Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Sorry

Aparently the last post was a little too much and left some ugly images in the minds of some readers.  For that, I apologize and give you these...











I'm in Love

Today I officially fell in love.  I fell in love with cloth diapers.  Nope, I'm not even kidding.  Today the cloth diapers proved themselves to me and there's no going back to disposables now.  You couldn't PAY me to use disposables, that's how much I love cloth.  You're thinking wow...this lady's lost her mind!  But, no, I haven't lost my mind, I promise.  :)

If you've ever breastfed a baby, or have spent a lot of time around a breastfed baby, you know the consistency of their poop.  Maddie described it best when she said, "Sadie's poo poos are snotty, like when I have a runny nose."  Normally when a baby poops while they're in a sitting position, the poop can only go to the front of the diaper or to the back of the diaper.  For most I think it goes up the back.  Today Sadie was sitting in her Bumbo seat and she started pooping.  It was a full force grunt, scrunch up her red face kind of poop.  I sighed and started dreading the diaper change that was to come.  Certainly it would be more than a simple diaper change.  It sounded like the kind of blow out we stay at home moms like to call a "poop-splosion".  I thought for sure I was about to change not only her diaper, but also her outfit AND give her a bath.  I let her finish before I went through all the cleanup work.  When she was FINALLY done, I picked her up (very cautiously) and didn't see ANY poop on her clothes!  I placed her very carefully on the changing table (sometimes with Maddie's diapers at this age, just laying her on her back would force the poop out of the diaper).  I opened up the diaper and found all the poop (and there was A LOT OF IT!) all neatly contained within the diaper.  YAY!  I have never been so happy to change a dirty diaper!

So, there's the story on how I became hooked on cloth diapers.  Seriously, I want to have more babies just so I can use cloth diapers.  :)

Sunday, January 23, 2011

A Few Updates

I'm going to give you a few bullet-style updates while I watch the Steelers beat the Jets :)  Sorry, I can't really concentrate to form full thoughts to blog while I'm watching this game...it's just SO GOOD!

  • Cloth diapering is interesting.  We've had several leaky diapers but several that haven't leaked as well.  We'll get used to it with time...
  • Maddie continues asking for Daddy every day.  She asks if Daddy is coming home when she wakes up from her nap, she says, "if Daddy comes in the garage door, I will say, 'hi Daddy'".  She took her daddy doll (thanks Aunt Sarah!) to school on Friday and had a MUCH better day.
  • Maddie deliberately peed on the couch. She knew she had to pee, but didn't feel like going to the bathroom so she told me she peed on the couch.  Nice.
  • Sadie is officially in size 6 month clothing.  Her cloth diapers are a lot bulkier than disposable diapers so she'll probably be in 9 month by the time she's 7 months old!
  • Ewww...I just saw a commercial for "Survivor:  Redemption Island".  I LOVE Survivor but I might have to skip next season with Boston Rob and Houston Russell.  Yuck.
  • Sorry for getting sidetracked...
  • Sadie is starting to laugh a lot more.  She laughs at me when I'm being silly now.  I love it :)  She's just so sweet and precious, I can't get enough of her!
  • The past two days Sadie has taken only two nice, long naps.  She had been napping 3-4 times a day only 45 minutes to an hour and a half at a time.  But yesterday and today she had two naps each day that were over 2 hours each!  I think her heiny likes the cloth diapers :)
  • Weight Watchers continues to go well.  I lost 3 pounds last week so I got my 5 pound star this week!!  It's the little things...and if you know me, you know I like my stickers!  My total weight loss so far is 5.8 pounds. Go me!
Thanks for bearing with me while I watch the game and blog simultaneously :)  GO STEELERS!!  (it should be interesting to see my Steelers in the Super Bowl with Eric's Packers.  Too bad Eric won't be home for the Super Bowl)

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Diapers

Well, I did it.  I bought cloth diapers.  The liners are in the dryer now and the diapers are on their first wash cycle.  I'm excited about changing Sadie from disposables to cloth in hopes that she'll finally remain rash-free.  She's had diaper rashes off and on since she was less than 2 weeks old (today she's 20 weeks!!).  Maddie never had rashes until she started on solid foods and her body was trying to adjust to the different foods she was eating.  I tried all different things with Sadie to try to keep the rashes away, even leaving her without a diaper for 30 minutes at a time, 3 times a day.  That's not pleasant with an infant, especially a breastfed infant!

