Martian Puppy) He had a great game of knocking him down with his fist.
- He loves having you play with his feet and Paul started having him play a game called "launch" where we hold his feet and he tries to turn over.
- he turned over on his belly a few times but with help. He's really close to doing it himself.
- the rash of d00m(tm) has finally left his bum. Though I doubt we will go anywhere without a yeast cream until he's potty trained, just in case.
- he went on his longest car ride ever (1 hour!) And complained most of the way because the sun was often in his eyes. We've installed sun screen now in the back window which seems to make it much easier
- he was up as high as he has ever been, at 7,220 ft.
He's also getting a lot bigger. I'll try and get a weigh in tonight, but he's officially too long in the torso for 0-3mths clothing as is his head diameter too big to get comfortable in 0-3's anymore. I just spent the last 30 minutes packing up all the footie pj's and getting out and washing the 6-9mth stuff. It's only a matter of time. It's also getting to be warmer here so we need to get away from fleece things and think about oneies for sleeping. My little boy ain't so little anymore. I'm sad to see the little baby stuff go, but the cool little boy stuff is coming up. Mixed feelings on this one.
I also have a confession to make. While we were at the cabin we tried out disposables again...and Tobo slept through the night. So, unless we can find someone who can trouble shoot or pocket diapers, we're going to start doing disposables at night. We're talking the difference of 1 diaper vs usually 3 diaper changes a night. We all need the sleep more than we need to protect the environment. I'm still doing prefolds in the day, and plan to do so as he gets bigger, but yeah. I make a sad face about having to give up on my latest hobby - stripping mineral deposits from diapers. :(
I also had tobo put himself to sleep at the cabin. We were up in the morning playing and at some point he just laid down. I laid down next to him to do a little face time cuddling and at some point he just looked at me and then turned over and went to sleep as if to say, "You relax mother. Get a cup of coffee. I'm going to nap here for a bit, but I'll play with you in a little while." Such a big kid now. We're also talking about changing our sleeping arrangement this week, so tobo gets ready to not be right next to our bed while we're traveling. (same room though) I'm just too aware of him at night, so I'm jumping up to trouble shoot at every little noise. I just don't believe that he's just making noise in his sleep. So, for our sanity, we're thinking of unhooking the bassinet-side car and just use it as a stand alone. He's still fits in it, but we've probably only got a month or two left before he will be too big for it.
Also started digging around to find out what we need to do to travel with tobo in June. Apparently not much, unless the airline decides to get a bee in its bonnet. This trip we are lucky, we got our tickets before the crazy bag-charging thing. Christmas we won't be as lucky. Talked with the priest-in-charge this afternoon and had a lovely conversation about the baptism. I am looking forward to it. Obviously I need to figure out what the boy's going to wear now that he's grown out of all his most likely outfits.
This week is insane. Lots of stuff at work (being candidate course) a meeting with our church to talk about omf more, friends from out of town coming through on Thursday, possible sighting of our bro-in-law as he passes through town to a funeral, planning meeting with our accountability partner for our partnership development, possibly scheduled meeting with carseat expert to explain our car seat to us with out the base and, um spiders. We had a bunch of spiders move in while we were away. They all showed up at the midnight feeding, which was um...shocking. I ended up waking up Paul to deal with them, tobo in arms because as i said we where in the middle of a feeding when these things came running across the carpet. Ack! hopefully we got them all, but it was just not a cool way to end the evening.
I'll try to post pictures soon.
6.09.2008
our lives are getting more interesting
Today is a good day. for the first time since I moved to CO, I will be able to recycle where I live. They are starting a beginners racquetball class at the fitness center. I'm a lb away from my pre-pregnancy weight. Tobo slept until 10am this morning, meaning I slept in til 9:45am. Life is good!
