Fall Update

Ramblings from the past month, in no particular order:

Bring On Christmas!
This fall has come and gone rather quickly in our home. October was incredibly busy and stressful with the death of my grandmother in the beginning, and spending the rest of the month trying to catch up. I welcomed November wholeheartedly, and decided to get a head start on Christmas. We've slowly started decorating and listening to Christmas music (one month a year is just not enough time to enjoy carols!) and my goal is to do one simple craft with E every week until Christmas. I'm hoping to do a mixture of things for me and for her, but we'll do all of them together. If it goes well, I'll keep it going beyond the holidays.

Cloth Diapers
While my grandmother was in the hospital, we bought [beastly expensive all natural] disposable diapers for the first time since switching to cloth. E's only using them for night and the occasional nap making cloth a pain right now (I don't like to let dirty diapers sit more than a day or two, but I never have enough for a washing machine load at that point) and we just didn't have the time or desire to fuss with cloth. We're now back to cloth, but I'm really hoping to just train E overnight and ditch the diapers altogether.

E Update
E has been busy as ever! She's still mostly silent be has been letting more and more words slip through her lips unchecked. Her favorite seat in the house is on the dining room table with her feet resting on her chair. She'll sit there and chatter to me, the dogs, or just herself for hours. I should probably put an end to sitting on the table, but for now she's getting away with it because she's cute and I've been trying to encourage any and all things verbal. She's really opinionated on fashion, and I've started giving her choices rather than sending her to choose her own outfits/shoes/accessories. She's recently obsessed with a pair of sandals from the summer that just don't quite cut it on these 30 degree mornings. She's started learning her colors and her shapes, thinks all animals should roar like a lion, enjoys relaxing with a book, and has discovered the magic of the library. The TV still demands her undivided attention, so screen time is very limited in this house. She's often reserved in groups of her peers, not unlike her mama, but loves to observe even when she doesn't participate.

One of E's favorite outfits. She views these two infinity scarves as a set and only wears them together. Her bunny vest is only appropriate for a baby born in the year of the rabbit ;)

Laundry

Laundry is one task in our house that is always in process. Between three people, three dogs, and cloth diapers, there's always something to be washed.

Generally we're pretty good with the washing part. And usually the drying part. And occasionally the folding. And rarely the putting away. Clearly, there are just too many steps to laundry.

I really, really like for laundry to be folded and put away, but it just doesn't always happen. We're busy, and putting the laundry away is the one task that all too often gets bumped. Until it's time to do more, and we need the laundry basket. Ooops.

We often wash the bulk of our laundry on the weekend, and this past week was no exception. By Sunday evening I had everything washed, dried, and folded. If you've ever tried folding laundry with a toddler in the house, you know this is no small feat. (There are actually a bunch of memes floating around the internet comparing this to organizing papers while a fan blows or brushing your teeth while eating Oreos. You get the point.) I've been learning that E is always willing to help, I just need to try to show her how to be helpful. She naturally wants to be with me, doing what I'm doing. So rather than her "helping" by throwing all my not-so-nicely folded laundry onto the floor or emptying the basket faster than I could fill it, I showed her how to put all the underwear and matched socks into the basket. This simple task kept her occupied while I tackled the rest of the pile.

Yesterday I actually put away all the laundry. Score! It's a great feeling knowing that I can grab my clothes from my drawer rather than digging through the basket. Of course, this could easily be my reality every week if I made the time for it, but, well, yeah...

This morning as I was getting dressed, I opened my drawer to grab a pair of clean underwear, but my drawer was empty. I peaked into my sock draw and found it equally bare. After searching the rest of my dresser and not finding any of my missing clothes, I turned around and found the contents of both drawers on the other side of the bedroom, back in the laundry basket.

Thanks for your help, dear girl!

Favorite Things Friday - gDiapers

Honestly my favorite thing today is that it is indeed Friday. I woke up Tuesday morning thinking it was Friday. It made for an incredibly long week and I'm so thankful we finally made it to the end!