I'm concerned about cloth diapering just because of a "fear of the unknown".  All the people I know who cloth diapered used the old cloth diapers, complete with pins and plastic pants.  I don't know anyone personally who uses "new" cloth diapers.  I'm entering a whole new world.  I've researched and researched (my research on cloth diapers initially began before Maddie was born...) and hope I've made the right decision for Sadie.  Overall I'm feeling good about the benefits of cloth diapering, just not sure of all the work involved!

Wish me luck :)  I'll keep you posted...

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Mommyhood

I've been reading several "mom" blogs lately and they're making me feel better about me and my parenting skills.  I'm always so hard on myself wanting to keep my house clean.  I know it's unrealistic to have everything in it's place all the time, but I feel like my house should look better than it usually does.  On any given day you'll find random piles of laundry on the floor outside of the laundry room, folded laundry on the couch waiting to be put away, shoes in any room of the house and on the stairs to be taken upstairs, toys from the front of the house to the back of my closet, pillows strewn about the furniture, toddler art supplies all over the kitchen, about 10 books on the bathroom floor (to keep Maddie entertained while she uses the potty), burp clothes EVERYWHERE, etc.  This list could go on and on but I'm sure by now my husband is thinking, "why is she telling people how bad our house looks?"  I tell you because I'm not the only person who's house looks this way :)  Anyone who has or had kids can tell you that.

I'm trying hard not to let myself stress over the way my house looks.  I'm trying to stop apologizing for the condition of my house if/when people come over.  The house looks the way it does because we LIVE here.  Maddie and I are eating about 18 hot meals a week which keeps my kitchen looking well loved.  We enjoy playing with games and puzzles in the playroom and Maddie enjoys cooking me "gourmet" meals in there too!  We like to snuggle under a blanket on the couch and watch a tv show.  We like to snuggle on the couch and read books.  Maddie is very creative and artistic in the kitchen with her crayons, markers and paints.  We are really enjoying life in our house.  Tonight Maddie and I had a dance party in the playroom that was SO MUCH FUN for both of us!  It only lasted about 20 minutes, but I felt like I had done a full hour of aerobics when we were done :)  These are the memories I want to keep of Maddie when she was a toddler.  I have been finding myself telling her "not right now" and "maybe later" so many times lately just so I could wash a dish or put away some towels.  I couldn't remember the last time I sat down to read her a book that didn't involve bedtime. 

I'll have plenty of time to keep things "perfect" when both girls are in school full time.  For now, I'm going to enjoy them and build a good foundation for a great mother-daughter relationship with both of my babies!!

Friday, January 14, 2011

Random Ramblings

I've got a lot going on in my head (as usual) and I don't really know how to form it into a sensible blog post so I'm going to do random thoughts as they come to me :)

1.  I started back to Weight Watchers last week.  I told myself before Sadie was born that I would allow myself the remainder of 2010 to eat whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted but as soon as Sadie turned 4 months old I would get back on track and lose whatever remaining baby weight I had to lose.  I didn't want to start "dieting" too soon after she was born because I wanted to make sure my milk supply was well established.  And I honestly thought that the breastfeeding would help me burn enough calories that I wouldn't have any problem losing the baby weight.  Well...I was W.R.O.N.G.  I lost 24 pounds of the 40 I had gained, then I gained back 5 of those pounds during the holidays.  :(  I still have 21 pounds to go.  Although I feel like I can't call all that "baby weight" now!  When Maddie was born I lost all 30 pregnancy pounds in just 2 weeks.  It was so easy.  I didn't watch what I ate, I just ate when I felt hungry and had no problems losing the weight.  I guess being 31 instead of 29 really affected me :(  Anyway...back to Weight Watchers.  I'm proud to announce that I lost 2.8 pounds this week!  YAY!  I'm hoping to be able to lose about 2 pounds per week but if my milk supply starts to decrease then I'll have to lose weight at a slower rate.  1 pound per week is recommended for breastfeeding mothers.  Blah...