Speaking of tobo, here are some photos:
not the comfy chair! He's really not a fan of going in the car seat unless we are moving.
hanging out in the sling. This is my hot-chick sling from before. Tobo actually will sleep in this while we're at the office and I'm working.
helping mom with the camera. Well, he's still not reaching out for things, other than kisses from momma on his hand.
so happy to be playing on the changing table! This is what it's all about.
I'm awake! Hanging out with grand-nana's blanket again. He likes it a lot and it's a great size for traveling. Warm too.
Tobo is somewhere around 11 weeks old now. Highlights these days include:
I also wanted to put a diaper update. I know I left you all hanging on the edge of your seats about my diapers. :) Was it the dryer sheets in the dryer on non-diaper loads? Was it hard water? Was it left over diaper rash cream? The answer is...yes. All three were contributing to the problem. I'm happy to say that after doing a stripping in dawn, and then a stripping in calgon (water softener NOT bath salts) the fuzzybunz AND the bumgenius have gotten better. They are still not 100%, but they are at least useable. The down side is that my other fuzzybunz is starting to seize up, which means that it looks like I'm either going to have to strip diapers every 2 weeks for mineral deposits OR find the right amount to add to my laundry loads so that they never seize up to begin with. I'm happy that my mom-in-law wants to do cloth diapers when we're in Mich. We'd talked about doing it for florida too, but my folks have a HE washer, so I'd need advice on what I'd need to do differently. It also means lugging all of our diapers with us (because tobo will use them all in a day) but it might be worth it to avoid more diaper out break.
Our lives are getting more interesting. Paul has volunteered to help with the senior high youth at church, which means he was out sliding down the slip and slide on baby oil Sunday evening. I'm starting that as a movie night for myself and tobo so that I get a bit of relaxing too during the week. We're schedule to join a small group / home group thing on Tuesday this week. I'm hoping it goes well and I'm pretty sure it's what I want to do. Of course, I'm not totally sure what goes on at these protestant small groups. It will be a new experience. I'm debating putting tobo in the nursery for service. At the moment, we're doing sunday school at 9, hang out in between and then service at 10:45a. Or rather Paul is doing this. I'm usually feeding tobo in between and then coming in after the music but for the message. So I guess what I would do is the same, but I'd just leave him in the nursery for the last 30 minutes instead of taking him with me. I'm not quite ready to do this, so we'll see. I need to read up on my development books for his age, cause I have no idea what to expect at the moment.
Work is going alright. This week starts candidate course for June, which is what we went through in October last year. This time around I'll be making business cards and prayer cards for folks, while trying to wrap up a few other projects. I'm hoping to commit to a schedule at work so people know when I'm in the office. Now that Paul and I have been switched to what amounts to "salaried" at OMF (instead of employee and contractor) we can set up flex time for both of us. I'm still working from home, but I just need to be visible there so people don't think they have been abandoned.
I must dig out my kitchen so Tobo can get a bath later. so I'm off to clean up a bit.
Speaking of tobo, here are some photos:
not the comfy chair! He's really not a fan of going in the car seat unless we are moving.
hanging out in the sling. This is my hot-chick sling from before. Tobo actually will sleep in this while we're at the office and I'm working.
helping mom with the camera. Well, he's still not reaching out for things, other than kisses from momma on his hand.
so happy to be playing on the changing table! This is what it's all about.
I'm awake! Hanging out with grand-nana's blanket again. He likes it a lot and it's a great size for traveling. Warm too.
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| From Cute Things M... |
Tobo is somewhere around 11 weeks old now. Highlights these days include:
- My fist is delicious!
- I *hate* waking up and not knowing where I am. I rage RAGE at the world, especially if I'm hungry.
- I'm cool with the sling, though we'd better be going somewhere in it.
- I like to sleep through the night as long as I feel dry. Otherwise, we're up every couple of hours.
- I am sooo sleepy after a day of hanging out with other people.
- I'm about to go on my first airline trip in a few weeks.
