Back In Cloth

  • Posted on March 9, 2010 at 10:31 pm

when my daughter was 6 months old, i bought a TON of cheap cloth pocket diapers off of ebay. (24 Coolababys w/microfiber inserts for $7.50/diaper) they are, basically, generic Happy Heiny’s. sure, i have a couple real Happy Heiny’s, Bum Genius, and a couple other brands that i don’t quite remember… but my generics did the job just as well as the HHs.

i actually had fun putting my daughter in cloth diapers. i knew she was going to be my last baby, so part of me wanted to shove in every baby-thing that i could while i could. another part of me just had fun putting these really cute, fluffy, brightly colored diapers on my baby. they were also very cost effective (as long as we used them for at least 6 months) and eco-friendly.

when my daughter was a little over a year old, i had to stop cloth diapering her. they were leaking constantly… like every hour. i don’t know about you, but personally, i think that’s just WAY too many diaper changes a day. don’t even get me started on what night time looked like. after stripping the diapers (you wash them in a special solution that removes any build up that could be causing leaks) several times in an attempt to stop the leaks, i finally just folded them up, and put them away in the closet.

i don’t like disposable diapers. they stink. 1 wetting, and they stink. the Diaper Genie in my daughter’s room smells like a neglected elephant cage at a cheap carnival, and it’s just so much trash. every time i open her closet door, i gaze longingly at the brightly colored pocket diapers. the poor snappi for the few prefolds and covers that i do own, is just collecting dust.  i really do miss cloth diapering my girl. but i just can’t, i won’t, deal with so many diaper leaks.

last night, as i was contemplating my poor unused cloth diapers, i also got to thinking about the disposables. lately, the wet diapers have been a lot less wet than they used to be… after all, she has been weaned for nearly 3 months now, and her main diet consists of solid foods and a couple sippy cups full of water every day. she is no longer sustained on a main diet of mama’s magic milk…. which would be why she’s peeing a helluva lot less.

maybe?

do you think?

could i go back to cloth diapering my baby girl?

squeeze out just a few more months (maybe even a year!) of use out of my cloth diapers??? more importantly, save myself about $30 a month in diapers???

this morning, i put her in cloth.

all day, she was in cloth.

did she leak??? NO! not even once.

she even pooped solid into her diaper… which was a very exciting experience for me. last time she was cloth diapered, she was still mainly breast feeding, and using my diaper sprayer was a necessity, not a luxury. roll, plop, and a quick rinse and the diaper was ready for the wash.

i’m so happy, i could cry.

we’re still in disposables at night and i will be packing the diaper bag full of  ’spoises because my wet bag is only big enough for 1 CD, but right now i am ridiculously happy.

oh, the life of a mom.

i feel completely lame for being so frikin’ excited about it. do you see how long this post is? pathetic. i need a real life.

*Click HERE for previous Cloth Diapering posts*

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A Robert Pattinson Rant

  • Posted on March 8, 2010 at 10:30 pm

*sorry Rob- this is nothing personal, and is strictly based on an opinion formed from multiple television, poster, book, and movie viewings. i don’t know who you really are. i know that people often look completely different when viewed in person, and opinions are like assholes… everybody’s got one. maybe if i ever meet you in person (because i just know you care so much) my opinion will change, but for now- this is it. *

Robert Pattinson is FUGLY.

especially by Hollywood standards. seriously. WTF do people see in him? i mean it! if i’ve just pissed you off by what i said, then please… tell me why i’m wrong. i’d love to hear it. maybe my taste in men is just f’d up?

i just can’t find anything remotely attractive about his face. he has a HUGE flat, round, pancake face. his features are set too far into his head, (please note the smushed down nose) and his eyes are too far apart. even when he smiles, he looks like he’s constipated and that fluffed out dorky ‘do on his gigantic noggin just makes his head look even bigger. i just don’t find that attractive. i just don’t.

if i saw him on the street as a regular guy, i wouldn’t look twice at him. he’d look just like any other average guy to me. if i was forced to appraise his physical appearance, i would say “he’s not cute at all”. but that’s if i saw him as a regular guy. Hollywood Guys are held to a much higher standard…which once again begs the question… how the hell did he get labeled as a sex symbol? YUCK!

Ryan Reynolds has the cute goofy-guy smile and a killer body. Johnny Depp has an intensity and a mystery about him that you can’t help but be drawn to. Antonio Banderas has the ultimate sexy voice that you don’t even notice once you catch a glimpse of him. Brad Pitt. Christian Bale. George Clooney. Colin Farrell. David Beckham. Orlando Bloom. Will Smith. Matthew McConaughey. Matt Damon.

that’s just a few. where does Robert Pattinson fit into all that? he doesn’t!