2.  I'm going to take the rest of January to get more established in my meal planning/weight loss efforts.  I'm hoping I feel more confident as far as knowing what I can eat and what recipes I can safely cook to maintain a healthy lifestyle by the end of January.  Of course, this will be ongoing, I just hope I'm not feeling so anxious about food and feeling self conscious about food decisions in 2 more weeks.  Then in February I want to start the Couch to 5K program.  I downloaded the app for my iPhone back in November thinking I was ready to start jogging then.  Well, c-section bellies aren't fun to run with...so I wanted to lose a little more of the belly before I started running.  I should be good to go (honk...sorry, inside joke) in February.  I'll allow myself to get established in my running program in February and then March 2nd (when Sadie turns 6 months old and the child care at the gym will keep her) I'll be gym-bound.  BLAH.  I'm not looking forward to getting back to the gym, but yet I am.  Eric will be home then so I'll just go without taking Sadie to the gym with me while he's home.  In fact...I could probably start sooner than March 2nd since I could leave Sadie home with Eric! So, anyway, that's my "get healthy in 2011" plan.

3.  I'm tired.  I'm always tired.  As I sit here trying to collect my thoughts all I can think of is how tired I am and I should go to bed right now...

4.  Sadie's laughing now!  She's got a super cute little throaty laugh with an occasional squeak in between.  It's adorable!  But she's only in a laughing mood about once per day, usually in mid-late afternoon.  I love to catch her in that mood and get my daily dose of baby giggles!

5.  Maddie's potty trained!!  Her teachers at school aren't even putting her in a diaper at naptime anymore and she's staying dry :)  YAY for my big girl!!

6.  Eric's job.  That's about all I can say about that...it's on my mind a lot lately.

And now I'll end with some conversations with a 2-year old:

Tonight I thought I'd test her with story-telling :)  It went like this:
Me:  Once upon a time there was a boy named...
Maddie:  Pooka
Me:  And one day Pooka went to....
Maddie:  a castle
Me:  When Pooka got to the castle he saw a.....
Maddie:  crab
Me:  And when Pooka saw that crab at the castle he said....
Maddie:  Kacki week
???  Not sure what "kacki week" means :)  She's just really into making up words lately.

Maddie likes to come up with rhyming words.  Here are two of my favorites that she said the other night:

Monkey.....funky
Pajama....fashama

Maddie:  Knock knock
Me:  Who's there?
Maddie:  Maddie
Me:  Maddie who?
Maddie:  Maddie cow.  mooooo
(NO idea where she learned knock knock jokes!!)

Maddie calls binoculars "nobulars".  I think it's so cute!  Most things she says correctly so when she says something the way you'd expect a 2 year old to say it, it's cute :)

"A one man band, Mommy!  Just like a band aid."

"When it gets close to another Christmas I will have new Christmas songs in my life."

"I'm Santa Claus...(walks around the room)...I'm a sucking Santa. (grabs her snuggly and starts sucking her thumb).

"Look!" as she holds her hand up to me, "I have a big Santa "claw".  I have TWO, that's why I called Santa "Claws".

Do I have the sweetest/cutest baby big girl in the world or what?!?! 

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

A Whole New Year

Sorry I left you hanging from the last post. Time just continues to get away from me. I'm trying to get to bed earlier this year so that means I have to let some stuff go...like the blog :( I'm still going to keep it, just not sure how frequently I'll be posting. Anyway, on this post I want to take a look back at the post from New Year's 2010. You can find it here.