- I'm almost old enough to go in the nursery at church, if momma can let me go. [Apparently the separation anxiety is *much worse* at 6mths than at 3mths]
- I am still howling but now I've added sounds like "il-lee" "go-gaw" and "eh." I especially like it when mom or dad (or both) sing back to me with these sounds.
- My rash is almost gone, though it's trying really hard to branch out to other parts of my bottom.
- My cradle cap is receding thanks to tree tea oil (not allergic to it!) and a bit of selsan blue.
I also wanted to put a diaper update. I know I left you all hanging on the edge of your seats about my diapers. :) Was it the dryer sheets in the dryer on non-diaper loads? Was it hard water? Was it left over diaper rash cream? The answer is...yes. All three were contributing to the problem. I'm happy to say that after doing a stripping in dawn, and then a stripping in calgon (water softener NOT bath salts) the fuzzybunz AND the bumgenius have gotten better. They are still not 100%, but they are at least useable. The down side is that my other fuzzybunz is starting to seize up, which means that it looks like I'm either going to have to strip diapers every 2 weeks for mineral deposits OR find the right amount to add to my laundry loads so that they never seize up to begin with. I'm happy that my mom-in-law wants to do cloth diapers when we're in Mich. We'd talked about doing it for florida too, but my folks have a HE washer, so I'd need advice on what I'd need to do differently. It also means lugging all of our diapers with us (because tobo will use them all in a day) but it might be worth it to avoid more diaper out break.
Our lives are getting more interesting. Paul has volunteered to help with the senior high youth at church, which means he was out sliding down the slip and slide on baby oil Sunday evening. I'm starting that as a movie night for myself and tobo so that I get a bit of relaxing too during the week. We're schedule to join a small group / home group thing on Tuesday this week. I'm hoping it goes well and I'm pretty sure it's what I want to do. Of course, I'm not totally sure what goes on at these protestant small groups. It will be a new experience. I'm debating putting tobo in the nursery for service. At the moment, we're doing sunday school at 9, hang out in between and then service at 10:45a. Or rather Paul is doing this. I'm usually feeding tobo in between and then coming in after the music but for the message. So I guess what I would do is the same, but I'd just leave him in the nursery for the last 30 minutes instead of taking him with me. I'm not quite ready to do this, so we'll see. I need to read up on my development books for his age, cause I have no idea what to expect at the moment.
Work is going alright. This week starts candidate course for June, which is what we went through in October last year. This time around I'll be making business cards and prayer cards for folks, while trying to wrap up a few other projects. I'm hoping to commit to a schedule at work so people know when I'm in the office. Now that Paul and I have been switched to what amounts to "salaried" at OMF (instead of employee and contractor) we can set up flex time for both of us. I'm still working from home, but I just need to be visible there so people don't think they have been abandoned.
I must dig out my kitchen so Tobo can get a bath later. so I'm off to clean up a bit.
6.05.2008
in praise of fuzzybunz
so this is just a short one. I just wanted to say I'm mightily impressed with fuzzibunz (and all pocket diapers actually). Even with a reduced efficiency because of what I think is hard water, Tobo slept from 11:30p to 7:45a this morning. And because he got so much sleep, he is happily playing on the gym behind me instead of being clingy like the last 2 weeks.
Also - J from church stopped by to see how we were doing. I mentioned that his sleep schedule has been much to be desired over the last few weeks (up ever hour after 4am). So we prayed about that (and other things) and that night he slept better. So my parenting advice is to pray over your child like no bodies business.
Ok, off to flip laundry and eat breakfast. Just wanted to write that down.
Also - J from church stopped by to see how we were doing. I mentioned that his sleep schedule has been much to be desired over the last few weeks (up ever hour after 4am). So we prayed about that (and other things) and that night he slept better. So my parenting advice is to pray over your child like no bodies business.
Ok, off to flip laundry and eat breakfast. Just wanted to write that down.