Yesterday I met my mom at my grandparents' house for a quick visit and to drop E off for her weekly day with Grandma. When we were ready to head home, I buckled E into her infant car seat, threw my purse and diaper bag over my shoulder, and carried her to Grandma's van. I adjusted the van seats and plopped E's seat in the base, waved bye, and drove home for a productive afternoon. When I parked my car and reached for my purse, I saw the diaper bag that I forgot to drop off with Grandma. Utter fail!

That moment was one of the many, many times I've been so thankful we cloth diaper. Although it would have been as good a time as any for Grandma to start the potty learning process with E, she didn't have to. Here's why:

Right now we're using mostly gDiapers. They're a 3 part system with a cover, a liner, and an insert. I can reuse the cover and usually the liner each time, swapping out only the insert. They come with inserts that are fleece on top to keep the baby dry and hemp on the bottom to be incredibly trim and absorbent. 

gDiapering system

An added advantage for us with this system is that our infant prefolds fit perfectly into the liners when folded in thirds. The prefolds are too small to still fit fastened around E's waist, but they're the perfect size for this diaper. Yay for a $1.50 prefold that fits birth to potty!

gDiaper with a tri-folded prefold

E was wearing a gDiaper when I dropped her off with Grandma yesterday. Grandma cut an old receiving blanket in half, pad folded it, and immediately had two diaper inserts. Super cheap, easy, and I didn't have to drive a forty minute round trip for a diaper. And we can always start on the potty next week/month/year.  Using just a receiving blanket, E stayed dry with no leaks for five hours. You can't do that with a disposable! 

Half of a receiving blanket, pad folded

gDiaper with pad folded receiving blanket insert

Good as new!

And yes, when I picked E up I left four extra prefolds at Grandma's house for next time I forget the diaper bag.

Diapering my baby and why we chose cloth

Disclaimer: if diapers don't interest you or talk of poo grosses you out, this isn't your post. You can try reading again tomorrow :)

I've had a vague awareness of cloth diapers my whole life. My mom used them, and I watched countless babysitters and relatives struggle to get my baby sister diapered, complete with pins and rubber pants, from a young age. More recently I heard several friends brag about their cute fluff, their incredible cost savings, and how diapers are nothing like they were 30 (or even 10) years ago. I was intrigued.

You see, I've always hated disposables! I have incredibly sensitive skin and the chemicals in disposables bother my hands. I can't imagine what they'd do to my baby's butt. And anyone who knows me knows that I'm about as cheap frugal as you can get. I love premium products and I love finding ways to get them at bargain prices! I think it runs in my blood (thanks, Mommom!) so I was interested to crunch the numbers when I was pregnant and considering cloth for E.

My only fear was poo. I mean, that's gross! In looking into options, I realized that I could do a diaper service for the same price I could buy disposable diapers. Not quite the cost savings I was counting on, but I didn't have to deal with the poo, so I was willing to shell out the extra cash (or break even if comparing to disposables).  Our service dropped off eighty cotton prefold diapers every Monday and picked up all the dirty diapers from the previous week. Every Monday was like Christmas where the magical bag of beautiful diapers would appear in exchange for my dirty laundry. It was glorious! I used the prefolds with Snappi diaper fasteners and Thirsties Duo Wrap covers, so there were no pins and these were not your standard rubber pants. They were cute, fit well, and never leaked.

But after a month of paying someone else to do a load or two of wash, I decided diaper service was no longer worth it. I bought twenty-four Indian cotton prefolds for $1.50 a piece and cancelled the service. E was EBF for nine months, so all dirty diapers went straight to the pail and then every other day went into the washer. No extra rinsing or dunking. Super easy! And eight months in, we're still using the same $8 bottle of detergent from Target. Now that's the savings I was looking for!

One of the absolute best things about cloth diapering was the lack of leaks and blow outs. Over the course of E's life in cloth (we started at one month, when she grew enough to fit into the Thirsties), she's only had one blowout. That's a total of one time that I had to maneuver a soiled onesie over her head. Once! And that one time it was my fault. I was in a hurry and couldn't find a snappi so I didn't use it. I tucked the prefold into the cover and just used the cover to hold it in place. Didn't work :)

I was so afraid of poo before I started, but I actually had to deal with it less than I would have in disposables. Personally I would much rather deal with poo in the diaper where it belongs than all up her back as is so common in disposables. Complete win win in my book!

E napping in her Thirsties diaper at six months old