So to check back and see how we did:

We didn't make it to Disney World. We were planning the trip but it would've been during my first trimester and we didn't want to commit to reservations not knowing if I was going to be feeling well or not. With my pregnancy with Maddie I never would've been able to walk around Disney World. With my pregnancy Sadie I probably would've been fine, but there's no telling for sure :)

Maddie DID start school (as you know from here).

Maddie DID become a big sister!! (as we told you about here and here).

Maddie started not only talking in complete sentences, but in complete paragraphs, short stories even! This kid DOES.NOT.SHUT.UP. It's sweet to hear the things that come out of her mouth, but goodness...could I get a quiet minute please?!?! :) Even if she's not talking, she's singing or at least humming. It's eerily quiet in the house when she's at school.

We almost said goodbye to diapers in 2010.  Maddie had a 2 week break from school for the holidays and she potty trained in a matter of days!  She's completely trained during the day.  No accidents for about 2 weeks now!  She isn't always dry after naps, but hasn't wet during naps at school yet, only at home.  Bed time is another story...but, hey, if I only have to use 1-2 diapers a day I'm happy!

Last year I had a list of Maddie's favorites.  So here is a list of her favorites as of the end of 2010...

Favorite TV Show(s):  Dinosaur Train, Dino Dan (she's pretty obsessed with dinosaurs lately!), Fresh Beat Band
Favorite Movie:  Thomas the Tank Engine and Laurie Berkner Band (music video for kids).  I know those aren't actually movies, but those are the only two she asks for on a regular basis.
Favorite Food:  Still cheese.  She would eat cheese every day.  Just tonight I asked her what she wants to have for breakfast in the morning.  After I said no to chocolate, she told me she wants a babybel cheese!
Favorite Book:  Hmmm...there's no specific one that she asks for more than others.  But she has been pretty taken with her potty books.  She has 4 of them in the bathroom and she goes to her potty chair, tells me she needs privacy and sits there reading her books.  She actually has them pretty much memorized so it's really sweet to hear her reciting the books :)
Favorite Toys:  She still loves her kitchen stuff!  The teapot is still played with regularly and she's more into playing with her dinosaurs now.  She also enjoys doing a lot of puzzles.  She's mastered the ones she already has so I need to look for more challenging ones soon...
Favorite non-toy activity:  Anything artistic.  Fingerpainting, coloring with markers, painting with dot paint or with paint brushes.  Basically if she can be creative, she's happy :)
Favorite song:  She has a lot of songs she sings so I can't really narrow it down to one.  She still sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Old MacDonald had a Farm.  Two new ones she sings are The Noble Duke of York and Skinamarinkadink (sp?)
Favorite "guilty pleasure":  Starbucks.  HA!  Yesterday we went into Target, she saw the Starbucks inside the store and said, "Oh, mommy.  I'm thirsty."  I was on to her so I said, "I'm sorry sweetie, I forgot to bring your cup.  But that's ok, let's go buy what we need and when we get home I'll get you a drink".  She said, "that's ok you forgot my cup.  We can just get cow milk at Starbucks."  (Cow milk is the Horizon organic milk they sell there...) 
Favorite place to go:  Jumpalooza, library story time ( we took Sadie last week for the first time!!) and to any grocery store with a race car shopping cart...

In 2011 we have all kinds of exciting things to look forward to!  Sadie will have a lot of firsts this year...first teeth, crawling, walking (maybe, unless she's a late walker like Maddie was), maybe first words, first solid foods, etc.  I'm honestly not sure what to expect from Maddie this year.  Maybe she'll start riding a tricycle...other than that I don't have a guess :)  I'll just look forward to all the fun things she surprises me with!  We're looking forward to a trip to San Diego this year (maybe without Daddy) and a trip to Baltimore to visit with my family.  Not sure where else we'll end up.  I'm hoping to get a little mommy get-away in when if Eric comes home permanently!

And now I'll leave you with the first picture I took of Maddie in 2010 and the last picture I took of her in 2010...