5.22.2008
being green + babbling about diapers
I found this story from instapundit about how it isn't easy, being green. Since reading what wmw had to say on her blog about diapers and the environment(and since I started participating by diapering the bug (ie tobo) in cloth) I have really started to think about what kind of a foot print we are leaving behind. If there are less wasteful (and ideally cheaper) ways we could be living by making simple changes to what we buy and how we throw it out.
Back to the article. I guess it is not surprising that it is greener to live like sardines, than to live in the'burbs. I was surprised thought that they state it's greener to drive a used car than a hybrid. So what we need to do is wait for the used-hybrid market to pick up. In a million years.
but back to the diaper news you all are waiting to hear with baited breath: :)
I'm now on a quest to find Country Safe, which, in liquid form, will work with our crazy hard water AND clean my diapers. I'm officially ruling that the simple green+washing soda thing just doesn't work here in hardwater land. I did an extreme stripping of the bumgenius yesterday [boil water, tsp dawn, scrub bg on the inside with dawn, take water off heat, stick diaper in water until cools, wash like normal] to no avail, which leads me to believe that the detergent is the problem. It has sealed up the fuzzy bun once again, never fixed the bg, and has periodically solidified the thirstes aio too. So, we move on to see if CountrySave really is good in hard water. This is based on the recommendation of a cottonbabies customer service rep, who gave me the idea to boil my diaper. I did find out from her though that the reason the bg is being so difficult is because the weave is much tighter than you're average pocket, which means that once it gets coated, it is hard to get clean.
but I digress. I had thought I would find CS at our local veggie co-op, but no good. I then went by the new fancy-smancy grocery store and found that they not only didn't have CS, but they didn't have Calgon either. (an alternative suggestion from the rep) Favorite moment: the 16-year-old checker nicely told me she's never heard of Calgon, was it some kind of soap? Har! What was crazier is that she offered to order it for me if I wanted, no extra cost. (I told her to get CS instead, after I picked my jaw off the floor.) Apparently to get an item at the store just need to ask for it. Like Brummel and Brown strawberry spread? Ask for it by name. Unfortunately it will take 2 weeks to come in so I'm still going to see if I can find it else where. Can't not use our pockets for 2 weeks waiting for safeway to maybe order something that someone might have remembered to write down at the end of her shift on a wednesday night. She didn't take down my name or anything either. So that means they really do take orders seriously and will order it on the assumption that someone will by it or they have electronic tracking devices that link up to a database of all their customers, and were tracking me through the store. Pick your paranoia.
We got our big bonanza of diaper stuff in yesterday evening, including a wet/dry bag, pail liner, flannel wipes(50 cents a wipe), and rice paper liners. Tobo doesn't really know what to think of the liners, but they should slow the butt cream transfer ratio to our expensive diapers immensely. They also work, which is awes0me. I won't go into details, but yeah, it's cool. The wipes are exactly what I was hoping for, simple, big enough, and washable. I also got a spray bottle to make life easier when cleaning up the baby.
The other excitment this week has been attack of the cradle cap. (or cradle crap as my mom-in-law calls it) Because of the crazy hot day Tuesday, Tobo's head had a massive break out. Any suggestions for dealing with it?
Back to the article. I guess it is not surprising that it is greener to live like sardines, than to live in the'burbs. I was surprised thought that they state it's greener to drive a used car than a hybrid. So what we need to do is wait for the used-hybrid market to pick up. In a million years.
but back to the diaper news you all are waiting to hear with baited breath: :)
I'm now on a quest to find Country Safe, which, in liquid form, will work with our crazy hard water AND clean my diapers. I'm officially ruling that the simple green+washing soda thing just doesn't work here in hardwater land. I did an extreme stripping of the bumgenius yesterday [boil water, tsp dawn, scrub bg on the inside with dawn, take water off heat, stick diaper in water until cools, wash like normal] to no avail, which leads me to believe that the detergent is the problem. It has sealed up the fuzzy bun once again, never fixed the bg, and has periodically solidified the thirstes aio too. So, we move on to see if CountrySave really is good in hard water. This is based on the recommendation of a cottonbabies customer service rep, who gave me the idea to boil my diaper. I did find out from her though that the reason the bg is being so difficult is because the weave is much tighter than you're average pocket, which means that once it gets coated, it is hard to get clean.
