Whatta Wednesday

I returned to work this week after seven weeks away on Maternity leave. I came back to a hornets nest of data and application restores, and have dove into those head first to make sure that the applications my department needs to function are actually available and operating the way they are supposed to.

The day flew by and before I knew it, it was the end of the day and my husband so lovingly reminded me that it was Wednesday and knitting night in Canton. Who was I to argue when he said he'd stay home with our daughter and I should go. As I'm nursing our 7 week old exclusively, he got to come along with me to Barnes and Nobles, for our S&B night out. I don't have pics of the project I'm working on right now but will try to get them posted soon. It's a pair of shorties for Tessa. I've done several projects for Garret, so it's time she gets something. Gotta try at least to be a fair mommy.

The pic on the left is the first soaker I made for Garret... Where it is I am not sure, as Tessa has probably taken off with it. That one will be listed soon on the mommy boards I think... it's perfect for a newborn and he didn't even get to wear it. He's still in the moss green and grey soaker but that too may only fit for so long.




Last week at S&B we were besieged by an army of maroon on a mission to take the inventory... and the beeps surrounded us and was enough to drive a person with a migrane over the edge... you ask did I have first hand experience on that - why yes I did. This week we had music too loud that was rather evil as it was close to putting us to sleep. I'm wondering if Barnes and Nobles secretly has it in for us.

I'm always envious as I watch the women with double pointed needles create such pretty socks, as I was surrounded with them this week - but presently I don't have the time, skill or attention to detail to learn how to do that. Instead my head is cluttered with server addresses, application settings, and defect severity levels. You can bet that some day I'll learn the real complicated stuff with sticks, but for now I'm very happy with my pegs. Speaking of that - I've put this (click the link to find out) on my birthday list and am hoping my hubby gets it for me. It should be small enough gauge and not leave huge gaps in my knitting like the knifty knitters do. I get around that by doubling up yarn or switching my stitches, but it would be nice to have something geared to a tighter knit.

I played with a feature on my cell phone that I've not used at all til this point - and am delighted with it, so without any further ado I share the youngest person hanging out at S&B in Canton this week...

My evening sadly ended with news I've been expecting but was hoping would wait a couple more months to come. My grandmother passed away... my thanks to the gals who hung out a little longer and made sure I got out to the car ok and that in my tears I didn't miss anything that needed to come home with Garret and I.

Busy busy busy!

It's been a while since I posted.

This was going to be my cloth diapering blog, but at this point I think it may just end up being my public blog.

Maternity leave is over - Monday I am back to work. I have enjoyed time with my children and Husband, but I am looking forward to getting back to breaking software for a living. While my husband stays home with the kids, it's not my reality. I like working. If I could combine snuggling my bitty baby with working I'd be happy.

To cap the time off we went to the Mystic Aquarium yesterday - oh what a fun day. It's not the largest place in the world, and some how thought it would be bigger than the Norwalk Maritime center - but it didn't seem so. It was however just what was needed for my family - time together without any stress.

The Beluga Whale's were HUGE to Tessa, and a bit overwhelming, however the Penguins were her buddies. We went to the lower observation level and were getting checked out by the lone penguin who was on sentry duty for the rest of the colony. They were African in origin, so our weather was not the nicest for them. It was a little chilly when we were there and they were all huddled together like pins from a bowling alley all lined up.

The Sea Lions frightened her - she didn't like the noises they made. The Aquariums however - oh those were fun and she loved the Sharks and kept telling Gaelon "Daddy I likey Sharks." Yes love they like you too - straight up needing no salt and pepper, please don't hit the glass.

Garret slept through much of it. He managed to let me know he was hungry in front of the Shark Tank, and I chuckled - what is it about them and eating? To our right was a pair of Seals who had fun playing and were wrestling for an audience, so I sat with my sweater up over his little head and hoped he'd eat in the midst of all the cacophony. Not only did he eat, but he gave me 3 truly foul diapers while we were there. Not the norm for him, but he wasn't unhappy about it, so I am not going to worry. We got 7 total for the day.

We weren't sure where we'd be off to when we left the driveway so of course I didn't bring my knitting. I have a set of wool shorties on the pegs right now. I will be finishing this as soon as I can, and getting it on him. He's growing so fast and is almost 11 pounds now. At 6 weeks old.
What can I say - Mama's Milk, it does a Garret Good!

My today - well I'm going to hopefully get more knitting done, have a lot of foul diapers from yesterday to wash (no brainer there) and I'll hopefully finish the knitting. Hair cut at about 11, and Tessa will be thrilled to come with me - my MIL does it for me. Once that's done, home to spend the day in bed nursing a little one who may have diarrhea. That and to clean my bedroom.

Enjoy your weekend - we're supposed to get a Nor'Easter, so by sunset we're going to have miserable weather. Thank god we got the family time yesterday.

Cloth Diapering, why I do it...

Man it's funny. On my journey to cloth diaper my first child I've discovered a lot. Where I thought Cloth diapers would be a pain in the ass, they are actually fun, silly, easy to use, easy to make, and my daughter loves them. I can only hope that my son appreciates them as much as well.