SO.

please, either come up with a remotely convincing excuse for his popularity, or get his face off the streets!

it’s okay that he’s in a movie.

it’s okay that he has lots of little (little as in young) adoring fans. every movie star deserves adoring fans. but please, can we stop advertising him so much? i’m tired of turning on the television and being forced to watch him act out (poorly) yet another “i want her but can’t have her” love scene. seriously. i’m tired of seeing his face on posters. i’m tired of opening up my web browser, and being smacked in the face with yet more intimate details of what he was wearing today. the “knit-brow intense look” is starting to get really old.

let’s limit the posters to the concert hall where the Jonas Brothers are playing, and keep the movie previews with him in them between re-runs of iCarly and The Suite Life.

don’t even get me started on Kristin Stewart.

mkay?

thnxbye.

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Family Traditions

  • Posted on March 8, 2010 at 10:10 am

every family has traditions. they may be holiday traditions, vacation traditions, or whatever the hell it is they want to turn into a tradition. our family has moved around so much in the past 8 years, that we haven’t had much of the stability that is needed to create a tradition, so the few we have are precious to us- and also very new.

Pancake Sunday. it’s our newest thing. every sunday, we break out the box of bisquick, and make a huge stack of pancakes together. we eat, and freeze the rest so the kids can have pancakes for breakfast the rest of the week if they want. if Dada’s not home on Sunday, then we wait until the morning closest to Sunday in which he is home. it’s been a lot of fun so far- we turn on the radio, and we all sit in the kitchen and talk and consume massive amounts of sugar and carbs. it’s our tradition, and i love it.

Vacations. vacation traditions are really special, because each vacation tradition is as unique as the family taking it. i’ve known people who would go to the same beach or Disney World or visit a relative at the same time every year. sometimes they do something different every year, but they still take that wonderful family vacation. because of our constant moving around (my son has lived in 6 different places since he was born, poor kid) we haven’t taken any family vacations yet. all of our energy has always gone towards the business (ANR) or whatever situation just happened to come up. this year, we’re going to change it up. we’re going to try and start a family vacation tradition.

i’ve always loved camping. so has my husband. in fact, when we met we began planning a hiking trip up the East Coast that summer. well… ten weeks into our relationship we discovered that i was 8 weeks pregnant, so all the money we had been saving up for camping equipment soon went into baby equipment instead. our camping trip never happened, but the dream has always been there. this year, we’re going to take our first family camping trip. we aren’t going far… in fact, we’ll be within a short driving distance of home. i think it’s the smart way to take it… the kids have never been camping, and it’s been years for the grown ups. we’ve started scouring the web for great deals on camping equipment that will last us the years (although we haven’t bought any yet) and my husband has begun dusting off all the equipment we managed to buy before we had to cancel our big trek down the eastern seaboard. it’s nice to finally be able to  plan something fun for a change, you know? thus begins our family vacation tradition. next year we’re hoping to have some $$$ saved up, and camp in the Rocky Mountain National Park for a week or two. i can already smell the crisp mountain air, and taste the marshmallows. because EVERYBODY knows that toasted marshmallows are the ONLY reason ANYBODY goes camping. ;)

Holiday Traditions. some people go to parades, or a certain relatives house, or eat a certain meal every holiday. our family has approximately ZERO holiday traditions right now. not to say that it was always that way… i remember having belgian waffles, topped with fruit, whipped cream, and maple syrup every holiday as i was growing up. my husband had family traditions too, but as he and i got together and drew apart from our childhood families, so our traditions stayed with our families. now that we’re finally settling down, i’m hoping to begin some Holiday traditions of our own.

i think part of the fun of being in a family is growing together. traditions are a major part of that growth, and help give each family an identity of their own. even if it’s just you and your child, or you and your husband, or if it’s you and your husband and 9 children, each family is beautiful in it’s own way, with it’s own traditions. my little family has a long way to go towards creating our own identity, but we’re getting there… and enjoying the ride on the way. :)

do you have any interesting traditions that are unique to your family? i’d LOVE to hear about them in a comment, e-mail, or your own blog! (link in the comments section if you do, please!)