but I digress. I had thought I would find CS at our local veggie co-op, but no good. I then went by the new fancy-smancy grocery store and found that they not only didn't have CS, but they didn't have Calgon either. (an alternative suggestion from the rep) Favorite moment: the 16-year-old checker nicely told me she's never heard of Calgon, was it some kind of soap? Har! What was crazier is that she offered to order it for me if I wanted, no extra cost. (I told her to get CS instead, after I picked my jaw off the floor.) Apparently to get an item at the store just need to ask for it. Like Brummel and Brown strawberry spread? Ask for it by name. Unfortunately it will take 2 weeks to come in so I'm still going to see if I can find it else where. Can't not use our pockets for 2 weeks waiting for safeway to maybe order something that someone might have remembered to write down at the end of her shift on a wednesday night. She didn't take down my name or anything either. So that means they really do take orders seriously and will order it on the assumption that someone will by it or they have electronic tracking devices that link up to a database of all their customers, and were tracking me through the store. Pick your paranoia.
We got our big bonanza of diaper stuff in yesterday evening, including a wet/dry bag, pail liner, flannel wipes(50 cents a wipe), and rice paper liners. Tobo doesn't really know what to think of the liners, but they should slow the butt cream transfer ratio to our expensive diapers immensely. They also work, which is awes0me. I won't go into details, but yeah, it's cool. The wipes are exactly what I was hoping for, simple, big enough, and washable. I also got a spray bottle to make life easier when cleaning up the baby.
The other excitment this week has been attack of the cradle cap. (or cradle crap as my mom-in-law calls it) Because of the crazy hot day Tuesday, Tobo's head had a massive break out. Any suggestions for dealing with it?
5.10.2008
its got to be the cream
I really should change the name of this blog to "Tales of Tobo's Butt". We were back on the phone with the nurse Sat morning. It looked like Tobo had a reaction to the diaper cream so I was out at the drug store at 9am getting an even kinder, gentler butt creams for Tobo. The nurse also suggested aveeno oatmeal bath treatment 2 or 3 times a day. She kindly added to that, I know how hard that is with a newborn. (thank you for realizing bath time takes a half hour to wind up for and a half hour to wind down from, plus clean up)
But we now have a wide array of cream options. So this is my review of diaper rash creams in hope that someone else doesn't have to go through what we have with this rash of d00m:
To complicate matters, he has been in and out of disposables this week during trips to the office and one night where we got out to dinner with friends. It hasn't made it too much worse, but it really makes me doubtful that we should do disposables when on the ground in Florida and Michigan this summer. It looks like he inherited my sensitive skin.
Destin- BAD - coated the cloth diapers in cod oil and very zincy in smellBurt's Baby Bee Diaper Ointment- BAD - caused his toosh to become red-er, the sores worse, and still managed to coat the diapers in random flower oils. I suspect our hard water didn't help.- Boudreaux's Butt Paste - OK - didn't have a good reaction or a bad reaction to this, but does have mineral oil in it, so probably could coat the diapers if we gave it a shot.
- Lanolin from Lansinoh - GOOD - current winner, totally neutral ingredients (no zinc) and is suppose to "melt" out of the diapers in the wash...we'll see.
- Aveeno diaper rash cream - ???- haven't tried it but have it on back up but does have mineral oil in it.
To complicate matters, he has been in and out of disposables this week during trips to the office and one night where we got out to dinner with friends. It hasn't made it too much worse, but it really makes me doubtful that we should do disposables when on the ground in Florida and Michigan this summer. It looks like he inherited my sensitive skin.
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