I've gotten emails and IM's and notes in my blogs about what do I use, what are the primo diapers made out of, what's my favorites, why are they my favorites and would I go back to using any other kind of diaper for my children ever again. Several of my F-list have converted to cloth for their present kiddo's since I've been such a strong cloth advocate (not all on my influence, but in part I'm sure) and several plan to use cloth when they have kids. One is already building her stash and she's not even trying to conceive yet.

So - in what has become an every now and again thing - why I choose to cloth diaper, updated to reflect my current thoughts and opinions on the subject.

Ecologically cloth diapers made sense... the decomposition time of a disposable diaper is obscene. I didn't want to be a party of that if I could avoid it. Plus I hate taking out the garbage and will do everything in my power to avoid being the one who has to drag the can down the hill to the road. Its not far, but still...

With disposables my daughters little butt was covered in these crystals of Sodium Polyacrylate. You don't want to risk inhaling the stuff while it's powder as it increases in volume to a level that is obscene. A microscopic crystal of dried powder of the stuff turns into a 1/4th inch ball. If that got into your lungs? Or worse - a baby's lungs? No way. I'm asthmatic and the idea of that was just terrifying.

Then she started getting rashes - it appeared to be an allergy to the Sodium Polyacrylate... compounded with teething and then compounded by the fact that disposables just don't allow any exchange of gas, and there's no opportunity for vapors to escape. Nastiness might have been soaked into the diaper, but she was still wet, still sitting in a chemical stew, and still no amount of ointments were helping with getting rid of the rashes.

Um yeah. So there we were, spending loads of money on poop receptacles that we were going to be torn through by my peeing machine in a matter of "it's put on her and 10 minutes its off as she's soaked again." For just over the cost of one case of diapers I went to my favorite "Crunchy" store in West Hartford Connecticut- called Papaya Patch, and picked up one dozen Chinese Pre-Folds, a snappi diaper fastener, and three Bummi Super Whisper Wraps. I came home and washed the diapers on hot until they puffed up and set them up on the diaper table replacing her stash of disposables.

We transitioned into cloth diapering with some minor resistance from the in-laws, and my husband HATES Snappi's but for what we could afford at the time, who was I to complain. I did most of the changing, and when DH changed her he used the BSWW's which have a little envelope you slide a pre-fold folded in thirds into and he didn't bother with fastening the diapers onto her.

I joined cloth diapering communities on LJ, I discovered Little Lambs on Ebay, and for a breif time we used the little lambs AIO's more than we used the pre-folds - at least by day. They didn't work for night time, but all in all for what I paid for them - they were ok.

Not spectacularly, but ok.

Getting them shipped in a timely manner didn't always happen either, and I've since learned that Little Lambs was rather chronic about this and later was shut down for poor business practices. Which is a good thing - as who wants to spend a lot of money and not get your purchase or worse have it be poorly made...

Then somewhere along the way, like a virus, I got exposed to fitteds, to narrow it down even more - SOS diapers. I'd discovered FuzziBunz too and they were great - but there was this allure of the SOS diaper... it was elusive, it was pretty, it looked comfortable...Yeah - LJ's cloth diapering community can be blamed for that. SOS' are expensive, so I'd buy one here and there, and try to get them used in good condition if I could. More often than not someone else’s definition of "Excellent Condition" and my definition were not in synch... so I have a few SOS that are in less than stellar condition - even so, they work, and that's all that matters.

We have some Muttaquins in our cache of cloth diapers here, and some clothbaby.com diapers... but to be honest we love the SOS diapers for the fit for our little girl, and the fact that we can use the same diapers for the next baby, at whatever age - 8# to 35#. She hates wearing any other type of diaper - cloth or not. This doesn't mean that an SOS is right for every baby. Those little thighs and hips are just as much a pain in the tail when it comes to babies, as it is for some adults. There is no perfect diaper for every child. Even FuzziBunz work for some kids, and don't for others. Our Fuzzibunz just didn't work with our lean legged daughter and we had leaks. lots of leaks. I was not impressed over the long run.

There are a lot of different brands out there, and a lot of different types - it's important to not judge all cloth diapers on one particular brand and style. Each baby's body is different - so there's no saying that one diaper is going to work for all kids.

So based on the health factors, the fit for my daughter, the expense difference and being environmentally friendly we cloth diaper. BTW – I’ve not even touched the subject of making your own here… and my daughter loves the diapers Mommy has made for her as much as she loves her SOS’.

We're going to cloth diaper my son - who's due in 6 weeks or so. I've been buffing up the stash of diapers that will fit a new born. The SOS will fit 8 to 35 pounds, and the Bellabottoms will fit 8-40 pounds. For the hospital we've just bought 3 doz prefolds. We have 3 Bummis Super Whisper Wrap (BSWW) covers and a small stash of wool covers as well.

Do you need this many diapers when you first start out? No you don't. It's what works for us however as I wanted to have enough of a stash to go three days without doing laundry and my daughter was a super soaker.

First post

I have a couple of blogs out there that are specifically for mommy posts, or online venting, but when I opened this I had a hard time deciding what I'd be posting about.

Well it finally came to me... cloth diapering, knitting, and being a mom - my public face.

Hang on and have fun, and don't be afraid to ask questions if you decide that you want me to elaborate on a subject.