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NACA, and Getting a Home

  • Posted on March 8, 2010 at 9:34 am

-on Saturday my husband had a meeting with the gentle folks at NACA. what is NACA, you ask? it’s the “Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.” they are a non-profit organization that helps people like my husband and i buy a home. you see, because of our credit past, if a bank even decided to consider us for a home loan, they would make sure our eternal souls were signed away on the contract too. NACA is a company that protests that kind of treatment by giving home loans at low interest rates. there are tons of specifics that i don’t understand that my husband is taking care of for me. i’m just trying to keep my eyes on the prize… supposedly, at the end of a long and grueling process of credit-counciling and paperwork filing, we’re going to have a home loan. with an interest rate of 4.625 with the option to buy down to .25. i know, right? i am pretty excited, because with NACA’s low [fixed!] interest rates, my husband and i will be able to buy a much nicer home than what i had previously expected. you don’t have to have terrible credit or low income to get a NACA home loan, but they don’t count you out just because you do. :D

so, 4 years after making one of the worst mistakes of our lives (foreclosing on our home so we could build and move into an addition onto MIL’s house) we may be able to buy another home. looking back, the first home we bought was a mistake. we bought it spur of the moment. we didn’t research the town, we didn’t look closely at the neighborhood or the school system. it was a hundred year old fixer-upper with gorgeous woodwork and old-style keys, and the largest yard in the neighborhood. unfortunately, we just didn’t realize that it was too far from the “city” to be comfortable. it was too much work for us… tearing down horse-hair plaster, and constantly getting splinters from old, unfinished wood floors that you don’t have the time and patience to re-finish really sucks. i was a young mother, in a new town and my husband had a job very similar to the one he has now…on the road a lot. it was the wrong house, at the wrong time… and looking back on that, i think that whole crappy situation gave us the wisdom we desperately needed to happily settle in a house that we love. we aren’t going to rush this time. we aren’t going to make a decision on a home until we’ve seen it completely naked and vulnerable under a microscope.

i am just happy that my husband found this organization so that we could have the opportunity to buy a home. when we moved in with MIL we thought we’d be there forever, so the foreclosure wouldn’t matter. obviously, it didn’t work with MIL, and i was resigned to renting until we could get a small, high-rate home loan from a local bank, and buy a tiny in-need-of-work home eventually. hopefully, this organization is the answer to our prayers and they will put us in a home that i can be proud of from the start. we’ll see, eh?

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Don’t.

  • Posted on March 6, 2010 at 10:41 am

good MORNING!!! well, it’s a beautiful Saturday morning, and i feel good. SO good, in fact, that if things hadn’t already gone terribly, horribly wrong…i’d be wondering what monster could possibly looming around the horizon. hopefully, it’s nothing more than a few rain clouds. you know, since the SHIT ALREADY HIT THE FAN. seriously, i’m in a decent kinda mood today. i have an idea. i can’t share it with you, so don’t ask, but i’m excited about it anyways, and here you have your daily dose of massive run on sentences.

oh, have i mentioned that i already had my coffee? twice as much as usual? mkay. yeah.

so, a couple weeks ago while waiting in the pick up line at my son’s school, i compiled a small list of things i’d like to share with you today. it’s a list of DON’Ts. as in “DON’T… do these”. small bits of wisdom from yours truly to start the week off with. (because i know most of you won’t get around to reading this until Monday anyways)

DON’T…

…buy books just so they can decorate your bookshelf. when people realize that you haven’t read 90% of them, you’ll just look stupid, vain, and fake. unless you collect Encyclopedias or something. loading down your bookshelves just so you can look smarter usually achieves the opposite effect.

…think that a blogger is nothing more than what they blog. we bloggers are many-faceted, and our readers only get to see one small facet of our personalities. 90% of our thoughts, actions, and feelings never make it to our websites.

…eat another cookie. you know you’ll regret it later. see? you’re regretting it now, aren’t you.

…send letter out of frustration, anger, or other strong emotions. write it out, and if you still feel the same way the next day, go ahead and send it.

…always treat your children like they are your children- amazing, smart, and strong- but never forget that they are just kids.

…go against a gut feeling. unless your gut feeling is telling you to hurt someone, it’s usually right in the end.

…hate someone because their life is perfect. if you look into their personal past, you’ll probably find that they’ve earned every moment of perfection with a moment of excruciating pain.

…forget that everything you do also reflects on your spouse, your children, and everyone who is close to you. every stupid decision you make, every stupid thing you do makes them look stupid by proxy. don’t be stupid, if only for the sake of your children. when you feel the urge to do something out of the ordinary, ask yourself… would it embarrass me if my [insert close family member here] did it? if the answer is YES, you should probably consult an unbiased outside opinion before going ahead with your plans.

…treat marriage like it’s a temporary condition you can choose to undo.

…forget to treat your body right. healthy eating habits and exercise really is the key to a long [natural] life. skipping out on the burger and fries may hurt today, but your grandchildren, friends, and family will thank you later.

and that’s all i have for today! thank you, and good night. or, um…good day. have a great day! bye!

A pic i got of a double rainbow several years ago using my old point-n-shoot.

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